The Saboteur in My Workshop

I was halfway to my client's house last week, a farmhouse table in the bed of my truck, when I started hearing the whisper. It didn't stay a whisper for long. By the time I got over the hill into Hollywood, it had grown into a full, ruthless bellow. It was a voice telling me the trim on the tabletop was wrong, that the table would sit uneven on the client's floor, and that they were about to find out, once and for all, how bad I really am at this.

The table was built from old-growth knotty pine. Specifically reclaimed barn wood, the kind that carries over a hundred years of weather and work in its grain. I'd spent weeks on it. Milling it down, building structure into timber that was on life-support, shaping and sanding, turning and finishing. And for those last few miles of my drive, none of that held a candle to that voice in my head.

A Voice I Know Well

I want to be honest about something: that voice doesn't show up once in a while. It shows up often, and I doubt it will ever fully go quiet. What's changed is that I've spent years building the mental tools to turn its volume down. Not to silence it, but to stop letting it drive. So I drove on, table rattling gently in the back, and did the quiet work of talking myself back down before I ever reached their door. It's ultimately not even about the piece, it's a voice that deep down is telling me that I'm not enough.

What Actually Happened When I Walked In

I carried the table into their living room and set it by the window. It looked like it had always belonged there.

I didn't hear a word about the trim. Nobody mentioned an uneven leg. There was no moment where the client's face fell and confirmed everything the voice had promised me on the drive over. Because none of it was true. The table was level. The trim was subtle, the kind that lets old-world wood speak for itself instead of competing with it. The design was elegant, refined. The joinery was sound. The client was thrilled.

The problem was never the table. The problem was a part of me that still, after all these years, tries to sabotage the finish line. A voice that maybe served some purpose once, in some other chapter of my life, but has no job to do in this one or any future chapters.

Why I'm Writing This Down

I'm writing this partly as a note to myself, a reminder to keep turning that volume down the next time I'm driving toward a client's door with my heart in my throat.

But I'm also writing it for anyone reading this who knows that voice, the one that shows up right when you're about to be seen, and tries to convince you that not only is the work not good enough but that you are not good enough.

And I'm writing it, more than anything, for my two daughters. Two people who throw themselves at everything they do with real passion and real determination. Girls, there will be moments in your lives when that voice shows up for you too, right when it matters most. When it does, I hope you remember this: if you gave a task everything you had, then what you're holding in your hands is your best. And I would bet everything, every single time, that your best is sensational. Because you are both sensational. Anyone who doesn't see that needs to turn the volume down on their inner saboteur.

Let's Talk

If you've got a piece of furniture or a moment with a story like this behind it, I'd love to hear it. Reply to this post or reach out through the shop. I read every one.