No, it’s not snowing right now – that’s an old picture – but it’s cold! Well, no kidding, right? It’s January. We are in the Northeast, and that’s what happens. What doesn’t always happen, though, is that our boiler decides to die in the middle of the winter, like it did last Friday. We went four days without heat, keeping warm by our fireplace and with lots of clothes and blankets. No showers, either, because it was just too darn cold!
And honestly, we knew it was coming. The heating company recommended that we replace it last year, but we didn’t. Why? We didn’t want to spend the fortune it would cost to replace it. We were busy. We were thinking about the “right now” and not the future. But when we knew we had no choice – when the boiler heaved its last breath – we found the money and the time.
What’s my point, you ask? Well, just that things often get thrown at us, and we have to adjust and overcome, even if it’s the last thing we feel like doing or the worst time for something to happen. I know you’ve been in a similar situation.
So how do you cope? If you’re like me, you momentarily wish you were a teenager and could call your parents to take care of things like the heat going out. Of course, my teenage years are long gone and that isn’t how life works. So you buckle down, power through, and just get done what you have to get done.
But I like to think of these trying moments as creative opportunities. It’s not always easy to think of them that way, especially in the midst of something bad or unexpected happening, but once you get through the bad part, take some time, sit back, and think about how you prioritized, how you coped, how you ultimately survived a difficult spot. Did you improvise? Did you do something ingenious? Did you grow a bit as a result of the experience?
I bring this up because I think a lot of people view work problems as impossible to overcome. You don’t have the budget, you don’t have the time, you don’t have the people. Is that really true, though? Just think about it – have you been ignoring a problem in your business that threatens to blow up in your face at anytime? I bet there’s at least one.
Don’t be like me! Don’t wait until the problem becomes major before you take steps to address. Start today! Start now! As a business owner, you are already improvising and growing all the time. Be honest and see what you can improve before you’re freezing from a dead boiler like me.
How can we help you today?