Picture of John Pyron, the Business Doctor

John Pyron, the Business Doctor

How to Handle Adversity

Are you dealing with adversity right now? Are you staying awake late at night frustrated with where your business is at? Maybe your leads or referrals have dried up. Maybe you have a systems problem. Maybe you have more business than you can handle. Maybe you are like I was back in November 2013. I made the cardinal mistake of putting all my eggs in one basket with a new business that I was trying to build. I had two outside coaching clients, each paying me $300/month and one big whale of a client that was my bread and butter.

The company was a startup, and they were anticipating a round of funding coming in from one of their investors. The Thursday before Thanksgiving, the investor decided to wait until February to provide the financing. I remember sitting down in the CEOs office while he informed me they would be putting my contact on hold along with five other Contractors.  I remember walking out of that office in Roseville PISSED OFF. It was supposed to be a six-month commitment.

The Thursday before Thanksgiving I went from a nice sustainable income to $600 a month. My wife was a stay at home mom; I had a six-year-old kid, a mortgage to pay, and all my other bills. This company didn’t understand or care that they were putting my bills on hold for three months. I went home, and my wife told me I needed to get a job. I did not want to get a job. All my resume listed was CEO, CEO, and CEO. I looked at it thinking, “how the heck am I going to do this? We are headed into the holiday season and nobody is going to hire me. I don’t even want a job.”

I went on one interview. I had to feed my family. As I was sitting in that CEO’s office, going through the interview, I started coaching him about his business. As this was happening, I realized “I don’t want to work for you, I don’t want to be an employee at all. I want to face this adversity and use it to create opportunities in my business.

December 2, 2013, I decided to stick to my commitment. I will never work for somebody again. So, I went out and started generating leads, setting appointments, running appointments, and I started landing new clients. I was still dragging butt with my brand-new company, but all of a sudden its April 2014 and I had a $9,600 month. I built a six-figure business by taking the negative energy from adversity and putting it towards something productive, and I worked by Butt off!!!

I look back at that challenge and remember how tough it was. I would wake up at 3:00 in the morning in a panic about not being able to support my family. Maybe you are going through that right now. If you are, focus on revenue-producing activities in your business and don’t go at it alone. Find somebody who can coach you. Maybe I’m a fit, and maybe I’m not. It must be a fit. Here’s the point, don’t give up on your dream and what you have to offer to this world. We need to hear from you. If you give up, we’ll never hear your message.

Sit down and write out your goals. Write down exactly what you want to accomplish. Don’t worry about how you are going to get there. Just concentrate on what you want. Don’t give up on your dream, or go back and get a job. You were designed for greatness. If you are going through adversity right now, I want you to pick yourself up, find some people to support you, get rid of the ones who don’t, and go out and make it happen. If I can help you out in any way, I will. If I can’t, I probably know someone who can. Either way, your dream is worth it, and I wish you great success. If you want to connect with me, go to my website at johnpyron.com and click on the book appointment button.  I will gladly give you 10-15 minutes of time for free to answer any questions you have.

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