When the engine stalls, take the pause to reset, refocus, and get ready for what comes next.
For 30 years, I’ve driven the marketing machine, leading teams, streamlining processes, and polishing proposals until they were bulletproof. Then a few weeks ago, bam! Nothing. No meetings cramming my calendar. No RFPs screaming for edits. No fire drills. Just … quiet.
For someone who’s been working since I was 15, that silence felt like walking out of a crowded theater into an empty one. It shook me. But then, relief hit like a coffee break after a deadline sprint. That was my wake-up call.
The void.
They call it the void. That empty stretch where ideas ghost you, and your drive hits the brakes. I’m no novelist, but I get why J.K. Rowling holed up in Edinburgh cafés, scratching out Harry Potter when her life felt like a stalled project, or why Stephen King admits to staring at a blank screen for days, waiting for the spark to return.
It’s the same for us in the AEC world. Marketers slump after churning out a dozen proposals in a month. Architects stare at blank screens after a client meeting. Engineers go quiet after a multi-year plant expansion wraps up. We grind through 60-hour weeks, merger fatigue, tight budgets, and endless change orders. Then the engine stalls. Maybe it’s a job change. Burnout. Something you can’t name. Suddenly, you’re asking: Who am I without the daily chaos?
Take me, for example. I had a box in my office filled with old proposals and recordable CDs (remember those?). One was from a major airport’s new parallel runway proposal in 2002 that took three all-nighters to polish. We won it, and the template and boilerplate I built for that pitch became the firm’s go-to for a decade. Those folders are my scars and wins, proof of a life spent making things work behind the scenes. When the grind stopped, I thought I’d lost my edge.
Spoiler: I didn’t. I’m still in my prime.
The culture of overdrive.
In AEC, pausing feels like admitting you’re not tough enough. We treat burnout like it’s in the job description. I worked with a guy who skipped vacations for three years, bragging about it like a badge of honor. The U.S. Travel Association says over half of Americans don’t use their vacation days. I even had a mug that read: “Deadlines Are My Cardio.” Funny until it wasn’t. It’s still in my box of office junk, mocking me.
What I’ve learned in the silence.
The void isn’t a dead end. It’s a slow burn. A place where resilience rebuilds, and you stop defining yourself by your inbox. Creativity starts to whisper again, like an old idea you jotted down years ago on a Post-it note, begging for another look.
I’ve seen project managers go quiet after another relentless proposal cycle; their brains fried from endless drafts and edits. I’ve coached coordinators who felt numb, wondering if the next long-shot pursuit was worth it. I’ve watched architects crash post-charette, unsure if they’ve got another unique design in them. These aren’t failures. These are signs we need to stop sometimes.
My pause.
Stepping back from an industry I’ve poured half my life into stings. But this break doesn’t erase what I built. Late nights perfecting workflows. Cancelled vacations to update a database. Vendors who became friends. Young coordinators I coached into leaders. Those wins and scars are mine.
This is a pit stop, not a full stop. For the first time in years, I get to draft my own future. I get to decide what’s worth carrying forward, what I’m done ignoring, and what ambition looks like when boundaries, clarity, and meaning shape it.
A word to anyone in the void.
If you’re stuck in that in-between, no job, no ideas, or no fire in your gut, don’t kick yourself. You’re not done. You’re catching your breath. The void feels brutal, but it’s where you sharpen the tools for your next climb. I’ve led marketing teams through impossible deadlines, talked coordinators off the burnout ledge, and mentored staff who thought their spark was gone. Every time, it came back. Yours will too.
So, what’s one thing you’ve been ignoring in your own void? Maybe now’s the time to face it. This pause isn’t wasted. It’s where you stop running on fumes and start writing the next chapter on your terms.
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Kraig Kern, CPSM is innovation and integration lead at The Wooten Company. Contact him at kkern@thewootencompany.com. |