Finding Your Second Wind in Business

Let me go way back in my "way back machine" to the summer before my senior year of high school.

I was preparing for my senior football season. We didn't have a lot of players, which meant many of us had to play both offense and defense. I knew I needed to be in the best shape possible, so that summer I was running, doing sit-ups, doing push-ups, and preparing myself for the season.

I remember one particular day when I was running and suddenly felt completely fatigued.

I wanted to stop.

But I kept pushing. I was determined to get myself into shape, so I kept putting one foot in front of the other.

For the next five or ten minutes, it was hard.

Then something happened that I had never experienced before.

I got what I've heard called a "second wind."

Suddenly, I felt energized. Running became relatively easy again. I couldn't believe how different I felt.

It was amazing.

So what does my high school football conditioning have to do with helping businesses grow, streamline their IT, and improve their processes?

Sometimes in business, you hit the wall.

You've been working on the same problem for so long that you don't know what else to try. You keep pushing harder, having more meetings, looking at more reports, trying another piece of software, or making another change.

But you're still stuck.

In running, pushing through that wall helped me find my second wind.

In business, simply pushing harder isn't always the answer.

Sometimes you need a different set of eyes.

A good consultant can step into a situation without all the assumptions that have built up over time. They can ask questions you may not have considered, recognize patterns they've seen before, and help you see options that are difficult to see when you're in the middle of the problem every day.

Sometimes the breakthrough isn't working harder.

Sometimes it's getting a fresh perspective that helps you find your second wind.

If your business has hit a wall and you're not sure what to try next, sometimes a conversation with someone outside the situation is a good place to start.