Rising to a challenge isn’t easy. It requires you to buckle down, do the hard work, and persevere. And at the end of it all? You end up growing exponentially because you stretched the limits of your ability. We all have times in our lives where we encounter something new—sometimes expected, other times blindsiding you. What matters is how you tackle the challenge. This week, we’re looking at how The NIche Movement Founder Kevin O’Connell got his footing as a new dad balancing all of the demands of life. Rather than backing down under the pressure, he leveled up to deliver top-quality client work.
Watch the full story on YouTube, but first check out the recap below.
Picture this.
You’re driving.
17 hours pass between Virginia and Florida.
You finally get home at 2:00 a.m.
There’s a 2.5 week old adorable baby in the back.
You just adopted this baby with 10 days notice.
This baby is now your world.
You’re a brand spanking new parent, dealing with all of those changes and emotions.
But . . . the outside world keeps calling, reminding you of other responsibilities. For The Niche Movement Founder Kevin O’Connell, the realities that came knocking were client expectations and deliverables.
As an entrepreneur, Kevin gets to set his own schedule, which comes with pluses and minuses. The pluses? A lot of flexibility. The minuses? No set paternity leave policy. Kevin has to hold himself accountable to the rigor and standard he wants to set as life balance between home and work.
After arriving home at 2:00 a.m. that fateful night with 2.5 week old baby Noah, Kevin had to turn around the next day and head to Maryland for a client training.
That’s the reality Kevin faced as a new father, leaving his newborn for a full day’s work. It wasn’t easy, but in Kevin’s eyes there were only two options.
Option A: Postpone the training, already on the calendar with the client, to January despite the training covering 2020 marketing strategy, and risk upsetting the client.
Option B: Rise to the challenge.
Kevin went with option B, powering through to deliver a valuable service to his client. He did the training on limited sleep, found time in the 17h-hour car ride to prep, and completed the bulk of the work remotely from Florida before driving up. Even running on zero energy, Kevin was able to be a great client provider.
Kevin not only rose to the challenge to do the work. He rose to the challenge to be a good father, recognizing that by sticking with the original training date he could bring home money to his family to kick off the New Year right.
Final Public Service Announcement:
There's no playbook for being a working parent--especially in the entrepreneurship space. You are bound to have bad or imperfect days.
What matters is that you rise to the challenges when they come, so that you can continue to have a successful life, nurturing both your work life and your home life.
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