Completely out of our control. It seems like just yesterday. All we cared about was that our children stayed safe. Eventually in late 2001, I poured a great deal of time and money into marketing to find new clients, but it produced not even one phone call.
• Eye Surgeries: 2007 – 2008: In the back of our eyes, we all have a film. At some point that film drops down. For some unlucky people that film catches on their retina and pulls the retina until it becomes partially detached. They didn’ t do anything wrong. It is just the luck of the draw. This is all what my ophthalmologist explained to me. I was doubly unlucky on this one. I had a partially detached retina in my right eye in 2007 and a partially detached retina in my left eye in 2008. Wow, those were pretty serious setbacks. Fortunately, my doctor was able to reattach both retinas. Unfortunately, that eventually led to cataract surgery in both eyes. But none of this was nearly as bad as to what would happen next.
• The Great Recession of 2008-2010: In October 2008, the housing market along with the stock market suddenly imploded. The Dow Jones went from about 14,000 in 2007 to around 6,600 in 2009, or at least that’ s what I remember. In 2009, I made less than 10 % of what I had made in 2006. It was not until late 2010 that clients started really coming back to work with me. It was the lowest point of my 25 years in business. I lost all the money I had saved during the previous 10 years.
• The Pandemic: March 2020-August 2021: And even as bad as The Great Recession had been, nothing prepared us for the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Millions of people died around the world. People literally could not leave their house for weeks at a time. To go grocery shopping a person had to wear a mask every minute, and toilet paper was on a tremendously tight ration. I couldn’ t even go see my 91-year-old mom at her senior living apartments because I was not her primary caregiver. However, as with all the other unexpected events, the pandemic led to new ways of adding value to people. I cleaned out my closet, found The Adventure of Life Course that I hadn’ t taught in over 25 years, and created my leadership development and executive development group coaching programs. They have turned out to be one of my very favorite ways of work with people to develop as leaders and as executives.
Of course, the same things I went through in all these situations also affected hundreds of thousands of other businesses in very negative ways. No business fully knows what is just around the bend ahead. Not only is change constant, but even the changes change.
What I’ ve learned is to control what you can control, don’ t worry about what you can’ t control, and do the best you can with what you have at this moment. I love this quote: All you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough. Successful entrepreneurs keep forging new paths and new approaches to add value to customers.
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GearedUp | 2025 Issue 3
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