You May Make Hay While The Sun Shines, But You Earn Your Money In The Rain
Photo by Matteo Catanese on Unsplash
For 10 months out of the year, I work as a school teacher. That is my primary source of income (though I did make $0.32 in July on Medium, so, keep reading!) and it is currently my primary career.
From May until October, my wife and I also run The Tent Guys (www.thetentguysssi.com if you are ever in the area). A friend of ours and also a fellow teacher started the business, and when he moved for another teaching job, we purchased it from him and have been running it for the last couple of years.
The easy explanation of how the business works is this:
People call, text, or email us, tell us which tent package they would like and where they’d like it set up.
They pay.
We set it up.
We take it down.
Easy does it. The sun shines and we make the hay.
One of our primary selling points is that we save other people the hassle of traveling down with a bunch of extra equipment, as well as lugging it all out onto the beach. They just show up and enjoy the shade, chairs, coolers, and beach games.
People often ask, “How’s the tent business?” or say, “Looks like you guys are doing well, that’s so great!” People are very encouraging and happy that we are doing well. For some people, you can tell that talking to us about the business feeds whatever entrepreneurial bug or spirit they may have, and they are intrigued by the idea of having their own business or making some extra money on the side.
You know, “Ooh, I’d love to have a side hustle!” or “That’s so cool!”
While it has been a blessing for us, and we are excited about what the future holds, I’ve learned an important lesson lately, one that I’d like to share with everyone who romanticizes business ownership (as I did and often do), or who thinks that I spend the summer getting a tan, flowing my golden locks in the gentle breeze, and stacking the Benjamins.
As I’ve thought about it, it is also a very valuable lesson for anyone who has any interest of doing anything meaningful at any point in their lives.
Make Hay While The Sun Shines
I feel like I’ve already gone on a little too much in my intro, so I won’t spend any time pondering the above quote or trying to be clever about where it comes from or what it means.
For our business, the sun shining is one of the bright spots (not intended). And I think maybe one of the things that some people think is a plus. We get to walk around on the beach, work on our tan, enjoy the golden rays.
And mostly it is like that. It’s harder work than people realize, but probably 80% of the time, our customers are kind, gracious, the wind speed is low, and the sun is shining down on us and our business. We take our orders, we make our set ups, we pick up our tents, and everything is great! Nothing to it. Anyone could do it.
And, despite the fact that I think our attention to detail, the way we treat our customers, and the integrity with which we do our work matters, probably, almost anyone could do it.
To some extent.
When the sun shines.
But…
You Earn Your Money In The Rain
Some days stiiink! Or they use to. They don’t stink so much anymore because I’m starting to understand this.
It’s easy when it’s easy. The place that you set yourself apart, the time when you earn it, is when it’s tough.
You earn your money/keep/relationship/reputation/respect in the rain.
So, the previously stinky days which are now earning opportunities, look like this:
They involve picking up tents in the pelting rain. Not the kind of rain that feels nice and cooling and misty, like the kind they have in the middle of long lines at Six Flags that cool you down as you wait and make you happy.
I’m talking about Forest Gump rain. Remember?
One day it started raining, and it didn’t quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. -Forrest Gump
We’ve been out there basking in all of God’s glorious sun light when the sky just opened up and released an angry downpour all over everything. We’ve started our pick ups in the middle of a storm, hoping to get to our tents before they broke, with rain attacking us as soon as we opened the car door. My wife and I have carried tents on our shoulders, at a full sprint, while lightening cracked at an uncomfortably close distance.
My wife is a bad___.
We’ve been running onto the beach, with the darkest of clouds circling from every angle, while all of the intelligent people were running off of the beach, back to the safety of their cars. I’ve also done all of this, in chinos and a dress shirt, because I didn’t have time to change after work as I rushed out to the beach to try and save my equipment.
As I was pulling a cart full of equipment the other day off of the beach, with a tent thrown across my back, and the rain Forest Gumping every inch of my body, I started to complain, and wondered how much I could sell the business for and how quickly I could close the sale.
But then I realized: This is where you earn it.
All of the positives that come from owning the business and all of the benefits we may receive must be earned somewhere. All of the slaps on the back and the attaboys and appreciation from our clients; It’s all earned while I’m slogging across the beach, soaking wet with no escape from the storm.
And, because this is how I get down, I started thinking about how applicable this lesson was to other areas of our lives.
My first thought was about relationships. I’m not impressed by the picture perfect couple who laugh and smile at each other incessantly and pretend they never have a problem. That’s not real. They are sharing their problems for later, when they get home, and probably not managing them very well. Or they aren’t managing them at all, and saving them for later, when they will be much worse.
They aren’t working through the rain.
Some people just leave when it starts to rain.
Our careers are the same way. There’s no perfect place to work, and if there is, it’s probably going to take some rainy days (or weeks or years) for you to find it (or create it).
In so many areas of our lives, this holds true. In our relationships, jobs, investments, businesses, and in our faith, we are strengthened by the storms.
As long as we don’t run away when it gets tough.
When we first started running the business, I think some of the high school guys who work for us looked at me when it started storming and wondered what we were going to do as the bottom fell out.
Maybe we’d just sprint off the beach, find a dry spot, and come back after the storm?
Nope, we are going to just keep doing what we normally do, it’s just going to be a little bit harder, for a little bit. And we are going to go home wet.
We earn our relational capital and the good times that we have with our spouse, or our closest friends, when we work through the rain. We learn more about who we are and who they are and who we are together when we are willing to slog through the storm with no immediate escape.
We earn our respect at work and on our teams when we show up in the rain, and do our job and fill our role, even while the people around us are quitting, bickering, or doing just enough to get through until it’s easy again or they can go home.
It’s easy when it’s easy. You don’t become a good father, mother, husband, wife, friend, business owner, employee, or whatever it is you want to be by simply making hay when the sun is shining.
You may indeed make yourself some hay while the sun is shining…
But you earn your money/keep/relationship/reputation/respect in the rain.
I’m pulling for you,
Bryan
If you’d like to follow along with my writing, you can do so on Medium or on www.bryanhendley.com/blog.
I’m also honored to steward the extraordinary stories of ordinary people on my podcast, Extraordinary Joes, which can be found here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/extraordinary-joes/id1490705765
If you’d like to drop me a line, you can do that here: bryan@bryanhendley.com
