two modes
When you’re managing a brownstone renovation as a homeowner with a career, most days are back to back shifts.
From 6-8am, my mornings are focused getting the teams working on the house in a good place for the day: making sure there is alignment on what is happening that week, what needs to move first, and when subcontractors are coming in so the work flows properly. My work day starts in a different way. I’m catching up on EMEA emails, getting into work priorities, and preparing for the west coast to come online. Two different operating systems, two different rhythms, both running at the same time.
Over time, I’ve had to learn how to move between those communication styles without friction. Context switching between both.
The renovation is real time, text driven, and constantly shifting. Decisions happen in motion. Clarity has to be immediate because people are already on site working. There isn’t much room for overthinking or long threads of context. My role at work is structured differently. It runs on calendar invites, agendas, and follow-ups. There is space to think, to sequence, to refine before decisions are executed.
When I first bought the house three years ago, that shift between those modes felt like a real adjustment. I was much more used to the structured cadence of corporate. Learning how to operate in something faster and more fluid took time but felt like being back in a newsroom. Except instead of getting the story, it was more about building a narrative of my own. Now it’s part of my everyday.
Today was one of those days. I was on a call with my contractor talking through how we would structure the millwork for the upstairs suites, when we would bring in subcontractors, and how timelines would layer across different vendors. Nothing unusual. Just the practical sequencing of work moving through the house.
What I’ve realized over time is how much this has reshaped the way I communicate in all aspects of my life.
When you are the primary decision-maker on a project like this, especially without a designer acting as a buffer, you become the center of clarity. There isn’t someone translating your vision for you. You are doing the translating yourself, across every conversation, every vendor, every trade. At work, we’d call that a DRI. In this house, that’s my every single day.
The team of people I work with on the house are used to moving quickly and directly, and I’ve learned how to meet that without overcomplicating things. Being clear. Decisive. Willing to repeat things when needed. Willing to ask better questions when something doesn’t make sense.
Over time, I’ve noticed how much this mirrors my work life. Navigating executives, founders, and teams where clarity is everything requires a similar muscle. Knowing when to be concise. When to slow something down. When to push for specificity instead of assuming alignment. The renovation has made that muscle more instinctive. Less abstract. More immediate. If something is unclear, the result shows up quickly in real space, in real time.
There’s something about being the one holding the vision without outsourcing it that changes how you speak. You stop padding your language. You stop assuming people can read between the lines. You learn to say exactly what you mean the first time.
This has become a quieter kind of training ground. One where clarity is not theoretical. One where it’s material in a true way.