When the Next Adversity Doesn’t Wait

When the Next Adversity Doesn’t Wait

As I wrapped up our look at the seeds we can pull from the adversities involved with defending the vulnerable, I shared that Granny was nearly 97 years old when she passed away in August 2020. There’s always a degree of pain that comes with loss, but I was as grateful as anything; for the long life she lived, for the strong faith she modeled, and for all the lessons I learned from her in my 44 years to that point. Between all Cindy and I worked through in the months leading up to her passing and the global disruptions that turned our business upside down, I would have welcomed a stretch of smooth sailing. It didn’t come.

That shouldn’t come as any real surprise. Intense pressure is what turns coal into diamonds. Dams are built all around the world to harness the tremendous energy of water to generate electricity that powers our largest cities. In both cases, pressure or the uncontrolled water can (and does) create devastating effects. But someone, at some point in history, identified and nurtured the seeds from adversities that led to incredible opportunities — opportunities that you and I still benefit from today.

In sports, there are breaks between periods and an allotted number of time-outs (in most cases) for a team to regroup. School, at all levels, has breaks between semesters. Both play a role in preparing us for the “real world,” but neither are as harsh a judge as we will inevitably experience when it’s time to make a go of it on our own — and especially not when we’re striving toward something that makes a difference. A friend recently quoted Woodrow Wilson on social media in sharing, “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” He followed that by saying “Communities need to grow or they will decay. It’s fair to argue how we grow, but growth is required for a sustainable future.” That growth he referred to is nearly always packed full of adversity, and neither the growth (or decay) or those adversities provide time-outs or semester breaks.

Surviving a defining moment of any kind does not exempt us from the next bad situation; it only reveals whether we will keep using the same tools. Eric Hoffer is quoted as saying, “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” If we remain intentional about finding every possible seed in each adversity we face AND we nurture those seeds to capture the great benefit hidden within them, we’ll have no choice but to use new tools, whatever those tools may be.

With so much of 2020 and the first half of 2021 being just plain hard, Cindy and I would have gladly welcomed an uneventful, business-as-usual year or two. We didn’t get it. But the foundation we continued to build helped us navigate what followed. We’ll look at some of that next. Before that, though, think about a season when you thought you had “earned” a break and another hit arrived anyway. What emotion stands out from that time and what was one early warning sign that you may have treated your most previous crisis as the last lesson you would have to learn?

The Quiet Years

There’s No Such Thing As Quiet Years

After eighteen months with very limited opportunities to earn a living and far too many challenges we’d have been happy to do without, a few quiet years of wide-open work to re-establish the momentum we had lost and rebuild our bank accounts would have been wonderful. Before I share what actually happened, consider how often you hear folks say something like “as soon as things slow down, I’ll start” whatever it is that they’re not doing but kinda wish they were.

Who’s face just flashed in front of you? Was it your own? Do things ever really “slow down”? I was very intentional in saying “but kinda wish they were” because we all tell a powerful story with what we allow to occupy time on our calendars. There’s no mythical land where a 25th hour magically lands in our day, and there’s certainly no 8th day that ever gets added to our week. And guess what: the quiet years of heads-down work we would have loved to experience weren’t very quiet!

I shared previously how I re-engaged in some safety and human resources work through late 2020 and into 2021 with hopes of keeping our lights on, and how that opened the door to what’s since grown into one of the best business relationships we’ve ever had. Even then, though, there were also a few doors that should have had caution tape across them; but that’s just part of the process. On the family side, we experienced a solid mix of ups and downs as well. Our son got married on August 1, 2020 — just two days before Granny passed away. His wedding was nothing short of wonderful, and the rainbow that touched the ground in front of us during the rehearsal meant more than I could possibly explain here. Soon after that, his wife’s family went through a traumatic experience and we saw Matt be stronger for them than we could have ever imagined. Cindy’s dad passed away at the end of 2021 and she was tasked with serving as executor of his estate. I’ve learned that anything involving the government brings more than a fair share of ass pain and that certainly held true in that case. Throw in a few attorneys and some family members who didn’t necessarily have pure intentions and you have a recipe for something just plain nasty. On the other side of the spectrum, we welcomed three new grandkids between April 2022 and September 2023. Our son and his wife had their first in March 2023. Our daughter and her husband had their fourth in April 2022 and the fifth in September 2023, with the fifth being just a few months after our son-in-law fell while picking peaches in their orchard and broke his femur.

