The old Adirondack kitchen smells like woodsmoke and wet cedar — a wood stove that has held its ground since 1855, long before any of us arrived. The screen door slams behind me, the rain has been falling on and off for days, and I’ve walked barefoot through the soggy yard just to put on the kettle. I await its high-pitched whistle. Yes, the microwave would be more efficient, but I try to make life here more like it was a hundred years ago.

The lake outside my window is swollen and full … so brimming there’s no room for any more water without spilling over the dock. 

There is something grounding about this place, this old building that has housed generations of summers, quiet mornings, and people working things out. It steadies me. 

Storms in the Sunshine

One thing about life … it can be sunny and still raining. Some days are simply emotionally soggy without a drop of rain. The weight comes not from full clouds, but something or someone in your life who has disappointed you, let you down, or broken your trust.

When you work with as many people as I do, you have to learn to let those things roll off your back. Sometimes people say things that could be hurtful. But my dad always used to say, “Let it go in one ear and out the other.” His advice is wise, because if you allow the darts to penetrate you, you’ll get wounded. If you deflect them, it stings a little, but you’re not brought down.

No Drama

My rule in life and at my events is “no drama.” Drama is disruptive, can easily get everyone off track and in a tizzy, and is never necessary. Some people conduct most of their lives drama-free, others thrive on it as if they look for drama to wound them so they can play the victim.

I’ve owned my company for over four decades, and I’ve seen everything. One thing that comes from experience is wisdom, and you get to the point where you can accurately predict what’s next by the behavior of others. When I started my business, those things would put me into a funk for a few days or weeks, but after about 10 years of bad things happening, I stopped letting my emotions cloud my life. Now, when bad things happen — and they do all the time — personally and professionally, I’m able to compartmentalize them.

Staying Unclouded

Dealing with things like recessions and needing to lay off friends, or health issues like my son’s heart attack a few years ago, when he was near death, unable to be revived for what seemed like an eternity, I was upset, bothered, but I did not let it cloud my ability to process the difficult decisions we had to make. Watching an employee and friend slip into a coma, become brain dead, and die after a week was horrific, yet pushing the need to emote and react aside helped me process a horrible moment. That does not mean I don’t hurt, I do. But I continue to function while hurting.

I’m not sure what a therapist would tell me. They would probably say I’m squashing my feelings, but I’m OK with that if it provides me the ability to function instead of being devastated. 

Signals of Sunshine

I had a moment of clarity a few years ago, which is that no one ever told me life would have such tough moments and that when they came, I could choose to let them stop me or slow me down, or I could choose to power through. And I’ve realized that the toughest moments, the hardest things, the storms of life, tend to be a signal that things are about to clear, and that the best, sunny days are ahead.

Business guru Peter Drucker always said that storms come with change, but change is necessary, so you have to be willing to ride out the storms. It’s true in life, in business, and in anything good. 

You can spend your time causing drama, or you can batten down the hatches, do things you need to do, and survive. I choose survival every time. 

What about you? What are you facing that is hard, that is bringing you down? Is there a way to pull yourself out of it? Or will you absorb it and let it destroy you?

Fired From My Own Company

Back in the late ’90s, I had my dream job as the founder and CEO of an internet radio company, the first of its kind to put music on the internet. I raised a ton of money, hired the best people in the business, and proceeded to invent an entirely new industry. But when the towers got hit on September 11, things got hard, money dried up, and I was fired by my own board. I was deeply wounded, bitter, and angry. I carried it for a long time. 

By carrying it, I didn’t hurt the people who fired me, I hurt myself because I was taking fewer chances, fewer risks, and I lost a lot of valuable time. It was an important lesson, especially because I eventually realized they did me a big favor: I was not the CEO who had to go through the painful process of bankruptcy, and I landed on something that made me happier and more fulfilled. But at the time, it was like a knife in my gut.

What do you need to let go of? In what ways are you not moving on?
What are you holding on to with negative energy or excessive drama that is hurting no one but yourself?

Getting Even

I once had a friend who felt he got screwed over, so he went on a mission to destroy the people who screwed him, badmouthing them to everyone who would listen. But in the process he destroyed himself, because he became bitter and came across that way. He did not move on for several years, until finally he realized he hadn’t gotten screwed over at all — in fact, they did him a favor.

Old, Deep Wounds

The goal is to land well, and not fill your heart with anger. Forgiveness isn’t for the person you’re forgiving, it’s for your own heart, your own peace. A couple of decades ago I was at a Promise Keepers event, listening to speaker Greg Laurie, who asked, “Who do you need to forgive that you’ve been holding on to for years?” In that moment I realized I was still angry at a kid who bullied me in 7th grade. I prayed to let that anger go. I wonder now, how many things did I avoid because I was still angry and afraid of getting bullied?

Let go of what’s holding you back. Here’s what the Bible says about forgiveness: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). And here are a couple of other quotes on forgiveness I like:

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. 

“He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.” — George Herbert 

Life is short, and being stuck in the mud does you no good. Identify where you’re stuck, what you’re being dramatic about, and move on. Sometimes you don’t want to let go because you’d rather be angry. I get it. Let go anyway.

Eric Rhoads

Fog is dancing across the water, a pink light threading through the trunks of massive pines as it illuminates everything it touches. The lake is glass. Not a ripple. No boats making waves in at least 24 hours, and they’re always rare here. The silence takes getting used to. Occasionally, in the distance, a plane overhead or a chainsaw somewhere, then quiet again.

The spring greens are vibrating. I’m getting to live spring twice this year. First it was Florence, with blossoming trees and wisteria draped over stone walls. Now it’s the Adirondacks, where the lilacs are just opening and the pine-scented air feels medicinal. Loons are calling across the still water, their voices echoing off the distant shore. We are, for now, the only ones here.

