I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago where a guy was talking about looking back at the turning points in his life (and no, he wasn’t 22). He also discussed this with some peers, discussing the high and low points in their lives and the turning points they had experienced during those periods. When you have discussions on a single subject with multiple people, patterns tend to appear. One of the things he noticed was that all of the positive or high-impact turning points occurred as he reached a point where he was fed up with an uncomfortable or unpleasant situation.
When we’re dealing with these uncomfortable, unpleasant situations, we often end up taking steps and making efforts that cause us to operate outside of our comfort zone. At the time, it can feel awful. Later, we usually wonder why we thought it was such a big deal. This stuff happens when we get sick and tired of a situation, whatever that situation might be.
The conversation described made me think about the turning points I’ve had – and the situation a lot of business owners are going through right now.
Decisions are turning points
Some of my turning points also came when I was sick and tired of an uncomfortable and/or unpleasant situation, but the most significant came when our family had made a major decision and my work was essential to our ability to make it happen.
In particular, I think back to an older gentleman I met in Jackson Hole in 1995, as we were just starting to figure out the financial and work–related details that moving back to the mountains would mean. He shoved me into the deep end with a simple comment: “Bring your own job because we don’t have enough of them here.” He moved to Jackson in the early ’60s with a station wagon full of kids and $200 in his pocket and had seen a lot in the next 35 years so I took him at his word. That conversation and our goals drove the acquisition of two software companies that set the entrepreneurial angle of my software career in motion.
What situations made you uncomfortable in the past? Perhaps there are parallels to now, perhaps not. Even if you aren’t uncomfortable, does your career or business need a turning point? If you’re not uncomfortable, but perhaps are concerned, what changes could happen over the next six months that would require a turning point?
The time to think about these things and plan for them is before you need to. What could force a turning point in your business or career? How would you re-leverage what you do, what you know – and your network?
It isn’t always about you, however. Others are facing these things even if you aren’t. How can you help, advise, or provide opportunity for someone who has reached a turning point? There are a lot of folks out of work right now. Six months ago, finding good people was difficult. Today, not so much. Do you know business owners who are having a tough time of it? Perhaps a partnership makes sense with the right business.
Pivots are similar
I mention concerns because sometimes we see things coming before they arrive, but they aren’t necessarily significant turning points like a career change or a change of market. Often times, the approach of dips in the economy send familiar signals before they hit arrive, even if the reason for the dip is different than in the past.
Experienced business owners have a pretty good idea what’s coming because they’ve struggled through these and survived in the past – even if it was ugly. Sometimes, we recognize them because we didn’t seem them coming the last time. Each time, we generally get a little better at recognizing them, and see the signs a little earlier. Hopefully, we react a little differently based on what we tried last time, what worked, and what didn’t.
Sometimes the moves are smaller – like restaurants going big on takeout and breweries transforming their parking lots into dispersed seating. With cool fall weather only a few months away, they’re probably already thinking about how they’ll handle that outdoor seating in cool (and then cold) weather. These might not be big turning points, but they will be a bit of a pivot within existing businesses.
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