Keep coming back to same idea: four returns, no choice.
If you keep coming back to same idea, look at the dates rather than the feeling. The author's perfume shop idea returned four times in seven years and nine months. However, not one of those returns was a decision.
Four returns laid out on a calendar.
The author first had the idea in October 2018: a shop for ultra-niche perfume from independent makers abroad. In April 2020 he registered a domain and emailed twelve boutique perfumers in France and Italy. Then shipping alcohol across EU borders stopped it after three weeks. In November 2022, a fourteen-page plan and a two hundred dollar logo lasted a month, because margin was too thin.
August 2024 brought a staging website and thirty scent descriptions, and it lasted six weeks. Finally, July 2026 lasted eleven days. That is a business idea for years never started, with about a hundred days of work and no customer, ever. In short, when you keep coming back to same idea, the calendar fills while the shop stays empty.
Why you keep coming back to same idea without deciding.
Each return began with something small happening outside him. For example, a lockdown started and online retail surged. Then resin samples arrived from a traveller returning from Muscat. Also, an industry report praised micro-perfumery, and later a colleague wore something synthetic. So the same file opened itself four times, with no decision anywhere in it.
Why the pull feels so personal.
The author is on the autism spectrum, and his sense of smell runs hot. Synthetic notes overload him physically, while he can pull natural materials apart inside a sample. Because the pull is real and specific, revisiting an old business idea can feel like proof it is good. However, that reading is exactly what this chapter sets out to take apart.
Map how you keep coming back to same idea.
Write every date your idea returned, what you built each time, and how long it lasted.
Next to each return, note the small outside event that reopened the file, not a decision.
Questions about keep coming back to same idea.
Why do I keep coming back to same idea without ever starting?
In the author's case, each return was triggered by something small in the world. So the returns happened to him rather than being chosen.
How long did the author's perfume idea run?
Seven years and nine months, with four returns and about a hundred days of actual work. Still, no customer ever appeared.
Does a strong personal pull mean the idea is good?
Not by itself. The chapter warns that reading the pull as proof is the very thing it exists to take apart.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 10, “The unfinished task”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Keep coming back to same idea: four returns, no choice.
- 02 Validate business idea with one question: 15 minutes.
- 03 Stop building start asking: write it, don't send it.
- 04 Zeigarnik effect debunked: returning, not remembering.
- 05 Interrupted task resumption: aim your next return.
- 06 Limits of psychology lab studies: count your hours.
- 07 Reasons for abandoning business idea: test yours.
- 08 Is my business idea worth pursuing: the pull can't say.