Mindset - The Obstacle Is The Way

What happens when the high of a lifetime trip slams headfirst into a business nightmare? Fresh from a dream holiday in Borneo, Joel returned not to a victory lap, but to a triple-threat gut punch: a surprise solicitor's letter demanding a huge sum, a client chargeback, and a team member's resignation. It was enough to make anyone want to pack it all in.

But what if these soul-crushing obstacles aren't signs to quit, but the price of entry for the next level of growth? In this raw and unfiltered episode of the Stay Hungry Podcast, Joel and Martha get real about the brutal reality of scaling a business. They argue that if you want a multi-million-pound business, you have to be ready for multi-million-pound problems. This isn't a "why me?" story; it's a lesson in forging resilience when everything goes wrong at once.

This episode is your guide to reframing disaster, controlling the controllables, and turning your biggest challenges into the very fuel that drives you forward.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• 🧠 How to handle devastating setbacks without letting them spiral out of control.
• 💪 Why your biggest obstacles are actually your greatest training ground for success.
• Control the controllables: The simple mindset shift that changes everything.
• 📈 The direct link between surviving business challenges and handling personal hardship.
• 🚀 How to stop seeing problems as roadblocks and start seeing them as the path to your next level.

If you're facing a wall in your business, this is the episode you need to hear. Stop letting obstacles defeat you. It's time to see them for what they are: the way forward.

Listen now!

Links:

Website: https://www.codebreak.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codebreakcrew/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/codebreakcrew/

Joel's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joelstoneofficial/
Joel's Facebook: https://facebook.com/joelstoneofficial/

