Problem or Opportunity – It’s up to You

Some success stories land unexpectedly in people’s laps or, in this case, in the driveway. Here’s a story that turned what originally felt like a disaster into an opportunity.

A friend in a remote area emailed me to say that a hurricane caused a hickory tree that was more than 400 years old to fall across the only way in and out of her property. She was upset about the tree which had shaded generations of her family and even more upset that she was trapped on her property. She could climb out over the tree but her car couldn’t. Her job was far away and not a commute that anyone around her made. There was no public transportation. She was afraid she would lose her job. The bids to remove the huge old tree were in the thousands of dollars - money that she didn’t have. The problems were many and overwhelming. The phrase that leaped out like a song was “400-year-old hickory.” I called as soon as I read the email. I didn’t want her to get any chainsaws started!

400-year-old hickory is desirable for many purposes from gun stocks to golf clubs to furniture and cabinets. I asked her if there was a mill nearby. After our conversation, she was on the phone with the nearest lumber mill. Instead of paying thousands to have the tree removed, she was able to sell it for thousands. The mill carefully cut and removed the tree. She also negotiated enough milled lumber to redo her kitchen. The workers strapped it under her mobile home to store safely until she had the time for the project. When the next hurricane hit, many of her neighbors’ mobile homes were knocked off the foundations but hers was weighed down by her beautiful hickory lumber and stayed put. Branches that were too small for the mill to want made fine firewood for her and for neighbors who were happy to pay a below market price for the firewood and take it away. We discussed the additional value of the chips from the cutting. It was a simple and affordable matter for her to make up some muslin bags and sell the chips for use in barbecues. The little that was left fed the soil.

It took a second set of eyes to look at the problem in a different way and see opportunity. When problems pile up, it’s hard to see a way out. It happens more often than you might think in businesses, too. Learn to love problems for the opportunities they unearth.