🎧 Listen to the podcast version of this email here.
I tweaked my back last week.
Nothing dramatic. No ambulance needed. No heroic sports injury.
I simply reached down to pick up a pair of socks and suddenly felt this sharp pain shoot through my lower back.
"AAAAAAHH!!"
I heard my wife call from the other room:
"Are you okay?"
"Yep, I'm fine," I replied, while gripping the radiator and slowly hauling myself back into an upright position.
For the next couple of days, walking felt awkward and frankly quite painful.
At first I blamed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
That seemed reasonable.
Then I blamed weightlifting.
That seemed reasonable too.
Then I blamed age.
That also seemed reasonable.
At this point I was essentially conducting a criminal investigation where every suspect was guilty except me.
Eventually I landed on the far less exciting explanation:
I'd been sitting down too much.
The last year or so has been different.
I've had more projects cancelled, postponed or quietly disappear than I can remember having in the previous decade.
Some of that is the economy. Some of it is simply business. Big decisions take longer, budgets get frozen and priorities change.
Nothing unusual.
What I have noticed, though, is how I respond to these quieter periods.
Not because there's nothing to do. In the world of The Magic Sauce and The Solo Sauce, there's always something to do.
A project write-up to finish, a website to improve, a podcast to edit or an email to send.
What changed is that I've become more stationary.
The fewer things pulling me out into the world, the easier it becomes to spend another hour behind a screen in my studio.
It's completely irrational.
You'd think a lighter workload would mean more walks, more time outside and more opportunities to work somewhere different for an afternoon.
Instead, I become weirdly attached to my desk, as though remaining within touching distance of my screens somehow increases the chances of good things happening.
And before I know it, I'm spending longer and longer sitting in exactly the same place.
And then I made a connection.
Whenever someone comes to me for help because they feel stuck, one of the first things I'll usually suggest is going for a walk.
Or at the very least, doing something that gets them away from the situation for a little while.
I know it sounds a bit armchair psychologist, but I've noticed it helps.
Not because the problem goes away.
I mean, whatever was going on is still going on, yet something seems to shift.
It's a bit like a rusty hinge. Leave it sitting long enough and everything starts to seize up.
A little movement doesn't magically fix it, but it often loosens things enough that you can move again.
Looking back, I think that's exactly what had happened to me.
My back had seized up because I'd stopped moving.
I started wondering whether the same thing was happening in my head.
When I spend too much time sitting still, it sometimes feels like my world gets smaller.
The current situation starts occupying more space than it deserves.
A quiet week starts feeling more significant than it really is.
One unanswered email suddenly carries more weight than it should.
A concern that barely registered a month ago somehow becomes the thing you're thinking about at 11 o'clock at night.
And the constant feeling like I'm not doing enough.
The story gets bigger while the world gets smaller.
I'm not entirely sure that's what stuckness is, but it feels close.
That feeling where you slowly become convinced that the situation you're currently in is the situation you'll remain in.
I've seen it happen in business before.
A project gets cancelled and suddenly it feels like nothing is happening.
One slower month arrives and your brain quietly starts forecasting the next six.
The longer you sit with that story, the more convincing it becomes.
Looking back, very few opportunities arrived while I was sitting alone staring at a screen.
Most of them showed up while I was already doing something else.
Travelling, speaking at an event, meeting somebody for coffee or working on a project with a client.
The common thread wasn't what I was doing. It was that I wasn't sitting alone staring at the problem anymore.
So what does this mean for you then?
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure yet.
This is one of those newsletters where I'm probably writing as much for myself as anyone else.
What I do know is that my back started improving once I started moving again.
Walking a little more.
Stretching a little more.
Spending less time glued to my desk.
And the funny thing is that I felt something similar happening mentally too.
I started reaching out more. Calling people. Signed up to a few events. Reconnected here and there.
Shaking trees and all.
Lo and behold, things started moving again.
And an object in motion stays in motion.
A few conversations turned into opportunities. A few opportunities turned into meetings. The calendar started filling up.
Coincidence? Maybe.
Maybe that's the thing worth paying attention to, I don't know.
Either way, if you're feeling stuck, perhaps it's a good time to get up and move around.
Make it a great day.
