Obstacles Are Partners in Growth

In The 7 Commitments of a Great Team, Jon Gordon writes that obstacles are partners in growth. They are part of our curriculum in life, and they are here to help us grow and get better.

I love this. And yet, obstacles have a way of stopping our progress. We attach meaning to the obstacle. We create stories about it. And those stories can keep us stuck longer than the obstacle itself.

Adversity is a great teacher if we choose to look at it that way. And it does not feel good when we are in the middle of it.

I know, because 2024 rocked my world.

When the Curriculum Showed Up

We were coming off a fantastic 2023. Successes, wins, momentum. I was thinking 2024 was going to be our best year yet!

It unraveled the second week of January.

I was preparing for the first BOLD of the year, flying out to California on a Monday morning, and that weekend I started feeling really yucky. Off. Achy. Three COVID tests, all negative. No fever. So I did what I always do... I powered through. No sooner had I gotten in the air than I started coughing, and coughing, and coughing. By the time I landed, I felt like I had been run over by a truck.

I crawled into bed thinking I'd rally like I always do. When illness has hit before, the moment I step in front of a class, it's as if all the symptoms pause. I had a full class flying in. I was not going to let them down. Rest, sleep, rally.

That didn't happen. I coughed all night, literally for hours. When I got up, I had zero voice. BOLD requires a BIG voice, and mine was completely gone.I had to cancel the class.

Back home, urgent care ran every test. What they found was an upper respiratory infection that became the 100-day cough. Four rounds of prednisone. Three rounds of antibiotics. And when the cough finally went away, so did my voice. The virus had attacked my right vocal cord and paralyzed it. The doctor believed it would come back... in 6 to 12 months.

I sat in his office crying. I don't have 6 to 12 months. I speak for a living. I teach. I am the main facilitator.

That same day, I found out I needed two surgeries, with a 2 to 3 month recovery. And one of our trainers quit.

Fear gripped me like never before. How are we going to keep Driven afloat?

Bitter or Better

In these moments we can choose to be bitter or better. It is a choice. Adversity feels sucky, and sometimes it seems like there is no way out.

The story can be "this isn't fair," "look what they did to me," "this always happens to me."

Or the story can be, "So what, now what?"

So what... we can't change the past. It happened.Now what? What can I do? What action can I take? What's the lesson?

Here's what "now what" looked like for us. Our team rallied. One team member took all of my follow-ups and sustainability calls. Another picked up sales and our online training. Eric came out of BOLD retirement and started training again. I learned to let my team help me. I learned that people are understanding and flexible. I learned to pivot by mic'ing up, even though I never use a mic in training. And my Minnie Mouse voice (yes, I really sounded like Minnie Mouse) was still a voice, and I learned to be grateful for it.

It wasn't a tidy comeback. We lost two employees during my recovery, and that's a lot for a small business. We lost a huge contract. We dipped into our own pocket to make payroll. And we survived.

More than survived. Eric and I got to train BOLD together and made it even better. We got back to our foundation, our roots. We created new content. Eric became an EOS Implementer. We built a solid, stable program that isn't dependent on BOLD. I started valuing my health, resting when I'm tired so I can reset. As a result, I am stronger than ever.

I don't know if any of this would have happened without me being taken down and taken out.

The Three Questions I Come Back To

When I'm facing an obstacle, or helping a leader or team work through one, I love these three questions:

What went well? What's a win? It's important to celebrate the win, even in the hard. There is always one if we look for it. I woke up.I have people who love me.I have a roof over my head.I have a job.I took a walk, went to the gym, moved my body.I made it through the day.I have a bed to crawl into tonight.

What could I improve on? How can we get better? What action can I take today to improve?

What's the lesson? What can I learn from this that I couldn't have learned any other way?

Looking at obstacles and adversity as teachers helps us pivot, adjust, and get creative in problem-solving. It opens up the growth side of our brain.

If we ignore the lesson, blame, make excuses, or stay stuck in the anger and frustration, our focus becomes the problem... and we can't see another way. That's bitter.

Your Turn

What's the obstacle in front of you right now?

An injury.

A broken relationship.

Bleeding money in your business.

Conflict that feels like it is rocking your world.

Change you didn't choose.

The loss of a loved one.

A layoff.

Not making the team.

Ask yourself the three questions and see what shifts.

We always have a choice, even in the hard.

The obstacle isn't in the way. It's part of the curriculum.