Free Marketing Budget Calculator: https://codebreak.outgrow.us/knowyournumbers

Arrange a call with Codebreak: https://form.jotform.com/241272835208051

Transcript

0:13

Marth, we're definitely recording this time. Thank the Lord. Imagine not pressing record on the maths episode. Oh, and it was so good as well. Like, the first take. I mean, the second take was just as good. Yeah, to be fair. With a slight bike, of course. We had a cycling incident, yeah. So this time, we're talking about mindset, and speaking of cycling incidents, the obstacle in the way. So, making it clear to people, because we're performance marketers, we deal with growth. The growth's fucking hard, and it comes with obstacles. Yeah. Ta-da! Come and enjoy Code Break. I was gonna say on this, actually, it's quite interesting, because you've recently had a rebalance, haven't you, from like, you had an amazing trip away, and then, you're your coach. I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about this, but let's go. It's raw and real with Jon Snow. We can keep it niche, but not niche, sorry. I don't mind sharing. Okay, so, because you had an amazing trip away with your wife in Borneo, and you had a dream, dream trip, and then, some shit happened. Lots of shit happened, all at once. Something happened today, though, that was really nice, so I will walk you through my mindset on all of this. Let's go. So yeah, went on Trip of a Lifetime with my wife, that's been on our bucket list forever, and buzzing, came back tired, but buzzing. Came back to a solicitor's letter from a client that went bust nearly three years ago, who'd been served a winding up order six months prior to that, but we didn't know, and so, they continued paying us, and we carried on doing our work, not completely oblivious, and then, suddenly, the work stopped. And our work really well. Well, not well enough. Well, we can't control what they do with the profits that we. Yeah, so, very, very painful, very difficult, client goes bust, contract's not gonna be honored. Anyway, three years later, solicitor's letter lands. They shouldn't have paid you any money after they received this winding up order. You need to return those funds. Well, we didn't know they'd had a winding up order. Oh, well, you could have looked it up on the Gazette. Well, maybe I should be, but I'm not in the habit of checking the Gazette every day for each of our clients, so. So, yeah, there was a big chunk of change had to be returned to the liquidator, unexpectedly, and that's, you know, that's since me having taken over the business from my business partner, brought another business partner in, so it was a nasty shock for the new business partner as well. We're recruiting at the moment, so it could have potentially affected our recruitment plans. Yeah, it's hard, and then that was on top of another client had charged back our fees on their credit card whilst I was away, and we hadn't done anything wrong. They'd just chosen to go in another direction, but then been a prick about it, and at the same time, one of the team resigned. But I spoke to my coach, and he was like, it's funny how life does things to balance out. I said, what do you mean? He's like, well, you've just, I've seen what your may look like. You haven't fucking timed your life. There's a redress? Now, that might sound a bit woo-woo, but I do think that there has to be balance, and yeah, three very shit things happened in a short amount of time, but I just had two weeks of daily 10 or 11 amazing things happening, so the balance was in my favor. Yeah, but I think that would be enough to spiral. I'd be like, oh my God, what's the point? No, I did feel like that for a couple of hours. I just shut myself away, put some heavy metal on, and fucking did some stuff I like doing, but it's the price of entry. Like, the obstacle is the way, so I could have spent the next six months fighting that solicitor firm, saying, well, I'm not returning these funds. It was for work delivered. We should be top of the creditor list, blah, blah, blah, and the business would have spiraled because all of my attention and effort would have been on that shit, so you have to really think about what's the lesson in this? Well, the lesson was, could we have seen that that business was in trouble? Should we have run Experian credit checks every six months on our clients? Should we be checking if clients have ever had a winding up order? And the answer is, when you wanna be a business of our size, yeah. That is, like, sadly, yeah. And so, there was a lot of lessons from it for me, and I also needed to be seen, whether I like it or not, as a leader. Like, you and Scott as the managers and the team and the assistants, if they saw me losing my head, like, other things will go wrong. Yeah. And so, I think the mindset piece is, if you wanna be a million pound business, a five million pound business, a 10 million pound business, you're gonna encounter one million pound, five million pound, 10 million pound problems, whether you like it or not. At some point, you will encounter those things. I listened to Alex Ormosi's podcast, The Game, and he had an unexpected multi-seven figure bill that he didn't know was coming, but had to be paid within, like, five days or something. And there was no choice in the matter, so he didn't go into detail on what it was, but I imagine it was tax, because that sounds very tax-like. And he just had to get on with it. Of course, it affected his plans and affected what his next investment looked like and what he was able to do. But you have to get on with it. And this happens in your personal life, too, and weirdly, business has taught me how to handle my personal life better. So, this weekend, Father's Day, just gone. My dad's in a mental hospital, has been for three years now, so. Ever since I've known you, yeah. Well, he was in prison when you first knew me. Oh, right, yeah. But rang them up the week before Father's Day, can I come visit my dad on Saturday? I know Father's Day's on a Sunday, I'm not a maniac. But my dad goes to visit his mum in the nursing home on a Sunday, so I didn't want to disturb