In 2016, I was a partner in a struggling business. Things seemed fine on the outside, but the inside was not healthy. We struggled to keep everything afloat. Rather than slow everything down and regularly evaluate our situation, we continued to operate business as usual, primarily on the hope of “it’s gonna get better.” We depended on every sale that came in to pay for things and try to catch up on debt or items we needed to purchase to fill orders. Our business bank account went negative so many times. There were months that we incurred over $1000 in overdraft and returned item fees. Many of the clients that we had were tied to government money and were slow to pay, which exacerbated our cash flow problems. In 2011, before I first joined the company, my wife Jessica counseled me not to do it. But, being the eternal optimist that I am, I didn’t listen. At the time, I had multiple streams of income. I was leading worship, consulting businesses, and brokering jobs for businesses. So adding this business in seemed like just another stream to supplement everything I was already doing. Plus the opportunity was exciting. But, what began as a promising opportunity, slowly turned into a defeating burden. I didn’t take much out of the company for the first of many months, so that the business could sustain my partner and it’s operations. But rather than get better at our operations, we just did more of the same. In the back of my mind I thought there would come a day when there would be enough money in the bank to pay me back for that time. In order to keep this new business afloat, I moved many of my outside clients into the company.

