Problems Are an Opportunity to Show What You Are Made Of

Why Problems Are Your Chance to Show 'the Right Stuff'

One of the best things you can do is try to reframe problems as opportunities. This isn’t always easy or possible, but in most cases, we can do it.

A great way to do this is to see disruptions or problems as an opportunity for you to demonstrate what you are made of to your family.

We recently took a long weekend family visit back to New York City, where we used to live. Everything went great on the trip. We got to Laguardia for our flight home, made it through security, and were picking up some snacks for our son before the flight. We’d done a lot of walking and so were ready to be back home.

Then I got a notification on my phone that our flight was cancelled.

What do you do in situations like that? Well, it’s certainly unpleasant to say the least. And stressful to be sure. It’s something I wish had not happened.

At the same time, this provided a free opportunity for my wife and son to see how I would respond under pressure when there’s a problem.

It turns out that we couldn’t get a flight back that day. I got us an inexpensive hotel in Newark, and I was able to get us there successfully since I’m familiar with the commuter trains. It turns out our rebooked flight was out of Newark the next day, which was convenient. We had dinner at a pretty good classic restaurant in Newark (Burke’s Tavern) and went to the airport the next day.

Our flight wasn’t until the evening and had a connection in Chicago. I tried to get an alternative since our connection was tight - but no dice. Sadly, our flight was delayed two and a half hours and we did miss our connection. We got to O’Hare after midnight. I booked us another cheap nearby hotel and we grabbed a brief three hours of sleep before heading back to grab the first flight out in the morning. We finally made it home on mid-morning Tuesday (after our original flight was supposed to be back Sunday evening).

Did I know exactly the best move for us to make at every point? No. Was everything about this situation within my control? No. Did I handle everything perfectly? No.

But having trained myself to think this way, I was able to quickly see that this was an opportunity for me to show that I’m the kind of man who can be relied on in these kinds of situations. It was a free opportunity for me to show calmness under pressure, the ability to operate under conditions of uncertainty, and the ability to act and make decisions in the presence of incomplete information.

These kinds of problems are great opportunities for you to gain the confidence of those around you like your family. You want to build up credibility from situations like these so that you are trusted when the really serious problems come, such as your kid getting cancer - the kinds of problems that can’t easily be reframed and which are overwhelming.

The key is to focus on how the way you respond to problems demonstrates to others your character, composure, and competence - even when you don’t know for sure what to do. Is what I’m doing or how I’m acting making me look good on these points, or making me look bad?

Though it’s a much more serious problem than a cancelled flight, a great passage from The Grapes of Wrath illustrates this.

Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men—to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men's faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained. The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then drew careful lines in the dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant. Then the women knew that they were safe and that there was no break. Then they asked, What'll we do? And the men replied, I don't know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole.

All of us experience a stream of small- to medium-scale problems that provide a free opportunity for us to get on stage show that we have “the right stuff.” Don’t let those opportunities go to waste.

Problems are also a great opportunity to practice putting faith in God over circumstances.