The Wide World of Burnout

I’m five years into furniture next month. Five years and I’ve just started to peel away the layers and complexities of business, design, and management that come with owning and running your own business. I’ve had more failures than I’d care to admit. Every mistake a payment into the tuition of a solo venture with nearly no rules. In year five I’m seeing other business owners struggle and drop off, some with a quiet ending to their Instagram posts, others with more public posts on ending their business.

Burnout hits us all. I took a long break from refinishing this spring. As we all do, I took stock of what I had done and where I was going. I just moved to Denver and was lucky enough to have a break. My business partner in Seattle largely took over the storefront I had opened and I concentrated on family for a few months.

It has taken me about six months to fall in love with this again. My store in Seattle closed. I could and may write a very long post on why and what I learned, but the short version is this: I wasn’t great at picking the right people to work with. I brought on folks who weren’t a good fit, and I didn’t stay close enough to daily operations. That mix caught up with me. Closing the store ended up being a relief. I had been buried in logistics and sales, grinding out 60 hour weeks without doing the parts of the business I actually love.

I can also be honest here with myself and all of you. I wouldn’t, don’t, and won’t for a long while consider myself an expert on design, furniture, or business. Ironically I was more confident in my knowledge and skillset after the first year than I am now. There is so much to know. I have a wide range of knowledge, but I still easily get lost in obscure designers, exotic woods, and art.

On a recent trip to Los Angeles I went to many antique and thrift stores. I met people who have been in the business most of their lives. I found art I loved. I got to go to the beach with my family. It was a refreshing trip that let me rethink how I do this and where I would like to be in ten years.

Burnout has a way of making you pause and ask if what you are building is really what you want. Sometimes it takes closing a store or walking away from certain projects to see the bigger picture. What matters most to me now is building a business that supports my life, not a life that gets swallowed by my business.

Five years in, I still love furniture, design, and the thrill of finding obscure and interesting things to give them a new life. I want to keep that love intact. If I can do that, maybe another five years will look less like burnout and more like balance.