Rock Bottom and the Moment of Truth

From late 2005 to late 2007, Cindy and I dedicated nearly every waking hour that we weren’t working in our day jobs and invested every spare dime we could scrape up into the MLM business that had provided us with a glimmer of hope that we could someday climb out the ridiculous scarcity we had been battling for several years. And believe it or not, the 1099 we received from that corporation as “independent business owners” in 2008 was close to what Cindy’s W2 showed for the same year. That said, there’s a stark difference between revenue and profit - but that’s a business economics lesson we can circle back to another time.

In What’s KILLING Your Profitability?, I shared the following from a 2016 Ivey Business Journal article called The Rising Price of Bad Leadership:

“Bad leadership is clearly expensive. Fraud resulting from mismanagement at Wells Fargo, for example, has already cost the bank about US$300 million in fines and pre-settlement investigative costs while wiping out something like US$6 billion in shareholder value. Ex-employees, meanwhile, are seeking at least US$2.6 billion in a class-action lawsuit related to the Wells Fargo corporate culture that rewarded employees who created multiple accounts for customers without permission.”

Our mortgage just so happened to be owned by Wells Fargo in 2008. Through a not so great series of events, one of our monthly payments was processed five times in one single day. At that point, it almost required an act of God for us to have enough money in our account for one mortgage payment to process without being overdrawn. Five of those transactions in a matter of hours was a disaster. Not only did each of the four extra payments incur fees, everything else that hit our account that day and for the week or so that followed did as well.

I spent hours and hours on calls with any Wells Fargo employee I could reach, but I never spoke with the same one twice. I followed every instruction I could squeeze out of them to the letter. And three or so months into that ordeal, we received a registered letter; not some sort of resolution covering the several thousand dollars in fees that debacle had cost us, but a notice of foreclosure. Praise God it came from an office in Iowa and not somewhere I could afford to drive to because that may have been the day Wes landed in jail. And praise God for a local friend who stepped in to help us refinance, avoiding foreclosure!

Earlier in detailing the ripple effects of scarcity, I referenced the only time I’ve ever struggled to sleep. This opened a whole new chapter in that book. Receiving that letter removed any remaining illusion that a “we’ll figure it out” approach would be enough. This was where I had to choose survival or surrender, and I damn sure wasn’t about to surrender. Our only option at that point was to dig deep into Hill’s fifth leadership attribute, definiteness of plans, in ways we had never done before. Rock-bottom resource failure strips everything away except the plans we’re willing to make and the details we’re willing to master.

We’ll look at how that led to even more self-control emerging next. First, though, I’ll share the highlight of the Wells Fargo story. A few years ago, we randomly received another letter from them detailing the restitution we were due as part of a class action lawsuit (that we weren’t even aware of). And with that letter came a check for $16!!! That healed every wound instantly, as you can imagine. One final thing before we move on: think about your own “near-foreclosure” moment (literal or figurative). What one decisive plan could have changed the outcome?

I’d love to tell you that I had the self-control back then to have prevented me from doing something reckless; hence my previous comment, “Praise God it came from an office in Iowa and not somewhere I could afford to drive to…” As I’ve suggested throughout this look at making the best of our bad situations, though, each adversity we face can serve as a building block for being more equipped to handle the next IF we’re willing to find the seed or equal or greater benefit that lies within it. When we do find that seed, and we’re willing to nurture it with everything in our power, we have a shot of developing each of the leadership attributes we’ve looked at so far.

For me, self-control has been something that’s grown over time. Without some of the earliest minor adversities, there’s no way I could have maintained the self-control necessary to push forward. Without those early career stumbles, as insignificant as they were in the grand scheme of things, and without experiencing the unexpected storm of a child’s health scare, I don’t know that I would have been able to drum up enough self-control to put the mental or emotional energy into mapping out the definite plans we would need. But building on those earliest adversities, scarcity did indeed forge the attributes I needed so desperately.

Make no mistake, the grind of scarcity doesn’t just test us. It forges the exact leadership traits that can (if we allow it) turn personal hardship into profitable influence. For me, and for everyone I’ve seen fight through similar adversities, purpose clarifies fastest when resources are scarcest. The influence required to truly lead emerges when we stop wishing for better circumstances and start planning how we can create them. We’ll look at how purpose is found in the grind next. Right now, I want you to assess one recent decision where you wavered - and identify one concrete step to strengthen your definiteness of plans within the next month.

Finding Purpose in the Grind

Having to choose between surrender and survival forced me to channel all the self-control I could muster and engross myself into the details of a definite plan for climbing out of the hole we found ourselves in after that near-foreclosure experience. I mentioned receiving a whopping $16 check as part of the class action lawsuit that we weren’t even aware of. I didn’t mention that the entire debacle cost us around $10k. For many, that would have been annoying but not catastrophic. For us, though, it just as well have been $100k.

