How One Bad Situation Sets Up the Next

I’ve often heard the phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” in reference to adversities we face. From what I can tell, that’s often tied - at least loosely - to 1 Corinthians 10:13. In fact, there’s apparently even a Christian song based on that. All said, I can’t say that I interpret the verse that way. I can, however, make a strong case showing how each bad situation we encounter can serve as part of the chain of preparation for handling more significant adversities later on - assuming we are indeed finding the seeds and allowing those situations to be leadership’s best teacher.

Having opportunities to earn my own money at a young age provided me with ample exposure to the pros and cons of trading my time for someone else’s dollar. While I mowed my own yard as a kid, that was more of an expectation. I don’t remember much of a set weekly allowance, but I also don’t remember lacking any of the basics. By the time I was twelve or thirteen years old, I picked up a few yards to mow around my neighborhood. Nothing major, but the experience positioned me to accept a bigger project for a local business owner the summer after I turned fourteen. That was business as usual for the most part, with the exception of one particular evening when I chose to play basketball at the local park instead of showing up at his house. I thought I would just be doing the regular mowing and weeding, which could have been done just as easily the following evening, but he had left work early so we could go do some work at his cabin that was about thirty minutes away. While I’m not sure if he actually shared that detail with me in advance, I received a gentle scolding and learned the importance of being where I said I would be when I said I would be there.

Although minor in the grand scheme of things, I remember how much that stuck with me and how it pushed me to make sure I was the epitome of dependability from that point forward. That served me well right away, but it was critical the following summer when I was the youngest (by far) on a residential construction crew. The half mile or so I rode my bicycle to and from the jobsites wasn’t a big deal, but I certainly needed to account for that so I could arrive before everyone started working. The next youngest on our crew had been out of high school a few years and had worked there ever since - and I was still a year away from even getting a driver’s license. Without the prior lesson in accountability, I may not have been as intentional about controlling one of the few things I could control (being on early and ready to roll everyday). Earning respect from the crew was hard enough since I had just a fraction of the experience early on that I gained that summer, but showing up and giving it everything I had each day helped - a lot!

In the fall of my Junior year in high school, I landed a job bagging groceries at a local supermarket since the construction crew called it a day soon after I got out of school. Physically, that was a walk in the park compared to digging footers or carrying bundles of shingles up an extension ladder. Still yet, consistency, work ethic, and being on time were traits that served me every bit as well in that role. And those two years in retail taught me lessons I can draw from still today.

Not long after graduating high school, I went back into construction full time. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to be when I grew up so I chose to kick the college can down the road, but I was sure that I didn’t want to stay in retail. After a couple more years and a host of lessons we’ll work through in more detail later on, I was offered a position in a manufacturing plant. And just a few years into that, I became intimately familiar with the importance of productivity. More specifically, I found myself in a position where I was expected to lead other team members in increasing profitability - without having any positional authority, which served as the basis for What’s KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!) more than two decades later.

None of these brief examples were necessarily bad, although we’ll dig into specific adversities I faced in each later on, but each did provide me with experience that helped me navigate the next more effectively. Had I not actively looked for the lessons through those experiences, though, growth would not have come as quickly - if at all. We’ll take a quick look at how we can harvest real value from each of our tough situations next. Until then, look back on your career: can you spot one way a past situation prepared you for what followed? Hold that thought because we’re about to work through the attributes Napoleon Hill listed for finding our seed in every adversity.