Each of those have a complete story of their own. Sharing all that detail isn’t the point. The reality for all of us is that there’s no such thing as quiet years, especially when we’re working to accomplish anything of significance. Each thing I touched on here was indeed a high or a low, and sometimes a mix of the two, and I’d bet you could share a long list of your own along the same lines. For me and Cindy, we never saw any option other than pushing through each of them — good, bad, minor, or major — with all the focus we had in us. After a public or moral fight, the unglamorous grind is where most people quietly quit nurturing the seeds they’ve found in previous adversities. I completely understand, it’s hard! But consistency in the “ordinary” years — especially after an extremely rough season — is the real leadership test. Maintaining that consistency over the long haul produces relationships that offer tremendous strength and it uncovers some relationships that yield every bit as much strain. We’ll look at both next. Before we do that, take the time to identify one stretch of your life that looked stable from the outside but was quietly draining. I’ve mentioned the habit of going the extra mile multiple times to this point. What extra-mile habit kept (or could have kept) the soil you were planting in from going hard?

Ripple Effects

Relationships as Both Strain and Strength

Each adversity Cindy and I worked through from early 2020 through late 2021, professionally and personally, brought its own degree of strain. And so did every single one that followed. Looking back on those, the common thread the hardest ones shared was the relationship we had with the people involved. In late 2024, someone we had been extremely loyal to for more than a decade shared some news with us over a breakfast conversation and closed by saying, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just a business decision.” We’ll circle back to that soon because we pulled a powerful lesson from that.

Before we get there, though, think about what has to exist for a situation to have a lasting impact — good or bad. We have to care about the people involved. Without some form of relationship in place, the same scenarios would be little more than a bump in the road. That’s certainly true for each one I’ve shared as I’ve challenged you to make the best of your bad situations. But this isn’t exclusive to the tough ones; it’s equally true for the experiences we cherish the most.

As I wrote Leveraging Leadership Growth: Strength Through Great Professional Relationships, a book that started out on the idea that I’ve never been very good at much on my own, I grew more and more thankful for the time and energy so many great people have invested in me over the course of my life. I also became incredibly convicted about the obligation I now carry to pass those lessons along to anyone I possibly can. Like the common thread in each of the toughest situations we experience, those mentoring experiences also resulted in deep relationships.

I often hear managers tell team members to check their personal problems at the door when they get to work. I’ve said that myself more times than I care to admit. The reality, though, is that bad situations rarely stay in one lane. Owning the ripple — without making the people closest to us pay for a fight they did not start — unlocks cooperative growth.

Not so long ago, a friend commented on what he saw as strong friendships Cindy and I had cultivated with so many of our clients and business associates. I thanked him first, then went on to say that I didn’t have a lot of interest in working routinely with people I couldn’t have that type of connection with. In fact, I tied all that back to the premise behind The Values Advantage: when our values align, everything else flows better.

Our victories and our adversities tie directly to the relationships we have with each individual involved. All those times where I suggested employees leave their problems at the time clock when they punched in was unrealistic at best, and bordered on just plain unreasonable. Relationships, even our best ones, are a constant source of strain and strength. While some of our toughest adversities often have direct ties to our closest relationships, that’s exactly what helps us push through. Knowing which one to continue sowing into and which ones to steer away from is crucial — and values-alignment can be a key factor in maintaining a relationship over time. We’ll dig into that more next. Right now, though, think about a recent strain that landed in one of your key relationships. What role did you have in that? And which of the leadership attributes we’ve covered to this point has the closest ties to what you learned from it?