Issue #129 How The Forge Can Become Your Source Of Fuel

The response to last week’s newsletter was overwhelming, and I’m deeply grateful for the feedback.

Messages came in from founders and leaders across different stages of life, but the common thread running through all of them was the same. The idea of choosing to live at cause rather than in effect had touched something deeply personal, and it was clear the topic had struck a chord.

So this week, I want to expand on that idea further, especially because our current circumstances have required me to spend even more time reflecting on it myself.

What I’ve come to realize is that living at cause is not simply a mindset shift for navigating difficult seasons. It is the beginning of understanding that pain itself may carry purpose, and that some of life’s hardest moments are not just things to survive, but things meant to shape us.

When Resources Get in the Way of Resourcefulness

As part of my commitment to growth and lifelong learning, I have always surrounded myself with mentors and coaches. I’m deeply grateful for my relationship with my coach, whose wisdom and insight have played a meaningful role in helping me grow in self-awareness.

During our sessions he has said something to me more than once that I have not forgotten: your resources can often get in the way of your resourcefulness.

The first time I heard it, I thought I understood it. However the more I have lived, the more I realize how deep it actually goes.

When we have money, experience, and a track record behind us, we develop a confidence that can quietly drift into carelessness. We stop inspecting what we expect; we assume that goodwill and integrity will carry the day, and we let familiarity substitute for diligence.

Last year, my wife and I entered into an agreement without doing a proper review. We knew the person on the other side and had a history together, so we believed that trust would be enough and signed the documents, without the scrutiny we would normally apply.

A year later, we found ourselves at an impasse, and when we went back to examine what we had actually agreed to, it was clear we had signed something that was not in our best interest.  The agreement was lopsided in ways that left us exposed and disadvantaged.

The first feeling was embarrassment, because we know better. We have been down this road before and have even taught others to always ensure that they inspect what they expect.  Yet here we were having done the very thing that we counsel against. 

Our confidence, our trust in the relationship, and yes, our resources, had quietly gotten in the way of our resourcefulness.

The Lesson Hidden in the Mess

It would have been easy to stay in the “story” that this was being done to us; that the outcome was unfair, that we had been naive, and that we were simply victims of someone else’s decisions. That version of the story is always available to us, especially when life becomes difficult, because it asks very little of us beyond blame.

But the truth is that in every situation, we play some part in co-creating the outcome. Sometimes through action, sometimes through inaction; through what we saw clearly and through what we failed to see at all. Either way, growth requires the willingness to take ownership of our part in the story.

Once we were honest about that, we had a choice to make. We could continue pointing outward and remain trapped in blame, or we could accept responsibility for what was within our control and begin making decisions that restored our agency. 

We chose the second path, and while the situation itself is still unfolding, there is an empowerment that comes with ownership that victimhood can never provide.

What I have learned is that in the middle of difficulty, clarity is rarely immediate. The meaning of what we are living through is almost never visible. That is why reflection matters so deeply, because awareness precedes choice, and choice precedes commitment.

It was while sitting with all of this that the words of Søren Kierkegaard came back to me: “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

I’ve come to believe that all pain carries the potential for purpose, even when that purpose is impossible to see in the moment.

When we feel betrayed or wronged, the pain is real and immediate. But over time, and with enough distance, the dots between what happened and why it happened often begin to connect in ways we could not initially understand.

What I’ve learned is that this requires us to resist living in effect and instead choose to live at cause. It requires enough honesty and reflection to stay with the experience long enough to understand what it was trying to form within us.

Adversity Is Fuel, Not Destiny

As I reflect back on my life, I can see now that nearly every significant season of growth emerged from some of my lowest points. If you’ve read my book Start Up Santa, then you’ll know that the difficulties were not interruptions to the story; in many ways, they became the most important chapters of it.

And this is not unique to me. Virtually every person we admire throughout history endured tremendous adversity before becoming who they were ultimately called to be.

I’ve come to believe that challenge is not separate from our design, but rather part of it. Just as diamonds are formed through heat and pressure, much of our character, resilience, and potential are revealed through tribulation and tragedy. It is through a forging process of hardship that our Creator has designed us to discover our full potential. And it is within that fire that we can also discover fuel to power us. This doesn’t mean that every bad thing that happens in the world or to us is inherently good. But it does mean that everything has the potential to be used for good.

In the mid-nineties, there was a single mother living in near-poverty in Edinburgh. She had fled an abusive marriage, arrived in Portugal with her baby daughter, and carried with her the early chapters of a manuscript she had been working on. At one point her ex-husband had hidden it, trying to prevent her from leaving with it. She was clinically depressed, struggling to heat her flat, and pushing a baby carriage to cafes so she could write while her daughter slept.

The manuscript was rejected by twelve publishers; each one telling her in a different way that it was not good enough.

J.K. Rowling went on to sell over 500 million copies of the Harry Potter series and built a literary legacy that is now timeless. 

It is an incredible feat however what I find most instructive about her story is not the success of books sold. It is what she did with the adversity. She did not become a victim to it and let it calcify into bitterness; instead she chose to live at cause and let the friction become fuel.

And that distinction matters more than most people realize.

Adversity can become fuel for building a better life. However it is about being aware that the same energy that can power personal transformation can just as easily power self-destruction if it is not directed toward something meaningful. 

Over time, the chip on our shoulder has to evolve into something greater. It must become purpose, wisdom, empathy, or contribution. Otherwise, the wound itself becomes our identity, and when that happens, we begin to define our lives by what was done to us rather than by who we are choosing to become.

That is the difference between living at cause and living in effect. One leads toward growth and agency. The other slowly traps us inside a smaller and smaller life.

Challenges Are Not the Exception

Difficulty is not a sign that something has gone wrong with our lives; it is often a sign that we are fully engaged in living them. The hard things in our businesses, our relationships, and our internal world are not detours from the journey. In many ways, they are the journey itself.

Viktor Frankl once wrote that between stimulus and response lies our ability to choose. That truth becomes especially important in seasons of adversity, because while we cannot always control what happens to us, we can choose the meaning we assign to it and the way we respond.

The meaning of what we are experiencing is rarely visible while we are inside it. It usually only becomes clear later, when we have enough distance to reflect and connect the dots. What once felt like a setback begins to reveal itself as a turning point. What felt like a loss often becomes a redirection toward something we could not yet see.

J.K. Rowling did not become who she is in spite of suffering, but because of how she chose to respond to it. The adversity did not simply happen to her; it shaped her. Pain is temporary, but what it produces within us can last a lifetime, if we allow it to shape rather than define us.

That requires us to live at cause rather than in effect. And to understand that if we are walking through something difficult right now, the most costly thing we can do is let the experience go to waste. Recognize that the forge can become your fuel.

So this week, ask yourself:

What painful chapter are you still carrying as a wound rather than integrating as a lesson?

Where might your confidence, your experience, or your comfort be quietly getting in the way of your resourcefulness?

If you are sitting on adversity right now, what would it look like to stop wasting it and start using it?

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