What restarting piano lessons at 42 reminded me about business
Fun fact: after a 20+ year hiatus, I started taking piano lessons again this past September.
This all happened when my partner bought me a small upright piano in January 2025. What followed was months and months of me playing on my own: spinning my wheels, struggling through hard passages and just generally getting frustrated - despite doing all the right things. I assumed that if I just put in more time, things would eventually click. Not so…
So now, every Thursday afternoon, I pack up my music books and emotional support water bottle, and go see Kathleen the piano wizard. Progress is not linear to say the least. Some weeks, I can tell she is frustrated with my progress (because, same same…).
But here's what I find very valuable about the whole process - every time I play one of my pieces - let's pick on Chopin's Ballade No.1 - Kathleen pipes up:
“Try to bring out the thumb of the left hand 6ths more"
“Use a 5-5-4 fingering for the waltz part”
“Go much faster here - it's scherzo, Tanya!”
Her (blunt but kind) outside perspective has helped me get back to the part I actually love - playing beautiful music - instead of muscling my way through hard pieces and getting frustrated because I'm still not playing as well as I used to.
And even when my progress feels slow, I can tell I’ve grown a lot in a short amount of time with her help.
Friend, you don’t need to have abandoned a piano performance degree in 2002 to relate to this story haha 🫠🫠
I am sure you've been in a similar situation in your business where an outside perspective was needed.. whether you knew it or not.
One pattern I've seen with owners once their businesses reach a certain size is something that is often really hard for the owner to see themselves.
The business runs - and well - but only because the owner is constantly “in it”.
They’re responding to every client question.
Working 60hr weeks.
Being the final quality check for * every * single * thing * that goes out the door.
Nothing is “broken" per say, but it is exhausting. You are exhausted.
And worse - it quietly caps your business’ growth potential because you and your commitment to chaos become the bottleneck.
This kind of thing tends to show up once a business is well established - strong pipeline of clients, consistent revenue, a small(ish) team - but you as owner are still:
the one everyone messages on Teams when they’re not 100% sure of something (anything);
getting pulled into convos about stuff you shouldn’t be involved in anymore;
reviewing or fixing work because “it’s faster if I just do it myself”;
hesitant to fully step away on that 10-day Italian vacay because things tend to go sideways when your team can't reach you; and
confused about why panic hiring more people hasn’t made your life easier or led to less OT.
From the outside, the business looks successful - maybe it's even winning awards and putting up shiny “We're hiring!! Again!!” (hmmmm) LinkedIn posts.
In real life, it feels like you’re constantly holding the whole thing together and your dreams of slowing down - whether that's in 3 years or 20 - feel very, very far off.
And to be clear - this isn’t because you’re just bad at delegating or something simple like that. This is a complex problem that requires an equally complex, detailed solution.
What's happened is that your business grew faster than the structure around decision-making, quality control, and ownership of work.
So over time, you became the system - whether you meant to or not.
And now, what’s needed is the same thing I get from piano lessons: an honest, external perspective.
This perspective will help you answer the question:
What only works because I'm involved - and what would need to change for the business to work without me?
I’ve been putting together a short, contained advisory engagement for owners at exactly that stage - where working harder just isn't the solution anymore. I’ll share full details next week, and I’ll also be reaching out privately to a small handful of people I think this would be a great fit for.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “oh.. yikes. you're 100% describing me and my business,” click here and I’ll send you early details - no obligation either way.