The Weight of It

I come to this lake every year for peace, renewal, and the chance to slow down the machine. I take Fridays off when I can. I make frames. I paint. I breathe.

But I also carry something here with me, because I can’t put it down. The weight of running a company is not something you leave at the office, because a lot of families don’t eat if I screw up or get distracted.

I started this business almost four decades ago. Do the math if you want to feel old. The point is, I’ve been through enough now to recognize patterns most younger leaders can’t see yet, because they haven’t been through the storm enough times.

Businesses are like military obstacle courses. Just when you think you’ve got a clear path, something blows up, and you either survive it or you don’t.

What Experience Teaches

When I was a young CEO, everything bothered me. I wanted to control every detail, fix every problem, make everything perfect. Now I know that perfection is a mirage and that most problems either solve themselves, can’t be solved, or aren’t worth solving.

One of the hardest lessons I ever learned came after a phone call from my bookkeeper decades ago. He told me we had three weeks of cash left and needed to close the doors. He saw it as the only option. I wasn’t willing to take his advice. So to survive, I laid off 50 people and kept only four, myself included.

We ran a 50-person operation with four people for two years, and even with those cuts we barely survived. We needed business badly because the recession had dried up all of our advertising. So my one remaining salesperson and I spent 14 grueling weeks on the road, staying in cheap hotels and eating fast food, making about 200 sales calls.

I recall one moment from that trip, a memory that will last forever. A top client insisted we take them to dinner and picked the most expensive restaurant in Washington, D.C. We needed them badly, so we agreed. But first we each ate a burger before we went so we wouldn’t be tempted to order something expensive. Then the client immediately ordered a bottle of expensive wine and the most expensive thing on the menu. I was turning white as a sheet when I saw the $800 bill.

After I handed the waiter my credit card, he returned to the table and said quietly, “Mr. Rhoads, you have a phone call.” This was before cell phones. I was grateful he hadn’t embarrassed me in front of the clients. When I got to the back, they told me my card wouldn’t go through. It was my only card. I had no money. So I gave them my watch, a priceless heirloom my father had given me, and told them I’d send a check and they could mail it back. I returned to the table, pretended everything was fine, and made up some excuse about the call. I’m glad no one asked me the time.

The next day my office wired money to my card so we could continue the trip. And we got the contract. It made everything worthwhile.

Hope Is Not a Strategy

When the recession ended and money started to flow, the temptation was to rebuild quickly. But necessity had taught us how to survive lean. The trouble is, when times are good we tend to get comfortable, add overhead, stop watching the numbers. And when things turn, we kick the can down the road, thinking it’s about to get better when the right move is to act fast.

My friend and mentor Keith Cunningham says it plainly: You can’t take hope to the bank. You can’t cash a check that has “hope” written on it instead of an amount.

There are times to be an optimist. And there are times to be a realist, which is different from being a pessimist. The companies that fail most spectacularly are usually run by people who chose hope over reality and waited too long. Families get into trouble the same way, because things are always “about to get better.”

I’ve been through at least four recessions as a business owner. Each one was different. Some were brutal, some were manageable. But every time, the ones who got ahead of it survived. The ones who waited, hoping it would pass, usually didn’t.

Two friends of mine, one who runs a major ad agency with over a thousand clients and another who runs more than 180 companies, have both said the same thing recently: Business is soft, and the smart ones are trimming early. The signals matter. The timing matters more. No one wants to say the “R word” for fear it will come true, but things are soft everywhere right now, though that could turn quickly with a credible peace deal somewhere in the world.

The Geeks and the Geezers

My friend Richard Saul Wurman, who founded the TED conferences, once said that every company needs geeks and geezers. He was right. The geeks bring the new ideas, the speed, and the courage to try things that seem impossible. The geezers, those of us with the scar tissue, bring the pattern recognition. We’ve seen this before.

I never wanted to be told what to do. When I was in business with my father, I wanted to be right all the time. In reality, he was right more than I was, because of deep experience. During my first recession, it was his suggestion to cut deeply and cut fast. I made every excuse why I couldn’t live without every single person I thought I needed. I couldn’t see it clearly, but he could. He saw what was coming; I didn’t. And ultimately, it was his experience that saved my business.

Time brings wisdom, if you learned your lessons. Sometimes our kids don’t want to listen to our advice, even though we’re seeing things they can’t yet see. It would do all of us a lot of good, myself included, to put our egos aside and be willing to consider what others who’ve walked the road ahead of us have to offer. It might save a lot of heartache.

Make the Call

The thing nobody tells you about hard decisions is that the hardest part is rarely the decision itself. It’s the delay. Foolish hoping that things resolve on their own. The waiting for one more data point, one more month, one more sign that things are about to turn. That might happen. But if it doesn’t, the cost of waiting is almost always higher than the cost of acting, because you’ve dug a bigger hole.

Whatever you’re navigating right now, get ahead of it. Whatever you’re dreading, get it done. Don’t cash that hope check. Don’t put off what you know you need to do. It’s pain now or more pain later. 

It won’t be easy or fun, and you’ll feel things you’d rather not feel. But you’ll discover strength you didn’t know you had, and the next hard call won’t be quite as hard. Maybe it’s a business decision you’ve been circling. Maybe it’s a conversation you keep putting off because the thought of it makes your stomach drop. Perhaps a relationship discussion that needs to be had before things deteriorate further.

Life is truly short, and you’ll look back on today and it won’t hurt as much as it once did. But it will still hurt.

Eric Rhoads