that. So I said, can I come visit him on the Saturday? Oh, we're putting an event on on the Saturday for patients only, so we're not accepting visitors. And I wanted to say, surely there's a lot of people who are expecting their kids to visit. their dads this weekend, like that timing is stinking and it made me feel sad and then I said well okay can I come on Monday instead but can you let him know I tried to arrange a visit before Father's Day? Yeah yeah you can come on Monday. Historically that would have been enough to put me in a bit of a spiral, that would have really upset me. Then I'm driving to work on Monday with you that I'm gonna then go see my dad and get a phone call saying, are you coming today or not because we've got no confirmation of you booking a visit. I think old Joel would have been like, are you fucking joking? And then when I got there they were 15 minutes late getting him ready because they hadn't passed the message on so I lost 15 minutes of an hour visit and they hadn't told him so he thought I'd forgotten him on Father's Day, which for someone who's mentally fragile I think is disgusting. But I handle that in an entirely different way because of some of the obstacles business has given me, in the sense that I just look at it and go well what can I control about this? Control the controllables, I say to myself so much. I can't control much about this situation I'm in the hands of other people, the only thing I can control is my reaction and my feelings and I've got a father-in-law I need to visit over the weekend, I've got a nephew I need to visit over the weekend, they need me at my best, not me moaning about the situation with my dad. It's the same in business, if a legal letter lands or an unexpected bill or a staff member kicks off, all the other staff members and your clients still need you to be on form, so make the choice and it might feel like you don't have a choice because it's hurting so much but you do. How did you get there? Trial and error. Is there anything that actively you'd be like this is what put me on the right path to being able to handle? I've worked with a lot of coaches and I think I've some good some bad but I've taken positives from all of them. The coach I work with now, Paul Moore, has been brilliant for me, he's not afraid to show that he has these struggles too and that he implements the same techniques as he teaches and so for a long time I had to journal out my feelings and write down the ten good things that have come from this terrible thing that's happened. Now I kind of automatically do that in my head, I still make the effort to journal it but that's really helped, really helped me process. I don't feel guilt now for sometimes just taking a moment to do something I enjoy to take me out of that feeling so I will sometimes just go and I like building and creating so if there's some creative that needs doing in the business even if it's not really my job anymore I'll jump into that because it makes me feel useful and takes my mind off and then it allows me to refocus and then a break is as good as a rest yeah yeah literally sometimes just go for a walk it's not like a change is as good as a rest yeah yeah yeah go for a walk bit of exercise but it's not as complicated as you think it is and sometimes you are choosing to be in that stew and when I stop writing my wins I start to feel like there isn't any yeah sometimes you know you have a bad day a campaign's bombing because Trump has said that something so bad for you or I'm putting tariffs on everything that goes into the u.s. and then it's just like oh like yeah there's no argument here that we should make people write down three wins before they go home every day which would be I don't think there'd be many businesses that do that but I actually think that I would have massive positive impact in the business yeah because of course there's obstacles in business because that's what people are paying you for to help them overcome their obstacles so there's gonna be obstacles for you as well and that's why you have an accountant that's why maybe you have a solicitor on retainer that's why you have HR that's why you have software that's why you have AI to help you overcome obstacles so why are you surprised when a big obstacle comes you're more than happy kicking little obstacles out the way all day every day because that's what you do but a big one comes in like you can there's a risk of falling into like why always me mentality well you would you want yeah it's odds yeah because it's like you know people are like oh you know people in Bali are the happiest people and they have nothing and they're just so happy which is true but they also aren't going on holidays to Dubai or living in yeah massive houses or maybe don't even have clean water or a washing machine or a shower that works we literally know someone who went on holiday who lived in Dubai and when they came back their neighbors had eaten their dog so it's not all sunshine and rainbows no no no exactly I'd say you can't be like oh I wish I was as happy as that and still want to have the five-star holidays and fly business class like there is a balance there is gonna be you are gonna be more stressed when you have more but it's still so the the Instagram life now that it just looks like everybody's having a good time all the time and you don't see it's so easy to look at someone else and say I wish I had their business because you know we've got a client who works four hours in his business I think the ultimate the ultimate and I'm certainly not there yet but I'm trying it's when these obstacles come to be really fucking grateful for them because it's your next opportunity yeah if I overcome this I'm gonna be a fucking beast on the other side and I that big one recently for me I felt like I'd reached a new level if there's a computer game I just I just beat the boss yeah yeah yeah she's back King Cooper that's what Bowser used to be called back in the day yeah I prefer Bowser okay you would so but like yeah but imagine if you saw it like that you know like people who enjoy the gym will go in and they'll do