Day 37: Every business hits hard times — the question is whether you'll love the fight enough to show up
I'm in that spot right now—doing the work but not seeing the results yet. The grind, as they say. But there's something different this time around that's got me reflecting.
The Vehicle Matters More Than I Thought
When I sold my farming business, I was convinced the vehicle didn't matter. I thought it was just about running a business—any business. Solve problems for business owners, leverage the systems I'd built managing 160 staff, and the joy would come from the business side of things.
Couldn't have been more wrong about that.
After leaving farming, I spent nine months building an HR and recruitment business. Made sense on paper—I had the skills, knew the systems, could solve real problems. But when things got tough (as they always do), I didn't want to fight that particular fight.
That's when it hit me: every business is going to have its moment of hard.
Three Times I've Faced the Hard
First time: Back in farming, there were years of hard. Brutal years. But I loved the work itself—used to spend hours reading farming magazines with my brother, listing equipment, guessing engine hours. We'd read those trading mags more than anything else. When the tough times came, it was easy to turn up because I genuinely loved what I was doing.
Second time: The HR business. Same level of difficulty—new industry, no network, didn't understand B2B marketing or the path to market. All the skills I needed to develop from scratch. But nine months in, I realised I didn't love this particular hard. It was soul-destroying.
Third time: Now, with business automation. I've got two customers, no real revenue yet, just building product and skills in public. Same level of hard, same uncertainty. But I jump out of bed energised to work on these problems.
The Reversal That Changed Everything
I thought my first love was farming, but looking back, the business side overtook that. The entrepreneurial journey became my true love. So when I left farming, I figured any business vehicle would do.
The reversal? The vehicle absolutely matters.
You can't just love "running a business" in the abstract. You need to love the specific work—the daily grind, the problems you're solving, the fight you're choosing to fight.
Finding Just Right
Too hot: Staying in farming forever. It was my first love, but the business side had grown to mean more.
Too cold: Generic business consulting. Solving problems, sure, but in a vessel that didn't truly energise me during the hard times.
Just right: Business automation. It combines my love of systems with work that has me looking forward to the next 6-12 months (or longer) of difficulty ahead.
I'm not sure what the value of this reflection is for anyone else building something, but here's what I know: there's going to be an element of hard because your skills won't match what you need. That's just the territory.
The question isn't whether you'll face hard times—it's whether you'll love the work enough to show up when things don't go as planned.
Turns out, that makes all the difference.