Five Tips to Overcome Challenges
Broken sprinkler systems, a dead dryer, a refrigerator shelf that exploded mid-recording, squirrels (and Texas "tree rats") chewing through pool heater wires — and, more seriously, an unexpected early retirement in Lori's household and her dad's advancing Alzheimer's. The last few weeks handed Vonda and Lori a pile of challenges, personal and professional, and their flower shop members are feeling it too: worries about 2023, hiring struggles, and the daily weight of being the person whose name is on the bills. So this episode gets practical: five tips for overcoming challenges of any size.
1. Start with your mindset
Lori pulls out a book she's read twice — Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, which also sits on Barry Gottlieb's must-read list. The quick synopsis: there are two ways to meet the world. A fixed mindset says "it's always been this way, and you're never going to change me." A growth mindset asks, "what can I learn from this? Am I open to letting this change me?" You can't stop challenges from coming — but you get to decide how to absorb them. Lori is living it in real time: her fixed-mindset reaction to her husband's early retirement was "but that's what the spreadsheet said!" Her growth-mindset reframe: "I might as well keep growing and learning — what's next year going to be? Won't that be fun?" With a fixed mindset, every challenge bounces off you and leaves you defensive and bitter; with a growth mindset, you can almost get excited.
2. Let the dust settle
Unless someone needs CPR, almost no challenge requires an instant response. Take a breath, look at your options, do a little research, then decide — the way Vonda weighed fixing her dryer yet again versus buying new (availability made the call). For shop owners fielding angry customers, blindsided-by-the-planner brides, and no-show deliveries — sometimes five in one day — this deserves a permanent Post-it note. Lori recalls a member who got an unkind, out-of-nowhere message from an event planner after a wedding she thought went beautifully. They talked it through, the member waited the whole weekend before responding — and she has zero regrets about what she sent. Compare that to every reply we've fired off angry. Write the email; just don't send it.
3. Ask for help — you are not alone
While the dust settles is exactly the time to reach out. Lori's favorite emails from members start with "do you have a minute? Can I run something by you?" If no person is available, the internet is: YouTube taught Vonda sprinkler repair, and a Sunday-night search can surface experts who've handled your exact situation. And in this industry, you're truly never alone — between AIFD, SAF, state associations, forums and Facebook groups, somebody has been through what you're facing right now. Just knowing that is freeing.
4. Stay focused — on the solution, not the spiral
Lori admits this is her hardest one: when a challenge carries stress or anger, she can't focus on anything else — the pit in the stomach, the endless stewing, the trying to solve it alone. That obsessive dwelling makes everything worse and makes you feel more alone. Staying focused doesn't mean fixating on the problem; it means focusing on finding a logical solution. Gather your ideas, make the decision, and get the challenge out of the way so it stops consuming everything else.
5. Move forward with confidence
Here's the freeing part: your decision might turn out to be wrong, and that's okay. The key is being confident in — and at peace with — the consequences of a decision you made carefully. You let the dust settle, you asked for help, you focused, you chose. If it goes sideways, you learn from it and move on. What you don't do is second-guess yourself forever.
Why trees need storms
Lori closes with a story worth remembering: Biosphere 2, the sealed dome ecosystem in Arizona where eight scientists lived for two years trying to replicate Earth. They recreated rainforests and rain — but the trees kept reaching a certain height, falling over, and dying. The reason? The scientists had left out wind. Trees need bad weather; storms force their roots deeper and make them strong enough to keep growing. "Exactly like humans," Lori says. We don't grow in the easy, replicated calm — we grow because challenges come at us, and then it becomes our job to share what we learned so others can grow too.
Key takeaways
- You can't stop challenges from coming, but you always choose how to respond — fixed mindset or growth mindset.
- Almost nothing requires an immediate reply. Wait, breathe, research — the weekend-long pause has no regrets; the instant angry email does.
- Ask for help early; in the floral industry someone has already lived your exact problem.
- Focus on the solution instead of dwelling on the problem — then decide.
- Own your decisions with confidence, even the imperfect ones, and learn as you go.
- Like the Biosphere 2 trees, you need the storms — they're what make your roots deep enough to grow.