Having to overcome unexpected problems is a hallmark of entrepreneurship. Almost every business owner, artist, maker, and creative we know has had to deal with countless unexpected problems that arise in the journey and so we asked some brilliant folks from the community to share their stories of the unexpected problems they’ve faced along the way.

Berta Troyer

Working with clients to declutter and create a more manageable space consists of solving one problem after another. While coaching clients to make a stream of consecutive decisions on individual items, so often, personalities, emotions, traumas and more quickly surface. You might think this would be the most challenging part of what I do, but for me it is getting to this point that is the most difficult. Read more>>

Faith Borkowsky

Transitioning to online tutoring and meetings during the pandemic was absolutely frightening. As they say, when one door closes, another one opens, and that is exactly what happened. I began having a broader impact across the country and meeting people from around the world. Read more>>

Petra Vega

One of the hardest things about being a business owner is learning to see past the flashy marketing, pictures and promises. It’s been a year-long practice in personally and peripherally discerning what’s the real deal in what someone is saying vs. what exactly is possible (especially for someone who’s committing to creating more possibilities in the world). In this season, I’m learning that “it all works”, all being the strategies people may share and it’s really about “will it work for you though”. Read more>>

Ty | Bradley Thomas | Randle

The biggest struggle we’ve faced, and sometimes still do, is product defects. When dealing with epoxy resin, you have to be very diligent with mixing, stirring, and pouring. Patience is the key when working with resin. For that reason, we don’t let Ty handle any resin duties (laughing). Read more>>

Garen Colina

With flower farming, you have to plan failing over and over again. You are working with Mother Nature and sometimes flowers fail and aren’t viable or you forget to water and an entire row of seedlings is gone just like that. If you think about the money you could lose, you would never be a flower farmer. At first this would defeat me, but now I anticipate these failures and learn from them to better each growing season. Read more>>

Stephanie Laffey

One of the most unexpected problems I’ve faced in my business actually happened recently. The day after our kickoff call for my new signature group coaching program – Mastering Conversations for Shy Introverts – one of my clients reached out. Read more>>

John Hope

Lack of ethics and/or just plain unethical behavior. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of it over 35 years of military service, a lot more than I expected. Upon retirement, I decided to become a performance coach. I signed on with a franchise after doing a lot of investigation and due diligence. The franchise training program was advertised as being certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), which I later discovered that it was not. Read more>>