Last week, I had one of those days.
I was working through a customer situation that, if I’m honest, wasn’t entirely reasonable. But that’s part of leadership.
My job isn’t to decide who’s right or wrong.
My job is to find a solution.
We all have someone to answer to, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. But I’ve always believed that if an issue lands on my desk, it should stop with me. I never want a problem escalating because I wasn’t prepared to own it.
The conversation was challenging.
At the same time, I had a dozen other time-sensitive issues demanding my attention.
Sound familiar?
Then your mind starts playing tricks on you…
What if they leave a Google review?
What if they tell five other people?
The reality is, even if we believe we’ve done a good job, their experience is their experience. That matters.
By the end of the day, I actually think we’d reached a good outcome. The client seemed genuinely happy with the solutions we’d offered.
But my nervous system hadn’t caught up.
I drove home carrying every conversation, every frustration, and every ounce of tension with me.
I pulled into the driveway.
Walked to the front door.
Tried the screen door…
Locked.
And for a split second…
I absolutely lost it.
Not because the door was locked.
Because I hadn’t left work behind.
Reg hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d simply locked the door because he was out the back.
Poor guy had no idea he’d become the unfortunate recipient of a full day’s worth of accumulated stress.
I walked inside.
Dinner was cooking.
The house was warm.
Candles were lit.
Home felt like… home.
And in that moment I thought:
What on earth are you doing?
Here I was, about to let something completely unrelated steal the peace we’d created inside these four walls.
That was on me.
It made me realise how often we carry things that don’t belong in our homes.
The difficult customer.
The missed deadline.
The email.
The meeting.
The disappointment.
The frustration.
Our families didn’t attend those meetings.
Our partners didn’t write those emails.
Yet sometimes they’re the ones who feel the weight of them.
So I’ve made myself a promise.
From now on…
I’m leaving my SH!T at the front door.
Not because work doesn’t matter.
It does.
But home deserves the best version of me—not the leftovers.
Anyone else guilty of bringing the day home sometimes?
