A few nights ago, my wife and I woke up to our five year-old walking into our bedroom.
He was crying and complaining that his stomach hurt.
So we took him to the bathroom, got him some water, and helped him calm down. Within a few minutes he fell asleep in bed with us.
It’s never pleasant having your sleep interrupted – but it’s so much better now that he’s older and can tell us what’s wrong.
When he was an infant, he couldn’t tell us what was wrong.
He would just cry.
Most researchers agree that young babies can’t “localize” their pain. They don’t know what hurts or why, they just know that they’re experiencing pain or discomfort somewhere in their body.
As a parent, it’s hard to deal with. All you want is to help your kiddo feel better. But they can’t tell you what’s wrong, so you don’t know how to help them.
That’s why I was so grateful the other night – Carter was able to tell us what was wrong and we helped him feel better and get back to sleep.
Lots of business owners have a similar, immature reaction to pain in their business.
They know that something hurts. Something is wrong. But they either can’t or won’t localize the pain.
So… they tolerate the pain. They ignore it and hope that it goes away. Or they succumb to the pain and throw in the towel.
What they don’t do is step back, peel back the layers, and figure out exactly what is CAUSING the pain in their business.
Unpredictable cash flow is a SYMPTOM.
Employee turnover is a SYMPTOM.
A lack of quality leads is a SYMPTOM.
Overwork & burnout is a SYMPTOM.
Customer turnover is a SYMPTOM.
Every one of us experiences pain running our business.
The question is, how do you react?
Do you ignore it, tolerate it, maybe cry about it, hope it goes away, but never identify what’s causing it?
Or do you step-back, identify the CAUSE of the pain, and then make a plan to fix it?
“We don’t get what we want. We get what we tolerate.” – Tony Robbins
Don’t tolerate the pain!
Danny Decker
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