I remember when I was struggling in the early 1990s, and I patched together a few bucks, and I drove to Cleveland for a workshop with managing recruiters. I remember I drove because I could not afford the flight. I was really struggling. 

While I did forget the names of the speakers, one stood out, and I always remembered his message. I have told it several times a year since then. He founded the Great American Cookie Company. He was a healthy guy and got in a car accident, causing paralysis from the neck down. Doctors told him he would never walk again. The guy walked up to the stage. He was telling the story, so obviously, he walked again.

I forgot the process he went through with the healing, but this was a turnaround moment for me. He wanted to thank the Spinal Foundation for all their work with him, so he decided to bike across the country, raise money, and donate it all to this cause.

He lived in Atlanta and was going to bike to San Diego. He worked out. He got in shape, all this stuff, and he left Atlanta. He goes through Alabama and gets into Mississippi without too much of a problem. He hits Louisiana, and he can feel it in his legs. He is thinking, I have got to go all the way to San Diego, and it was painful.

In Louisiana, he said, how far to the Texas line? They gave him the number of miles, and he said, alright, I can focus on just getting into Texas and focus on the state line. If I hit that, I hit my goal.

He gets into Texas. Texas is a big state. I cannot ask how far it is to New Mexico. How far is it to the next county line? My team looked it up, and they told me how many miles I had to bike, so I went through Texas county by county. He goes, it was excruciating by the time I got through Texas.

When he got to New Mexico, he said, I cannot do counties anymore. I am just going to go town by town. How far is it to the next town line? I got through New Mexico by going from town to town. All I focused on was getting to the next town.

Then, when he got to Arizona, he said, I could not do that anymore, so I biked one telephone pole to the next to San Diego.  

I just thought, what a beautiful metaphor. When you are in a restart mode or when you are really struggling, and you look at $300,000, and you have very little in your bank account, you have no receivables, and I have been there a couple of times.

I remember Mike’s telephone pole to telephone pole was one call to the other. I prepared a list, and all I did was make the next call. I made the best of it when I was on that next call. I did not worry about how many calls I would make that day.

I did not even have a goal. I did have an outcome goal that I was going to talk to 10 people, but all I did was I did not allow myself distractions. Make the next call. Make the next call. Make the next call. That is how I dug out of my hole in the early 1990s. One call at a time.

Hopefully, that story helps you guys. Those of you with teams, for example, when someone is struggling, that is some excellent insight.