There is a moment hidden inside almost every success story that we rarely hear about.
It’s the moment when someone quietly wonders if they’ve just made the biggest mistake of their life.
Recently, my friend, Amy Shankland, shared the story behind Green Avenue as the company approaches its tenth anniversary. Reading her reflections, I noticed something that had very little to do with grants.
Like many entrepreneurial stories, it begins with optimism. A side business. One promising client. A leap of faith.
Then came the part that usually gets edited out of anniversary celebrations.
The client stopped paying.
Not for a week.
Not for a delayed invoice.
For two months.
Imagine sitting at your kitchen table, realizing that the career you’ve just built your future upon may already be collapsing.
Many people would have returned to the security of a paycheck.
Amy didn’t.
Instead, she learned perhaps the oldest lesson in business: never build your future on one customer, one opportunity, or one promise.
As her company grew, the lessons didn’t become easier.
She resisted hiring.
She resisted becoming a manager.
She resisted bringing in a partner because a previous partnership had ended badly.
Yet each “never” slowly became a “maybe.”
Then eventually, a “yes.”
Along the way, there were difficult clients. Courtrooms. Policies rewritten after painful experiences. More learning than celebrating.
Today, Green Avenue has grown into a team of seven professionals serving nonprofits throughout Indiana.
But that’s not the part that stayed with me.
What stayed with me was how ordinary the path looked as it unfolded.
We often imagine success as one courageous leap.
Real success usually comes from dozens of smaller decisions.
Answering one more email.
Calling one more prospective client.
Trusting one more person.
Learning one more lesson.
Walking one more uncertain mile.
Looking backward, the road appears intentional.
Walking forward, it rarely does.
Whether we’re building a business, writing a book, caring for someone we love, or simply trying to become the person we hope to be, very few of us ever feel completely certain.
Perhaps certainty was never the requirement.
Perhaps persistence was.
The road to somewhere worthwhile is rarely straight.
It simply asks us to keep walking.
