I picked up this crossword puzzle book a while back – one that promised: “enrich your word power” .

Today, without any grand plan, I opened it. My mind felt crowded, and I needed something different… something structured but playful, quiet but energizing. So I flipped the book open, landed on Puzzle #77, and decided to dive in.

I started with clues, where I was certain of the answer. I won’t necessarily describe them as easy but for me, they didn’t require me wrestling with memory or imagination. Fill. Fill. Fill.

Progress felt almost accidental at first — a few letters here, a quick win there. And then I’d circle back to the clues connected to what I’d already placed, and suddenly answers began revealing themselves almost effortlessly.

But then there came a point when I slowed down to a complete stop. It felt like I was squeezing my brain for answers. Four or five words to go and the answers refused to show themselves. Blank spaces. Hints that meant nothing. Just me and silence.

And in that moment of stillness — staring at an almost complete grid this idea popped into my head.

That building a business is very similar to doing the crosswords.

Starting with the Obvious

Every entrepreneur starts with what they know: their strengths, their experience, the clients they understand deeply, the opportunities that practically call their names. These are your “easy answers” – quick, grounding wins that give you confidence and momentum.

This is why clarity is so critical at the beginning. If you don’t start with what you know for sure, you have nothing solid to build on.

Interconnected Clues

Once a few words are on the page, the whole grid changes. One correct answer unlocks another. A single letter placed in the right spot becomes a bridge.

Business works the same way:

Market clarity influences your service design. Service design shapes your messaging. Messaging shapes your sales rhythm. Sales shapes your capacity. Capacity shapes your client experience. And your client experience determines your referrals.

Everything touches everything else.

This is why misalignment in one area causes strain in another. It’s not random. One misalignment affects the structural integrity of the whole. One wrong answer can throw your puzzle grid quickly into chaos. Once you discover where you made the error and course correct, everything else flows from there.

The Inevitable Stuck Point

Just like my choice today – Puzzle #77, you always reach the part of the business where nothing moves.

• The strategies that worked before stop working.
• The clarity you had evaporates.
• The once-obvious clues suddenly look foreign.

This is the moment where most people panic, overthink, or force answers that don’t fit. Similar to my squeezing my brain to produce under pressure.

But the stuckness is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign that the puzzle is asking something new of you.

This is where silence becomes a strategic tool – not procrastination.
Pausing. Observing. Sitting with the tension long enough for a new pattern to emerge.

Incremental Wins

Crosswords — like businesses — are not solved in one brilliant moment.
They’re solved through small, almost invisible wins accumulated over time.

You fill a corner. You walk away. You come back. You notice something new. You place another answer that unlocks an entire section.

This is the rhythm of aligned building. Small wins. Consistent progress. Momentum created not by force, but by logic and insight.

The Bigger Picture

Even when you’re stuck, you still hold an picture of what the finished puzzle can look like: the complete grid.

In business, that vision is what pulls you forward — even on the tough days.

Not hustle. Not pressure. Not external expectations. But your vision. The picture you carry in your head, and may have translated into words on paper, knowing that what you’re building is very real.

Problem-Solving at the Core

Both crosswords and businesses ask the same thing of you:

• Can you hold the known and the unknown at the same time?
• Can you test ideas without attachment?
• Can you stay curious instead of dissolving into frantic panic when you can’t immediately figure something out?
• Can you trust that clarity emerges through the process and silence is often part of it?

At their core, both pursuits require a mix of logic, creativity, intuition, patience, and the courage to admit what you don’t know…yet.

You don’t build a business by knowing everything. You build it the way you solve a crossword:

• Start with what you know.
• Stay curious about what you don’t.
• Trust the structure.
• And let each answer bring the next one into view.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Where in your business are you trying to “force an answer” instead of stepping back to let the real one reveal itself — and what would shift if you returned to the clues you’re certain about?

About Giselle

I’m Giselle Hudson — writer, possibility thinker, musician, Organization & People Development Sensemaker™, and MCODE Legacy Coach. I help leaders and soul-driven professionals decode the deeper patterns shaping their business, work, identities, and results especially when it look like a performance issue but it’s really misalignment in disguise.

If something in your life or business feels off and you can’t quite name it, message me. Sometimes one conversation is all it takes to see what’s really going on.