In the 1990s, my mother suffered three strokes in ten years. The last one changed everything. She lost the ability to walk, drive, and perform many of the everyday functions she once took for granted. She lost her independence. She was confined to a wheelchair and had limited use of her hands. She nearly even lost her voice. But she didn’t lose her desire to create.
You see, my mother was a fabulous cook, with a library of over 200 cookbooks. She also was a gifted painter.
And after her final stroke, she decided to write (and illustrate) a cookbook.
Forget that she couldn’t physically write—except by painstakingly typing with only two fingers. Forget that she had every reason in the world to say, “I can’t.” She was sure she could. And she wrote not one but three cookbooks—two fingers at a time.
She did this, she accomplished this, simply because her mind was set on writing a cookbook.
We All Face Obstacles
Around the same time this was happening, I moved to Birmingham. Less than a year in, the company I came to work for closed its Birmingham office. I was still new in town with no clients, not a lot of experience and no natural market. I asked family and friends if I should start my own consulting firm.
The consensus? No! Absolutely not!
I was too young with no experience and no clients and no network to find clients. All true. To top it off, the economy was in a recession. And who is the first person to get laid off at a company during hard times? The consultant.
It took me two months to land my first client. When I told my boys this story years later, they asked why I didn’t file for unemployment during those two months. I told them, “I wasn’t unemployed. I was a consultant, and I just hadn’t gotten my first client yet.”
Turns out, I did know one business owner in my new hometown.
He ran a small, but growing, technology company and believed in me enough to hire me as a business consultant. That one opportunity gave me a foothold. This wasn’t just a client—it was a vote of confidence. And it was all I needed to begin.
Perspective Is Everything
Limitations are real, but how we respond to them is a choice. And that’s real, too.
My mother didn’t let her physical limitations define her. I didn’t let my lack of experience stop me. We both had something we wanted to do—and we found a way to do it.
It’s like planting a garden in rocky soil. You can complain about the rocks, or you can move them one by one and make space for something to grow.
It’s also like painting with only three colors. You don’t actually need a full set of paints—you can create something beautiful with what you have. Also, I had learned from my artist mother (who illustrated her three cookbooks with her own artwork she had created over the years), that the right three colors can be mixed to make nearly every hue you might need.
In other words: You probably already have what you need to be successful.
Start Strong. Finish Strong.
Life will always present obstacles. The question is: Do you see them as roadblocks or are they merely detours? Do they stop you from moving forward, or do they just make you find a new and different way?
My mother saw her obstacles as inconveniences to be overcome. I saw mine as an opportunity to start something new.
If something is not right in your world, how are you going to look at it? That perspective, that mindset, makes all the difference.
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