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It was the summer of 1996, around about the time of that Gazza goal Director Joe Postings says he had been suffering an intense aching sensation in the area around, above and just below his knees in his legs for a good few months now. Being an active 10 year old before the age of social media when there was more on offer outside the home than inside of it, he thought it was probably a result of the football he played every day or the trees he loved climbing up. He doesn’t recall mentioning it to anyone.
He believes today that those pains which he was feeling were what is commonly known today as “growing pains”. More than just an old wives tale, growing pains feature on the NHS website https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/growing-pains/ as a genuine medical condition. However, what is interesting about that is that while they are called “growing pains” the NHS state that they are not actually caused by growing and cannot be entirely sure what causes the pains to happen.
But what has this got to do with JSP Credit Management? No, the challenges of startup business have not got to us that badly that we’ve lost sight of our purpose, mission or “why”. Nor are we considering diversifying and penetrating the healthcare sector as medical professionals, unless your happy to place your faith in a team of medical professional that uses Google to diagnose themselves every time they have a medical query. No, we did not think so.
We’re more interested in the concept of growing pains from a slightly different context and one which had escaped our awareness until it was put to Joe Postings by a spiritual advisor in 2017 following a discussion about a particularly difficult incident he had to overcome emotionally. The spiritual advisor referred to the struggle which he was experiencing as growing pains and invited him to see how all of the adversity that he experienced in his life up to now had, ultimately, served him well.
Still not sure why we're talking about it? For us, growing pains apply just as much to a person's professional life and career as they do in their personal life. Take a moment now to consider that statement. Think back through the most challenging moments you have had in your career. Have they not always taught or give you something in the end? Yet often we will treat these experiences like they are bad, shameful or embarrassing without really considering their true value.
Forgive us for the extended quote but we take this passage from Singer Sting’s book Broken Music, "A drug," one had told me, "gives you an instant reward, some kind of gratification, whether it's a cigarette, alcohol, cocaine, or dope, but later you pay with a headache, a hangover the next day, or worse, dependency and addiction. Smoke enough cigarettes and you will die. Traditionally medicine doesn't give you an instant reward. You may be gratified eventually but you will have to pay first. Ayahuasca is such a medicine."
That incredible distinction between drugs and medicine has stood long in the memory of Joe Postings who read it for the first time nearly 15 years ago and also correlates to another piece of writing he came across whilst studying the mindfulness-based approach to cognitive behavioural therapy as part of his psychology degree in 2018 which can be summarised in this YouTube video:
We believe hope we have outlined the problem clearly enough. Our judgement, our projections – these are the problem. So what are we not saying? We are not saying that we should go out looking for things that are going to hurt us in the hope that it will teach us something. That is a different problem entirely, and will probably be covered in one of our blogs in the future. We are not saying that this philosophy is an excuse for complacency either. To reiterate the main point. The pain is there to teach us something.
So next time you find yourself dwelling on that complaint your business has received from one of your most valuable customers, the member of staff who has called in sick for the third Monday in a row, that supplier that has let you down on a delivery you really needed on that day, or the debtor that has not sent that big cheque that they promised you last Friday, we invite you to ask yourself this: What can I learn from this? What can I change? Experiences tell us that obsessing about the things you wish were different about other people because will only lead to disappointment.
They are called growing pains because it is much easier to see the problem in others than it is in ourselves, in psychology, it is known as attribution theory, but the operative word here is “growing”. See it for what it is. A successful business rarely just gets given to us. It involves taking the medicine as Sting tells us, it involves making the sacrifice first in order to receive the rewards later. If your not convinced about the Old Chinese Farmer either look at what happened to Gareth Southgate on Wednesday night. A missed penalty in 1996 to a ticket to the final in 2021. Before the semi-final match, he described his missed penalty in ’96 as irrelevant. That’s how you suspend judgement.
We are here to do a bit to businesses safeguard their cash flow against late payers or debtors that are refusing to pay, so if you have been struggling to get an invoice paid and would appreciate the support of a team who pride themselves on operating in a way that is mindful of the factors discussed above then visit our website at www.jspcreditmanagement.co.uk and contact us to discuss your needs. We operate on a no-win-no-fee basis for bad debt recovery and our credit control and credit risk services can be ordered via our website with the littlest of hassle.