A few weeks after my bowel resection I helped carry a photocopier up a flight of stairs.
Still had my stitches in. There was a job on, the customer needed it done, and I was there. So I picked up my end and we went up the stairs.
I’m not telling you that as a badge of honour. I’m telling you because it’s the clearest illustration I have of something that took me a long time to properly understand — that when you’ve decided the business comes first, you will talk yourself into almost anything. And you won’t even notice you’re doing it.
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The Crohn’s had been building for years before it got serious. Managed on painkillers, worked around, never quite dealt with properly because there was always something more pressing. By 2016 I was on a liquid diet — solid food simply wouldn’t pass. I ran the business on nutritional drinks and kept going because stopping didn’t feel like an option.
The surgery that year removed a metre of bowel. Two days in ICU. Catherine was there, and I won’t speak for what she was carrying in those hours, but I know what I saw in her face.
I’ve never had a Crohn’s symptom since. Whatever they took out, they took the problem with it.
But within weeks I was on a staircase with a photocopier and a fresh set of stitches.
Because the job needed doing.
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There’s a question worth sitting with here — and I’d ask you to resist the urge to answer it too quickly.
**What are you currently managing, minimising, or pushing through that your body has been telling you about for longer than you’d care to admit?**
Not a dramatic question. Not an accusation. Just an honest one.
Because in my experience, entrepreneurs are remarkably good at two things: building businesses and ignoring warning signs. The same qualities that make you effective — the ability to push through discomfort, to defer gratification, to keep moving when everything in you wants to stop — those qualities do not distinguish between a difficult quarter and a serious health problem. They just push.
The business doesn’t know the difference either. It will take whatever you give it.
