I didn’t realize until fairly recently that I have food sensitivities, but the challenges created from the symptoms have actually made me a better leader and entrepreneur. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.

One of the biggest hurdles many entrepreneurs face is making the leap from the early years as the jack-of-all-trades hero doing everything, to the visionary leader setting the tone, direction, and accountability for their team to accomplish.

In fact, when speakers are talking to entrepreneurs, the easiest way for them to get a chuckle out of the room is to talk about the joys of delegation. But delegation has never been a problem for me; in fact, I often trust my team with important aspects of the company well before they are probably ready.

It took me a while to understand why this was the case. I’ve known for a while that I could not own anything requiring maintaining a consistently high level of performance, because I never knew what state of mind or energy I was going to be in from week to week…so I built systems, processes, and frameworks to streamline and delegate anything requiring ongoing attention to my team. Keeping my inconsistently good days focused on moving the strategic ball down the field as far as possible when in the right state of mind.

Unintentionally, I was building the infrastructure and developing leaders in a way that provided a really strong platform to build from. And now that my energy and focus are consistently elevated from the awareness and management of my health issues, the company is in a great position to take advantage of some really amazing opportunities.

Often times the biggest challenges end up providing the biggest benefits…and usually in very unexpected ways. 

Where is adversity in your life providing the building materials for something special in the future? 

Where has adversity from your past already transformed you?