Ever tried making something so ugly it actually scares the customers away? That's my usual method for clearing out the shop and forcing myself to try new stuff.

Doubting that cutting five pages is some huge life lesson honestly. Sometimes those early pages do real work, like setting up a character's voice or a place, and readers who bail after two pages were never gonna stick around anyway. I've seen books where the slow start was the point and the payoff hit harder because of it. Sounds like your draft just had a weak front, not that every opening needs to be all action from line one.

Old timers guess right sometimes, but half a turn is a lot.