The Obstacle is the Way | Dealing with Problems in Business

“You’re just going through a bit of a rebalancing.” That’s what Martha said to me after we spent the last few weeks facing obstacle after obstacle. And she’s right.

Let me elaborate.

I’ve recently come back from the trip of a lifetime to the Borneo jungle. It had been on my bucket list forever, and it was absolutely incredible. But it’s funny how life readdresses the balance of these highs.

I came back buzzing, and walked into chaos.

There was a solicitor’s letter waiting for me from a client that went bust nearly three years ago. We didn’t know they’d had a winding up order served on them, so we’d carried on doing the work because they kept paying us. We had no idea.

Then all of a sudden, the work had stopped. They stopped paying us and we just thought: “OK, maybe they’ve gone bust.”

We didn’t think too much of it at the time.

Three years later, the solicitor’s letter lands: “You shouldn’t have been paid after the winding up order, so you need to return the money.”

Now technically, we probably should have checked the Gazette every day for winding up orders on all our clients. We didn’t do that – maybe we should’ve. Maybe when you grow to the size of business we’re at, you have to.

That was a big chunk of change to pay back to the liquidator.

It could have knocked us sideways. Then straight after that, another client charged back our fees on their credit card. We hadn’t done anything wrong, they just decided to go in a different direction.

But instead of handling it properly, they chose to be a prick about it. And at the same time, one of our team resigned. So all this hit at once.

But the obstacle is the way; life balances out.

I’d had the best time of my life for two weeks. Incredible days. Then straight back into some of the worst. It’s just how it goes.

For a couple of hours, I spiralled. I shut myself away, put some heavy metal on, did something I enjoy. And then I realised that this is the price of entry. The bigger your business gets, the bigger the problems.

That’s just part of growth.

Could I have spent six months fighting that solicitor’s letter? Arguing that we should be top of the credit list because we delivered the work? I could have. But the business would have spiralled too, because all my attention would have gone on that problem.

So instead, I had to ask myself, what’s the lesson here? Could we have seen that business was in trouble? Should we have run Experian credit checks every six months? Sadly, yes.

To run a business of this size, you have to do that stuff.

It’s not just about the lessons though; it’s about leadership. Whether I like it or not, I’m supposed to be a leader. And if the team see me losing my head, everything else will start to go wrong.

The mindset has to be that if you want a million pound business, a five million pound business, a ten million pound business – you’re going to encounter one million, five million and ten million pound problems.

I was listening to Alex Hormozi’s podcast recently.

He got hit with a seven-figure bill he didn’t expect, and had five days to pay it. But he just had to get on with it.

Stuff like this will happen in business, often when you least expect it. You can’t control the obstacle, but you can control your reaction to it.

If a legal letter lands or a staff member kicks off, the rest of the team still need me to be on form. I have to make the choice.

And learning this came through trial and error.

Throughout my time in business, I’ve worked with a lot of coaches. Some good, some bad – but I’ve taken something from all of them.

Paul Mort, the coach I work with now, has been brilliant for me. He struggles too, but he practices what he preaches. One of the most valuable things he’s taught me is to write down 10 good things that come from every terrible thing.

Now I do that automatically in my head.

And I also still journal it – it helps me process things. Sometimes we’re choosing to stew in the problem. When I stop writing down my wins, I start to feel like there aren’t any. But there are, we just don’t notice them.

There’s an argument for making people write down three wins before they go home every day. Most businesses don’t do that, but I think it would have a massive positive impact.

Of course there are obstacles in business.

That’s what people pay you for, to help them overcome obstacles. So naturally, you’re going to have obstacles too.

When a big one comes, you can fall into the “why always me” mindset. But if you want to live a life that’s different, you have to be willing to deal with things that most people won’t.

You’re going to be more stressed when you have more – that’s the trade-off.

The ultimate goal is to be grateful for the obstacles.

See them as the next opportunity, like levelling up in a computer game. You beat the bad guy and get to the next level.

Big obstacles are hard because you can’t see what’s on the other side. But what’s there is usually fantastic. The problem is that people think the more money they have, the less stress they’ll have. That’s not true.

You just get new types of stress.

So as your business gets bigger, expect problems. Build routines for mindset resilience. Have people you can rely on. If you get those things in place, you’ll be unstoppable.

The obstacle is the way.

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.