When It Rains, It Pours: Giving Yourself Grace in Life’s Storms
This episode started as a one-line Slack message from Lori: "I want to do a podcast called When It Rains, It Pours." (A saying, she discovered over the weekend, her Gen Z son has never heard.) What follows is one of the most open, vulnerable conversations the hosts have had — because Lori just lived one of those weeks, and it made her wonder out loud: if she owned a brick-and-mortar flower shop and had to physically show up every day, how would she have gotten through it?
Panic or prayer: Lori's week
First, the news she's finally allowed to share: Lori is going to be a grandma — her oldest son and his wife are expecting. But Wednesday she woke to a text that they were in the emergency room. Everything is okay now, but it was very scary, they're in another state, and there was nothing she could do but spend the day cycling between what she calls her two Ps: panic and prayer. Then Thursday, her youngest son's car broke down. Friday, his girlfriend — whose parents live far away — was in a car accident. Saturday, a call from her dad's nurse: he's insisting he already showered (he's lying; he hates showers). Meanwhile, the work projects she'd been genuinely excited about sat unfinished, and the mental spiral kicked in: guilt as a parent, guilt as a daughter, guilt as a coworker, all the way to "maybe it's time I retire."
The hosts sort the chaos into two piles. The logistics — fender benders, repair quotes, police reports — don't really stress Lori; everybody's fine, cars can be fixed. It's the emotional, fear-based fires that push her into frozen mode. And that's exactly when she's afraid to touch important work, because that's when mistakes happen.
The guilt we were raised with
Both hosts recognize the same inheritance: pull up your bootstraps and get to work. Vonda quotes Marie Ackerman's version — "put on your big girl panties and let's go" — and admits that in her younger years she would never have allowed herself a minute; you powered through, because that's what your parents did and there was a bride this weekend you'd committed to. There's a time for the bootstraps, Lori agrees. But there's also a time to hide under the covers and say "I need a minute. I want someone to go for me" — an option their generation was never offered.
On guilt itself, Lori is unequivocal, drawing on how she was raised: guilt is not from God — conviction is different — and guilt doesn't produce positive change; it leads to burnout and resentment while you sit in it. Vonda adds the practical version: most of what we feel guilty about can't be changed anyway. Even the parenting guilt got its answer by weekend's end, when Lori's son called to say thank you — "well, we did something right." Gratitude, as she says, is all you can really ask for in a kid.
Build your bench before the storm
So what does a shop owner do when a week like this collides with a wedding on the books? Vonda's answer: hopefully you've built the backup before you need it. That means awareness of who's around you — in the shop and outside it — and what each person is genuinely gifted at. Who could order the flowers? Who has the relationships to coordinate your driver and designers? Who knows you well enough to say "Vonda would want it done this way"? The hosts point back to a practice from an earlier episode: sit down with each employee now and ask what they love most about their job, see whether it matches what you observe they're good at — "matching the socks," as Lori puts it — and keep notes on where each person shines. Then, when the rain comes, you already know: Stephanie takes front of house, Janice backs her up, we're good.
It's okay to close — just be clear
And sometimes there is no bench. Lori gets goosebumps watching it happen in the members-only Facebook group: a small shop with maybe one part-timer hits an emergency, and other members rally around them with the same message — shut it down, it's okay, this will pass. The key is communication: email your list, post on social, put a pop-up on your website, change the voicemail. Cover your bases — and be specific. "Temporarily closed" with no explanation starts the Facebook rumor mill ("they didn't pay their bills!"). "Closed through the weekend for a family emergency, reopening Monday" does the opposite: Vonda describes a florist friend in North Carolina who posts exactly that during hospital stays, and his customers respond with prayers, compassion, and loyalty. People aren't judging — they're nosy looky-loos who just want to be in the know, and clear customers become invested customers.
The episode closes with re-entry: Lori woke at 3 a.m. with anxiety that, she notices, is no longer about the storm at all — it's her own self-talk about whether the content she makes this week will be good enough. Her plan is the unglamorous stuff that works: prioritize, delegate, breathe; "chunk" the Google calendar into focus blocks (Ellie's term), phone on silent, and permission to take a ten-minute phone-free walk after each block. Meanwhile Vonda's chunk for the week is Valentine's Day planning — before Thanksgiving has even arrived — because that's this industry: working on tomorrow, Christmas, and February all at once. The closing thought is the reason for the title: the storm always passes, and sometimes it leaves your garden stronger and blooming brighter.
Key takeaways
- Sort your fires: logistics can be delegated and scheduled; emotional emergencies deserve your full attention — and grace for the work that waits.
- Guilt changes nothing and feeds burnout. Family and mental health come first, and "power through" isn't the only inheritance worth keeping.
- Build your backup bench now: learn what each person on (and around) your team is gifted at, and note who steps in for what.
- If you must close for an emergency, close — but communicate clearly everywhere, with the reason and a reopen date. Specific beats "temporarily closed" every time.
- Re-enter with structure: chunk your calendar into focus blocks, silence the phone, and take real breaks between them.