I cannot abide advice.

That might sound like an odd thing for a consultant to say, but it’s true. For the consultant, advice is cheap: easy to impart because our role means we do not bear the brunt of its consequences. It’s also easy to discard for those on the receiving end. If you don’t like a piece of advice, you can always ignore it.

To hell with that. I see my role as helping those I serve gain insight into their situations and options. Unlike advice, insight must come from within. It is a realisation that the individual can only have for him or herself. This fact makes it difficult to ignore. You might not like an insight, but you cannot pretend it’s not dawned on you.

2023 has been a tough year for many of us — this writer included. My experience is far from unique. Economic headwinds have made winning business a slog; there is too much weltzschmerz in the zeitgeist. Some unexpected financial events in late 2022 bequeathed the mother of all hangovers. And I decided to launch Business #3, which I’m proud to have done but didn’t leave much room for R&R. In a personal context, many friends and family members have been experiencing tough — in some cases traumatising — times, including ill-health, financial difficulties, family crises, and the consequences of conflict. The personal impacts the professional, and vice versa. It can’t not: it’s all life.

On every front, the last twelve months have felt grinding, relentless, unforgiving. 

And the last thing I’ve wanted from anyone is their bloody advice on how to deal with it.

What can you say about how to survive and thrive in difficult times that others haven’t already said, and many times better? 

Very little. Stoicism, to name one example, contains truths that will keep even the most enlightened mind and spirit occupied for decades. Indeed, although I often feel about as enlightened as a turtle, I’ve been pondering the immortal words of Marcus Aurelius all year: If it can be endured, endure it. 

At the heart of all such philosophies is a simple insight. To live is to carry pain, but it is our choice whether we commute that pain into suffering or seek to transcend it. Easy to say, of course, but tough to do. This is especially the case when the pressures of life and work are bearing down with extreme force on your skull. That is why Stoicism and its ilk are spiritual disciplines. Embracing them is the journey of a lifetime.

Speaking for myself, I have found benefit in embracing a spiritual practice. But don’t despair: this post isn’t going to descend into a lifestyle humblebrag (“I rise at 4.30am, plunge into an ice bath, and meditate on my cosmic insignificance”). Or a glib collection of soundbites recycled from better sources. If that’s your jam, Instagram.

Instead, I am going to make a meagre if heartfelt offering: six insights that have seen me through 2023. The first three relate to mindset. The second three relate to practical action. No advice: just stuff that has helped me in my consultancy (and life), offered in the hope that it might help you (or someone you know) to appraise your situation in new ways when times get tough.

It also helps me to write this all down in summary form. We teach what we need to learn.

Mindset

The Stockdale Paradox

Start with the fundamentals. The Stockdale Paradox suggests that, when faced with huge difficulties, our endurance relies on our ability to do two things at the same time. The first is to face our problems head on, however difficult it might feel to do so. The second is to remain optimistic that our circumstances can and will improve. (The paradox, of course, is that one behaviour should prevent the other.) 

Implicit in this way of thinking is an acknowledgement that in life two opposing things can be true at once. On the one hand, there is the discomfiting fact that our problems might not go away as fast as we would like, and that sometimes our situation will feel hopeless. On the other, we must recognise that there is always room for hope, for the simple reason that nothing is forever. 

Upholding such opposing ideas requires mental and emotional discipline. It is a challenging tension to bear, especially in trying circumstances. But that very tension is also the source of the Stockdale Paradox’s power. Its ideas may exist in opposition, but they also reinforce one another. Optimism strengthens resolve. Demonstrating resolve builds confidence that circumstances are survivable and a better future is possible. To know that truth is a gift.

What I learned: facing into difficulty head-on doesn’t mean losing hope. In fact, maintaining hope helps me feel resourced to cope with the difficulties I face.

Gardener not warrior

‘Archetype’ is a word coined by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung to describe a primitive mental image that every human being can recognise in their own behaviour and in the behaviour of others. (By way of example, think hero, sage, or jester.) 

The book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover asserts that within every man there are four core archetypes. Although I’m an introvert by nature, the warrior is my behavioural default. When trouble strikes, my internal narrative runs something like: This is going to be a long, cold battle, out on the plains. Grab the armour! Build the barricades! Now — to the death! At one level, this is helpful: it is a means for me to access resourcefulness, hustle and steel. 

But the archetype also evokes barren conditions, loneliness, and the eventual onset of exhaustion — or worse. It conjures a siege mentality that can blind the mind to positive thoughts or opportunities. (I recognise the warrior in a lot of self-employed people, men and women alike.) 

A breakthrough this year was realising that a different and better archetype for me to embody was one of gardener. Instead of waging war against — who or what exactly? The economy? Recent history? The incompetence of Liz Truss? — I could embrace the idea that I was planting for the future.

Reframing my role as that of a gardener was not permission to stop working so hard (although in retrospect that might have been useful too). Gardening still involved back-breaking toil. There were weeds to pluck. And the seeds I planted did not always behave in predictable ways. But, despite such challenges, this new archetypal form helped me move in a more positive, proactive direction. I wasn’t waging war in a cold and hostile winter, but laying the ground for a fruitful spring and summer.

What I learned: to remain well-resourced through a difficult year, I needed to take off my armour and pick up a different set of tools.

Picture not pixels

Earlier in this post I mentioned some unexpected financial events that occurred at the end of 2022. There were two, and each cost my businesses a lot of money. To say that the red mist descended on me was an understatement: my mood for about six months was nuclear. This was not helped by the fact that neither event was our fault. One was a contractual breach, the other a direct consequence of poor-quality professional services advice. (The firm that gave us said bad advice experienced zero negative consequences from it, and later told provable lies about their actions: a perfect illustration of my opening point.)