Focusing on how we (specifically, me) could grow through that adversity, rather than wallowing in self-pity, allowed little time to think about how much it hurt. And through all that came subtle shifts in the trust Cindy had in me, our overall family resilience, and the respect I continued to earn with my peers in the workplace. Learning to quietly pivot through scarcity builds authentic relational influence; remaining consistent through that grind long-term earns trust no title can grant.

I’d love to say that Cindy and I have been 100% on the same page with every decision since; I can’t, so I won’t. Seriously, does that ever happen in any relationship? If someone makes that claim, they’re gonna lie to you about other things too! What I can share is that fighting through that adversity together deepened what was then a ten-year-old relationship more than anything we had experienced to that point. Little did we know how much we’d need that soon; more to come on that…

I’ve often heard people say, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.” Here’s a word of caution: Keep those people at arm’s reach - if you have to deal with them at all. Just like John Maxwell emphasized in his book, There’s No Such Thing as Business Ethics, personal core values show up in every business decision - and vice-versa. The same applies to earning influence. For me, fighting through the adversity of the near-foreclosure and being forced to earn home-based resource leadership tied directly to professional reliability and built quiet credibility. Making the best of resource failures isn’t mere survival—it’s intentional preparation that transforms the grind into chains of purpose-driven leadership readiness.

We’ll look at more on how that personal adversity actually helped me earn more professional influence next, and I’ll offer a few questions in challenging you to mine your own scarcities for every purpose-driven seed you can possibly find. Before we dig into that, think about one small piece of your own scarcity-to-purpose story. Share it with someone you trust implicitly and detail every positive ripple that’s come as a result.

Mining Scarcity for Purpose-Driven Seeds

As I’ve wrapped up each step in this process of Making the Best of YOUR Bad Situations, I’ve closed with five questions geared at challenging you to mine your similar experiences for the seeds of equal or greater benefit - and I’m about to do that here as well. Before that, though, I’ll detail one of the greatest professional benefits I can point to from living through the Wells Fargo shit-show.

I’ve worked with some amazing executives during my career. The best of those were always focused on providing opportunities for their team members to succeed over the long haul. In my last few full time roles, I reported directly to the owners of the companies and was routinely able to provide input on fiduciary decisions. Each of those companies offered 401(k) plans with substantial matching percentages. The owners genuinely cared about their team members’ long term financial well-being. Having human resources responsibility in each of those organizations, employees occasionally approached me about options for borrowing against or withdrawing money from their 401(k) accounts. When drafting the initial plan summary documents outlining how the 401(k) would be administered, the owners of each company had expressly prohibited either, with the exception of extreme hardship cases (which was very tightly defined).

I’ll never claim to be Dave Ramsey, Jr., but living through our near-foreclosure experience allowed me to relate to the scenarios many of those employees were facing in ways a lot of the executives I’ve worked for over the years just couldn’t connect with. I knew all too well what it was like to send a house payment check on the last possible day and pray we could get enough money in the account by the time it was processed. I also understood that an early withdrawal from a 401(k) incurred a penalty, but that was still far less than the often well over 20% interest rate on a credit card or the risk of resorting to a pay-day loan. At least with the option to borrow from their account, they’d avoid the penalties and they’d be paying themselves back. I’m not making a case for or against how those owners had structured their plans, but having lived through similar experiences allowed me to provide those employees with empathy when they needed it most.

As I’ve suggested repeatedly to this point, each minor adversity we experience early on can provide us with the experience we’ll need to effectively navigate more significant adversities later on - if we allow them to. That’s where mining for every possible seed comes into play. As we close this look at the grind of scarcity, here are five questions I’ll challenge you to work through in mining your scarcity for purpose-driven seeds:

1. What resource failure (financial, time, or material) still carries weight for you?
2. What blind spot or habit did it reveal, and what seed of greater purpose (e.g., mastery of detail) was hidden?
3. How could a decisive pivot strengthen your definiteness of plans or self-control?
4. In what ways might nurturing this seed improve your influence without title—at home or work?
5. What three small, immediate actions can you take this week to plant and nurture it?

As I’ve suggested previously, invest the time to detail your responses to each. Then share one immediate action step you can take with someone who will hold you accountable. If you can’t identify that person right away, reach out! I’ll help. Targeted reflection turns the grind of scarcity into leadership gold—start building purpose-driven strength now. The effort you put into this will make a tremendous difference when - not IF - you encounter professional setbacks, and we’ll pick up there soon.