My Putzing Era

The ideal step between burnout and reinvention

Last week I announced on LinkedIn that I'm leaving my job. A job I had for 2 years after the company I founded was acquired.

It was a bit more than just a job though. I am also taking a pause (a long one, an indefinite one, not sure yet) on an industry that came to define my work life and public persona: the baffling world of retail media and marketplaces.

Once upon a time, this was a niche space. But today retail media is the fastest growing form of advertising. So when I wandered into this industry mostly by chance in 2015, I had to cling on for dear life as the next 9 years came barreling at me.

But that story — my founding story — will come later. (And here's my first ask for you to subscribe to this newsletter if you haven’t already!)

Here's the TL;DR of what a Putzing Era is, and the full story follows.

TL;DR (too long, didn't read)

• Burnout requires a time-out

• I'll be working on a variety of creative projects ("putzing")

• Putzing is not time-bound

• Putzing invites abandonment

• Putz on!
  

Photo by Nathalie Jolie on Unsplash

Burnout

I really 'grew up' in this industry. When I entered it, I had scant managerial experience. I came with no rolodex. The Amazon ecosystem was a wild place.

I threw myself into living and breathing this industry. I wrote books, I podcasted, I blogged, I made video tutorials, I blogged some more. I had people ahead of me in the space that I looked up to in a big way, diligently following and learning from them, not even allowing myself to hope that I'd ever be among their rarified air. (I will cover the idea of 'mentors from afar' in a future post.)

But as I began meeting my heroes and winning awards and sucking in that rarified air, the whole thing lost its sparkle.

And eventually I accomplished something that most founders dream of doing one day, selling their company.

I made it. But I was burned out.

Would I be talking about iROAS for another decade? 2 more decades? Is there more to life than Annual Vendor Negotiations?

What happened next was a lot of therapy, realizing I need to take a time-out.

And that I need to putz around a little bit.

What does putzing look like?

The foundation of my putzing era will be excavating my brain for experiences and trying to understand them.

I went through a whole lot of painful, embarrassing, and wonderful experiences in my entrepreneurial journey, and I would like to be able to share those. It helped me a ton in my early days to read accounts from other people who had gone before me.

So I want to share more of my personal journey.

This is the benefit of others, but also to help understand myself better. (I'll be doing that right here on this Substack, so if this is your jam so far, please subscribe!)

Besides self-reflection, another element of putzing is that there's a few things going on. Just like putzing around at home on a lazy Saturday morning, you have your favorite season of Friends on in the background, you're unstacking the dishwasher, and you're talking to your Mum on the phone. Doing all three things at the same time is somehow more enjoyable than just one, even if it’s less efficient.

Instead of throwing myself behind a single project, I'm going to try a couple of different creative projects out — I'll share these later.

But the aim is to keep a slow pace while putzing.

Coming into summertime helps, as I can build in some leisure activities to deliberately slow me down: think lake days, camping trips, and play dates.

How long does a putzing era last?

As I started wrapping my brain around the idea of hitting career pause, an obvious question was: how much time do I need in order to recalibrate?

I'm not sure.

Listen guys. For the first time in my life, I don't really have a plan.

I have always, always, always had a plan. A goal. The next place to live. The next hobby to try. The next job or business to start.

I have quarterly plans, 1-year plans, 5-year plans and 10-year plans floating all around the place. I have probably planned enough years out to last 4 lifetimes.

My brain is constantly scanning for a plan, so it can lock down next steps and timing. While my brain is starting to freak out about a lack of plan, I'm realizing it's what my soul really needs right now. So I'm pushing back on locking myself into a timeline and trying to keep my scheming brain at bay.

Putzing invites abandonment

We are taught as children to never quit.

'Never, never, never give up' as Churchill said.

But since putzing has no plan or specific goal, completion of projects is not required. Instead, putzing involves picking things up, turning them over in your hands, and putting them down again, before drifting over to the next sunny spot.

Interests and ideas can come and go. A putzing era allows you to pursue them without an obligation to chase every last one to completion.

Now, drifting forever would not be ideal. There's a satisfaction in grasping something and going all-in. But putzing allows you to casually discover what that thing should be.

But like what will you ACTUALLY be doing

Fair question. I’ve really putzed around this, huh?

Despite the lack of a plan, and no commitment to necessarily follow-through, I do have a few things I want to initially experiment with.

1. Sharing my personal journey on this Substack.

2. Hosting a podcast called Obsession, where I tell the stories of the most prolific people in culture and business. Yeah, I buried the lede on that one! It is already live, so you can check out some past episodes.

3. I created a YouTube channel for Obsession, and I'll be experimenting with more video content over there, including video essays on the common themes about ambition and success that I unearth by researching the stories of these figures.

4. Keep writing for Forbes. Probably not the arcane, in-depth critiques of Amazon that were my most popular pieces there, but I am still fond of general retail-related topics so may continue those for a bit.

5. Do some mentoring for other founders. So far I have signed up with Growth Mentor.

6. Finding my tribe in Atlanta. My home of 2 years and I’m still figuring this place out.

How will I decide what to continue and what to quit? I’ll cover this in a future post.

Putz on!

Toward the end of drafting this post, I googled the definition of putzing and putz. Turns out, a putz as a noun means, "a fool, an idiot." (Maybe also, penis??? Probably best not to google that.)

One of my favorite business podcasts in my early entrepreneurial career was called "The Foolish Adventure." The host would sign off every episode with, "That's it for now, and enjoy your foolish adventure!" and I never really knew what it meant.

Now I know what it means, at least to me.

'If you knew how hard it would be, you'd never do it' is something a lot of founders say about their journey. Boy is that true. I'm guessing its the same for you. You had no idea how hard it would be to get that promotion, to have that baby. But you’re sure glad you did it now, and your earlier ignorance was a pretty good mechanism after all.

You have to be a little foolish to take the big swings.

So, putz on.

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