Behind my thunderous mood was a good deal of fear. Fear about what might happen next: there are only so many knocks that any small business can take. And fear about my own abilities: despite all my experience, I had not foreseen either of these events, and that felt shattering.

A friend helped me to pull back from the brink. “This money,” he said. “Yes, it’s a big blow. But in the context of how much you’ve billed since you set up the businesses, how much of a deal is it really?” The maths sent a message that I needed to hear: we would survive this, and of course I know what I’m doing.

When difficulties strike, the resulting pain means that it is easy to get lost in the present moment. But the present moment is just that: a moment. Success or failure is the work of years. A different, and welcome, shift in perspective might be found in stepping back and surveying the wider context.

What I learned: sanity lies in pulling back from the pixels to see the picture. 

Action

Be wise with time

Postponements. Project cancellations. New business thin on the ground. For many of us these were the contours of 2023. And such circumstances again present us with choices. One way forward is to spend the time re-litigating what’s happened, on our own or with others. The other is to use the time to reinvent and rebuild.

At the end of last year, a US-based client decided not to pay a large sum of money that they owed us, causing the contractual breach I referenced earlier. We tried negotiating to solve the problem: after all, we had done the work and they were happy with it. (They just didn’t want to pay their bills having suffered an unrelated downturn in their fortunes.) We then took legal action against them — action that in 2023 consumed a huge amount of time and money, then failed, causing even more financial pain.

Was the legal route the right one to pursue? On the one hand, we had done nothing to deserve what they did to us. And I will never regret standing up to bullies, upholding my values, and seeking to hold others to account for bad behaviour. On the other, the lack of success — put it this way: we learned a lot about the virtual impossibility of transatlantic debt collection — served to drain our energy and our bank balance.

So, as ever, life is complex. But spending cash and time trying to alter history can amount to little more than throwing good money after bad. It might be better to approach the time you have at your disposal as a gift, and seek to use it in the most profitable way possible. (We cover this issue in detail in the latest edition of The Consultancy Business podcast, available now in your preferred podcast player.)

What I learned: every hour spent trying to right historic wrongs carries an opportunity cost. My decision-making is better when I take this into account.

Treat pain as a messenger

The pain we experience is often a lesson in disguise. It is trying to point us in the direction of work we need to do on ourselves or in the world.

In early spring, after the legal case was over, I asked myself a question: what is this experience, and all the other bad news of late, trying to teach me?

The answer reconnected me with an insight I’d had many times before: as an independent consultant, you’re on your own. No-one is coming to help you. That might sound defeatist, but it wasn’t. It was the impetus I needed to try turning the proverbial lemons into lemonade.

When we’re mired in the muck, the notion of panning for gold might sound like a stretch — which minds me to repeat: this is not advice. But, with time, I have found such work to be both possible and rewarding.

What I learned: pain is rarely pointless — unless I allow it to be.

Embrace community

As I said at the start of this post, many friends and family have been through the mill this year. In many cases, their troubles make my own feel trifling. The same is true of many clients, partners and friends in my professional world. 

Some of the problems that these people are facing are insolvable. Some are solvable, but no-one can do it for them — not least because doing so would rob them of their agency. And some of the problems require collaboration.

In each case, community has a vital role to play. Where problems are insolvable (or feel that way), a community can provide comfort. Where someone might need to take action to improve their lot, a community can provide support. Where teamwork is necessary, a community can provide resources. This is true in business as well as life.

Community participation is not transactional behaviour. It is the essence of human relationships and of society itself. It is about humility: tending to those in need without expectation, but in the knowledge that one day you might yourself be in need. And it relies on an understanding that what feeds someone else feeds you too, in the end. 

Precisely because it’s so hard out there, it’s better to face the world together — at least some of the time. And I have experienced for myself how fast a community can rally in providing support and resources when the going gets tough.

In light of this insight, this year I put my money where my mouth is and started growing a community to support independent consultants. While there is a financial component to membership, that is a matter of sustainability rather than profitability. What matters to me is that this community becomes a conduit for mutual strength, support, and kindness.

After everything that 2023 had in store, even this loner has to admit: yes, it takes a village. (Honourable mentions here to my new friends at Start Up 2 Stand Up, whose generous input helps my work. And those at Mensch, who have helped me with life in general.)

What I learned: community participation enriches even those of us who prefer to work alone.

Six insights from 2023

So, to try and wrap all that together, here are the lessons that 2023 had in store for me:

1. Surviving in difficult times means facing difficulties head on, while remaining optimistic that things can and will change.
2. When things get tough, behavioural archetypes offer a helpful lens through which to examine default coping mechanisms.
3. Sanity lies in focusing on the picture not the pixels.
4. Before trying to re-litigate history—in thought, words or action—consider the opportunity cost.
5. Pain is a messenger. The task is to work out what it is attempting to convey.
6. Community can be a vital source of support and healing, even for those of us who prefer to work alone.

I hope that these insights are of some use to you.

So where does that leave us, in the final analysis? Well, here is my grand conclusion: 2023 might not have been the easiest year, and I would have liked it to be different, for me and for lots of others — but that’s life.

Or, as my inner sage archetype would say, in his kind but firm tone: look, you’ve completed one more spin around the sun, and you’ve learned a few things. What have you got to complain about? After all, none of this is personal.

So, yes: still here, still doing my best, like all of us. 

Here’s to a bright 2024.

What to take from this article

Even the most challenging of years can help us make meaning that informs how we develop ourselves and our businesses.

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