Wrestling Porcelain and Losing (at First)
Recently, I found myself in a battle not with markets or investments, but with a toilet flush lever. Yes, you read that right. Stay with me. This isn’t just plumbing; it’s business philosophy wrapped in porcelain.
The culprit: a TOTO toilet. Its lever—a glorified stick that connects the handle to the flushing mechanism—has always been finicky. I’d already replaced it once with an “official” part. The cost? A staggering $130 for what is, let’s be honest, a damn lever. And here it was, failing again.
I stared at the part: bad design married to bad craftsmanship, with a touch of modern capitalism’s favorite trend—planned obsolescence. These days, everything seems built to last just long enough to annoy you, and then collapse. I glued it with J-B Weld (because duct tape is for amateurs), but that fix lasted exactly three flushes. Welding? Maybe. But hunting down a shop to fuse a toilet part wasn’t high on my bucket list.
Amazon, surely, would rescue me. Except: no manufacturer part numbers. No clean cross-references. Just guesswork. I ordered what looked right, only to find it was shorter. At first, I thought—useless. But physics whispered otherwise. A shorter lever could mean more torque. A better angle. A stronger flush. This, however, required replacing the entire mechanism, not just the arm. Which meant removing a nut inside the tank—a nut that had fused itself in place over five years of corrosion.
Now, here’s where things got dangerous. Too much force, and I’d crack the porcelain. With a one-piece toilet, that’s not just a broken lever; that’s a new $1,000 fixture. So I summoned a childhood memory: Liquid Wrench. Ordered it, soaked the nut, waited. Nothing. Finally, I went nuclear: the reciprocating saw. I cut into it, blade screaming like a banshee, me wearing headphones in the bathroom just to survive. Five minutes later, I’d barely scratched it. Turns out, I was wielding a butter knife disguised as a blade.
Enter Home Depot. Enter the Diablo bi-metal blade (a name so metal it belongs on an album cover). One minute later—slice. That bitch was mine. (Not a sexist remark, remember: we’re still talking toilets for fuck’s sake.) I installed the new lever, adjusted it, and to my amazement—it worked better than new. All thanks to a shorter lever and the right blade.
Lesson one: the right tool changes everything.
The Hidden World of Tools You Didn’t Know Existed
We all know a Phillips head from a flathead. Maybe you’ve cursed an Allen wrench while assembling IKEA furniture. Perhaps you’ve discovered the cruel beauty of the Torx screw, or its evil twin—the “security” Torx that needs a hole in the middle to work.
But then there are tools that live outside your awareness. Case in point: the Robertson, or square drive screw. I stumbled onto one thinking it was a stripped Phillips head, jammed in a box of parts. Slipped in a square driver, and suddenly—magic. A square peg in a square hole. Tight grip. No slipping. A hold so good, sometimes the driver sticks inside the screw. That’s not a problem—that’s a love affair with efficiency.
Discovering the Robertson was like discovering a secret passage in your own house. You live there for years, and suddenly—oh, there’s a hidden room. Phillips even put one in the middle of their wheelhouse.
And this is where the analogy starts to move from toilets to boardrooms.
Business Is Just a Toolbox You Don’t Know Exists Yet
Business is flush with hidden tools. Payroll? You think ADP or Paychex. That’s the Phillips head. But then you discover Gusto, Rippling, or whatever startup is rethinking the whole system from scratch. Suddenly, you’re not just “getting by”—you’re actually making life easier for yourself and your team.
Want to see what companies are really using? Go to StackShare.io. Type in “payroll.” Gusto rises to the top. Or work backwards: pick a company you admire, and peek under the hood at their tech stack. You’ll find tools you didn’t even know were on the shelf.
This connects back to something I wrote on linear minds in an exponential world. The upgrade problem isn’t just about when to switch—it’s about knowing what you don’t know. Tony Robbins reminds us: “success leaves clues.” If you’re still reaching for the Phillips when the square drive exists, you’re fighting yesterday’s war with yesterday’s weapons.
Sometimes the right tool is the one you’ve never even heard of. And when you find it, the task that felt like a grind suddenly feels… lighter. Dare I say, joyful. Even in the bathroom.