their record deadlift they know it's gonna be fucking hard before they pick it up I ran this morning I fucking hate every second of it but I felt really good after I was actually like out of breath I was sweating I couldn't be arsed and I was like but I'm doing it doing this what do you do when it starts to hurt because I say you run 5k this morning yeah so it starts to hurt at probably 1k yeah the second K is the hardest always but after that it gets easier really yeah so what gets you through that second K good music and just not, I literally say to myself like don't be a pussy. You're not far from home at 1k there so what stops you from turning around? Well I don't, I'm on the treadmill which is arguably even harder. Oh yeah, okay you're not far from the shower so what's like or literally what stops you from just slowing it down? That's a big fucking mental obstacle right there of like well I've ran a K so I've got my heart rate up and I've burnt a few calories. Like I could just have a shower now and go to work, what's stopping you? What's making you carry on? Because I want to hit the goal, like I want to get better, I don't want to get worse at running I want to get better. So people who have a big obstacle in their way are struggling to see what's on the other side of that obstacle? Yeah, when what is there is going to be fantastic. So little obstacles, really easy to see what's on the other side of the obstacle because it doesn't block your view. Big obstacle much harder because you've got to imagine what's on the other side and I think people mistakenly get it in their heads that the more money they have the less stress they'll have. No, you'll just have new types of stress. The one thing I will be honest about is when you have more money there are certain things that would have been an obstacle in the past that you can just get rid of which does make life simpler. But then new obstacles come. And so I'm not going to patronise people and say certain things aren't easier when you've got more money, of course they are. If you can afford a cleaner you don't have to clean your house anymore, it's easier. But other shit happens, expect shit to happen. And so every level of growth I'd say brings new challenges. Yeah, so what common obstacles? Staff is a massive one that always surprises you. You never ever fully feel like you've got on top of the team. So don't settle into that thought. Well yeah because you can never ever control. People have left here and it's blown my mind that they're leaving. And I always take that really personally. I'm just like they don't like me. It must be you Marth because this never happened before you got here. No, I'm joking. Yeah, well no. But we were a smaller business and we had like a solid team for like what four years? Yeah, but now it's harder isn't it? And we crank up the pressure and we push hard and it is what it is. I'm not going to take it personally. Um you're still here. I think Jack and Ethan are here for the long term. Like we're recruiting. It's the staff is a regular obstacle for the business owner and humans in general are. Like you cannot predict what someone's going to do. I don't think even I can even predict what I'm going to do. Like sometimes I do some really destructive behavior and I'm like why am I doing this? Why? Why? Like and I know I'm like I still think to myself like why am I acting like this? And then but I'm still doing it. Yeah. So if you're doing that. Why am I at ten cookies? You're relatively stable. In a row. I don't want to eat the 10th cookie but I still eat it. I had some gingerbread on Sunday. Homemade gingerbread. Nice. It's like classic one with like chocolate hair and Smarties for buttons. It's really good. And did you pull off his buttons one? Did I pull off his button? Do you know the muffin man? No I just bit his head off. But yeah like staff is a big one. People in general is a big one because it only takes one thing to go wrong in their life. And they spiral and they completely change in their work environment. And that's just to be expected. So rather than like getting wind up by it just embrace the fact that that's what happens. I guess it's an opportunity for someone. Cash flow. Better. If you're scaling to seven figures cash flow is a big obstacle. Because sometimes the business can be profitable. You can see the way to multi seven figures. You just can't put enough cash in to get the result. And it's that chicken and egg. You need an extra team member but the extra team member tips the balance and puts you under pressure. That is one of the things in business that like scaling across that seven figure mark is renowned as an obstacle. And the unexpected. I think something unexpected happens every day here. Like a website goes down or. A client is getting an amazing result but still isn't happy. The postman delivers stuff to the wrong fucking place. Yeah a client kicks off when it doesn't make any sense. Like these things happen so expect them to happen rather than like. It's weird. Like as humans we kind of expect good things to happen to us and then complain that they never do. Don't expect bad things to happen to us and then complain when they do. And it's not true either. Like lots of good things happen to you every day as you alluded to. You just don't take note of them. You remember the bad ones. Today honestly it's blown my mind a guy called Joe. I got to the office and there was a parcel outside the door. Addressed to me. Picked it up opened it and he sent me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles protein shaker. And you have to be listening to the podcast quite a lot or following my socials to know that that's an appropriate gift for me. And he sent it me just out of kindness. With no like expectation. You didn't even know who it was from. Just received a random gift. So I put it on my socials and he replied in the messages. And I could have cried. I was like that is such a lovely thing. And I've screenshotted our conversation I've had with him that I'll keep private. But I'm going to keep that on my phone and refer back to it when I'm struggling. And it's just