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Lesson 2 from ten years in business
Yes, that is real advice. And yes, it was given to me in all seriousness.
Early in my marketing career, working in the wine industry, I worked with a winemaker and business owner who smoked a pipe. Lovely man. Brilliant at what he did. Absolutely terrible at remembering to put the pipe out before it went into his pocket.
It was, apparently, a known thing.
And I discovered this firsthand one afternoon mid-conversation, when I noticed smoke starting to drift out of his jacket pocket. His handkerchief had caught on fire. And without missing a beat, without panic, without drama, he reached in, removed the pipe, removed the flaming handkerchief, extinguished both with complete calm, and carried on talking as though nothing had happened.
I did not know whether to be impressed or concerned. Possibly both.
But the advice he had already given me landed very differently after watching that moment play out.
Do not put a lit pipe in your pocket. Fire plus fabric equals regret.
And underneath that very practical, very specific guidance, was a lesson that has stayed with me for ten years. Think before you react. And when something does catch fire, handle it calmly, deal with it quickly, and do not make it bigger than it needs to be.
The heat of the moment is where business damage happens
Here is what I have watched play out more times than I can count, in my own business and in the businesses around me.
Something goes wrong. A client says something that lands badly. A competitor does something that feels unfair. An email arrives that makes your blood pressure spike before you have even finished reading it. A project unravels at the worst possible time.
And in that moment, the temptation is to respond immediately. To send the email. To make the call. To say the thing you have been thinking but had the good sense not to say until right now when you are furious and convinced you are completely right.
Do not do it.
The email you write when you are annoyed is almost never the email you should send. The decision you make when you are fired up is almost never your best one. The conversation you have when you are reactive rather than considered rarely ends the way you want it to.
A lot of business damage, to relationships, to reputations, to client trust, happens in the heat of the moment. And unlike a lot of mistakes, reactive ones are often very hard to walk back.
The other half of this lesson
There is a second layer here that I think is equally important.
Do not set yourself on fire and then act surprised.
This is the version of the lesson that is a little more uncomfortable to sit with. Because sometimes we create our own fires. We take on too much and then wonder why we are overwhelmed.
We say yes to the client that felt wrong from the first conversation and then wonder why the relationship is difficult.
We ignore the early warning signs in a partnership or a project and then act blindsided when it falls apart.
The lit pipe does not only come from outside. Sometimes we are the ones carrying it around and wondering why everything smells like smoke.
How to actually do it
This is easier said than done, especially if you are someone who processes quickly and responds fast. But these habits help.
1. Introduce a delay before responding to anything charged.
Not forever. Just enough time to shift out of reactive mode. Sleep on it if you can. If you cannot, step away for an hour. Write the email, save it as a draft, and read it again in the morning. You will almost always edit it.
2. Ask yourself what outcome you actually want.
Before you respond, before you escalate, before you make the call, what do you actually want to happen here? If your response is driven by wanting to be right rather than wanting a good outcome, that is a signal to pause.
3. Use AI to sense-check your tone before you hit send.
This is genuinely one of the most underrated uses of AI in business.
Paste your draft email or message into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it how the tone lands. Ask whether it sounds reactive or considered. Ask what the recipient might read between the lines.
You do not have to take every suggestion, but you will almost always catch something you missed when you were still in the heat of it.
4. Watch for your own fires.
Get honest about where you are creating unnecessary heat in your own business. The commitment you knew was too big when you made it. The boundary you keep not enforcing. The situation you are hoping will resolve itself. These are your lit pipes. Deal with them before they burn through something important.
5. Build a circuit breaker into your process.
Have someone you trust who you can send the draft email to before it goes. A business confidant, a mentor, a peer. Someone who will tell you honestly whether you are responding or reacting.
Your action this week
Think about a situation in your business right now that has some heat around it. Something that has been making you reactive, or that you have been avoiding because you know you are not quite ready to approach it calmly.
What would it look like to deal with it thoughtfully rather than reactively? What is the outcome you actually want? And what is one step you can take this week that moves toward that outcome, without setting anything on fire?
And if your marketing is one of those things generating more heat than results, the strategy that never quite comes together, the content that feels chaotic rather than considered, Starfish can help. I bring the calm, the strategy, (and the fun) so your marketing works for you. Get in touch here.
This is part of a series expanding on the lessons from ten years of running Starfish.
You can read Lesson 1: Do what you say you will, here. Next up: Lesson 3, Empathy can be learned.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do business owners make bad decisions in the heat of the moment?
When we are emotionally activated, whether through frustration, anger, or stress, our thinking narrows. We focus on the immediate situation rather than the bigger picture, and we prioritise being right over getting a good outcome. In business, this is dangerous because the decisions and communications that feel most urgent in those moments are often the ones with the longest lasting consequences. A reactive email to a client, a snapped response in a meeting, a hasty decision under pressure, these things are very hard to walk back. Building habits that introduce even a small delay between stimulus and response makes an enormous difference over time.
How can AI help with business communication?
AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are genuinely useful for sense-checking tone before you send something important. If you have drafted a response to a difficult client, a tricky email, or a sensitive situation, pasting it into an AI tool and asking how the tone lands can surface things you missed when you were still close to the situation. You can ask whether it sounds reactive or considered, what the recipient might read between the lines, or how it could be reworded to achieve a better outcome. It is not about outsourcing your communication, it is about getting a fast, low-stakes second opinion before something goes out that you cannot take back.
What is the best way to handle a difficult client situation without reacting emotionally?
The most practical thing you can do is introduce a pause before responding. Write the response, then sit on it. Sleep on it if you can. If the situation is urgent, step away for an hour and read it again before sending. In that gap, ask yourself what outcome you actually want from the interaction, because if the answer is to be right rather than to resolve something, that is a signal to keep editing. Having a trusted person, a mentor, peer, or even an AI tool, review your response before it goes out is also valuable. The goal is to respond from a considered place rather than a reactive one, and that almost always produces a better result for everyone involved.
