Where were you 10 years ago?

Twice this last month I have been asked this question, most recently in India. “Where were you ten years ago… I have been in the desert unnecessarily for ten years. If I had heard you speak on Convergence back then, I might have avoided the desert.”

Actually, ten years ago I was in a desert of sorts, and a pretty severe one.  About this time in 2001 we had given notice on our office, had to be out of our rental house in a week with nowhere to go, our revenue had dried up, a group of staff had left and started up a consulting firm that competed with us (and they were doing fine), and I wasn’t sure if we had enough money to keep the remaining staff. It was a Friday afternoon and we were about to sign a lease on another house when I received an email from Frank. “I saw the house you should rent. It doesn’t look like any of the ones you have told me you are pursuing.” On the way over to sign the lease I called Frank. “Where did you see the house?”  That’s when it got interesting.

Frank, an out of work engineer, was praying. He saw a vision… a clear as daylight picture of a house. He was shocked, and stopped praying. But every time he prayed again, he saw the house. His wife thought he was losing it. I trusted him enough to not sign the lease. It was the Friday before Thanksgiving 2001. We had to move the next Friday, and we had scoured the real estate prospects, and there seemed to be nothing that would work.

The next day our realtor called and said a house had just been listed. We took the address and drove over to see it. Lyn, my wife, said to me, “Call Frank!” When Frank came over he confirmed that it was the house he had seen. We were moved in a week later. It was wonderful provision in the nick of time, but were were not yet out of the desert. (In my book, Convergence, I speak about a season in life called The University of the Desert.)

The next year or so we bumbled along with a few clients, but lost our staff, had a lawsuit regarding a book we published, legal bills were mounting, and a prospect we had worked on for years was going nowhere. A while before, a major client had gone bankrupt and reneged on their bills, and we had other financial setbacks. One day Lyn concluded this must be God: not even the devil is so smart to make so much go so wrong so quickly.

In the midst of the malaise we served where opportunities presented themselves, and we started a new format for rēp, the work of repurposing business. We did not tackle an altruistic task out of our plenty; we started with nothing, and continued that way. Perhaps we served our way out of the desert; perhaps we received favor. It seems, in retrospect, that we simply got on with the next thing we felt we should be doing, regardless of whether it kept us in the desert or led us into a new season.

Where were we ten years ago? We were hearing the moving company say, “You gave us the “from” address–where is the “to” address?” and we could not answer them. We were trying to find a house/office for a staff we were not sure we would be keeping. We were driving around San Carlos, Redwood City, Woodside and anywhere else that seemed remotely possible looking for houses with For Rent signs. And we were on the eve of a miracle.