like fucking hell. Like it's just really nice. So and yet like the other week when we were you know I got this solicitor's letter. We had this charge back. That day I was driving to work in a strop and I cracked my windscreen. Fuck's sake what else is going to happen. And you know it goes both ways. Yeah it's not. And I said it's not a bad life it's just a bad day. Sometimes you do have bad days. Sometimes you have amazing days. God if people saw a bird's eye view of your life or my life they'd think we were very privileged. Yeah yeah I think so too yeah. So who am I to complain sort of thing. But yeah other things that might come up. Overwhelm feeling like you haven't got any time. Hiring the wrong people that's easily done. I've done it. I'm reluctant to say burnout but that feeling of burnout. Often when all your attention's in a negative place it drains you really quickly. And then on a high level leadership. Are you being a good leader? Are you doubting yourself? Delivery quality is the quality of everything. way you promised it would be. These are all the things you can encounter all the time. Delegation is extremely difficult. But I would say, treat it as a good sign that when you're encountering resistance, it just means you're breaking through to the next level. Yeah. I don't mean that in a woo-woo way. I mean it in like a, if you want stuff that no one else has got. You've gotta do stuff. You've gotta be willing to do things that no one else will do, and that's fucking hard. So, I mean Hannah said something to me the other day, and I don't think she realized she said it. We were just driving home from somewhere, and she saw a message pop up on the car. Someone had messaged me, and it was a bit flippant. And she said, oh, your mates don't realize how hard you work, do they? And I was like, well, some do. But yeah, probably not. Not like my football mates. And she was like, yeah, they always make jokes about how easy you've got it, and they've no clue that sometimes you're on your laptop at two in the morning fighting fires. I'm like, well, doesn't serve me to tell them otherwise, so I'll just leave it. And she was like, but then we've done things that they haven't. Yeah. It's very good. Yeah. I mean, we've just booked a cruise. Yeah, get you. Well, yeah, Jase booked, Jase. For context, your partner runs his own business, takes risks other people wouldn't take. Well, yeah, he's effectively running the business, I'm working full-time, and so it has been hard picking up a lot of the other stuff. And I work full-time as well, but in a business that is growing and scaling, and we're encountering problems, and sometimes I have to pick up the slack of people leaving. And so, but all that other stuff that falls, and it's like, it did feel like such a grind for the last six months have been just mental. And now it's like, now we get the fruit. Yeah, yeah. And I guess, the way I would say I try and, once I've calmed down, everyone, you've got reactive and proactive emotions, so everything causes a reaction. Bear in mind that how you react to something initially is not your true feelings about it, and try not to harbour those, so. Which is so easy to say, but I am a... Oh, but you and I are both reactive, yeah. But a legal letter lands that shits you up and demands a lot of money, it's perfectly natural to feel shitted up, and to need to take a moment, or a day, or a week to settle down. But then what if you reframe that as, oh, this is my next piece of training? Yeah. This is my next deadlift. This is my next run. This is my next level. And then your mindset becomes the weapon for getting you through that training. And I think that is where you start to unlock things that other people never unlock, because there's an amount of discomfort there that is beyond the comprehension of most people. And I can frame it another way. I'm not saying this only happens to business owners. I will probably never do a marathon, because I cannot see a moment where I'd want to be in that much discomfort to achieve that. I saw someone do an ultra at the weekend, and they did Hadrian's Wall. Two of my friends, actually. Shout out to Jordan and Leslie. I did sponsor them, but I'm not fucking doing it. There must be people who see business owners and think the same, like, fuck it, I'm not staying up until two on my laptop, stressed out in my mind, wiping 20 years off my life because my blood pressure's through the roof. Or not knowing if I'm gonna have a steady. Get paid. Yeah. Might have to sell my house to make the payroll. Literally. I get it. I won't do what they'll do, and they won't do what I do, but those obstacles are the way that you get to what you want. Like, I want to go to the World Cup next year with my mates and travel around in a massive, it's in America, so hence why there'd be a massive car, and just have the best time. To achieve that, I've put some obstacles in my way to make sure I've banked a certain amount of money and done a certain amount of stuff, because that's what it takes. And it might not, for them, it's different. They've got different obstacles, like they've got to arrange time off at work, and they've got to save child care, save a certain amount of money. For me, it's like, I've got to achieve this, this, and this at work, or I can't justify going. And then, yeah, so the progress is the reward for taking on the discomfort. So, what would you say, Marv? How do you know if you're on track? You've got to have a goal, right? You can't, if you don't know where you're shooting, then you'll never know, and you'll also never feel the satisfaction of achieving it, like running a marathon. Nobody enjoys, I don't think anybody enjoys all of it. Maybe some people enjoy the start of it, but the feeling of being like, I did that, and it was amazing, and I got to experience that, that is the reward. But if you don't ever say, I'm gonna do this, then you never get. Yeah, yeah, so I think it's like, having a clear goal, expect problems, build routines for mindset resilience, and have people you can rely on. And if you get those three things in place, I think. You'll be unstoppable.