Setback

‘The difference between a stumbling block and a stepping stone is not in the event itself but in how you think about it and what you do after it.’ (Michael Josephson)

I was coaching an inspiring business entrepreneur in Southeast Asia last week. She’s avidly developing a social enterprise to benefit the poorest people in her local community by providing them with affordable nutritious food and invaluable employment opportunities. I’m impressed by her compassion for those who are vulnerable and her vision to bring hope. She’s a follower of Jesus and sees this as her distinctive calling. It’s not an easy environment in which to make headway and there are lots of barriers on route.

Three months into this venture, she’s reached a point where the question that now faces her is how to scale-up to reach and benefit more people. It’s a tricky challenge to navigate. We looked at different options with their relative pros and cons alongside them. The dilemma lays in how to generate sufficient resources to create the investments needed to make the leap, along with the associated financial risks if things don’t work out as planned. And that with very little to fall back on apart from her faith in God.

She settled on the idea of a stepping stone: a fridge-freezer that would enable her to save unsold stock and broaden the range of items available. Having bought it, however, an envious neighbour immediately and anonymously notified the health department that she was cooking in her own home. Officials visited the next day and insisted she make expensive changes to her kitchen before she may continue. The stepping stone became a stumbling block. So now – how turn a setback into a step forward..?

The test here is less one of situational circumstances per se and more one of resourcefulness and resilience. I’m reminded of Michael Jordan’s words, ‘Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, dig under it, go through it or work around it.’ This young woman studied psychology, has fire in her spirit and won’t give up easily. She prays hard, thinks creatively and is absolutely determined to find or innovate a way through this. She will succeed.