3 Tips to Protect Your Business from Life’s Curveballs

I’m the oldest of 5 children. I’ve been married for 13 years (as of this writing) and have four children. And I’ve run a business I started in high school over 16 years ago. In all of this, the one thing I’ve learned is that life will throw some serious curveballs. The thing about a curveball is that it changes direction when you don’t expect it. If you’re not ready, it could hit you, or you’ll miss the hit, but if you expect the curveball, you can see it coming and be prepared.

I could probably go on longer about how this relates to family, marriage, and children, but I want to focus on business for now.

The company I run has successfully grown, year over year, for 16 years in a row. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but always growing. Each year, the top and bottom lines have always been higher than the previous year. One of the most important parts of that growth has been seeing the curveball coming.

When we first started, there were very few things we offered as a company. Frankly, we didn’t even do those very well, but I was hungry and wanted to keep learning and growing. Over the years, life has offered some incredible opportunities and a few very complicated curveballs.

The best way to be ready for a curveball is to have a good foundation in place. If your feet are planted and your eye is on the ball, you can be ready for anything that comes at you. It doesn’t mean you’ll always hit a home run, but it helps prevent strikeouts. Here are three tips that have helped me manage life’s curveballs and keep the business growing.

Let these three things resonate a bit and the next time life throws you a curveball, be prepared, plant your feet, keep your eye on the ball and swing the bat. You’ll still miss sometimes, but you can never hit a home run if you don’t swing the bat.