The air smelled like diesel and fast-food wrappers.
Trucks sat silent in the lot.
Packages that were due for delivery sat in a huge pile on a filthy floor.
A little over a year ago, I walked into my husband’s family logistics business thinking I could “steady the ship.” I’m very confident in my business acumen, and I run an executive coaching company. How hard could it be to fix a small business?
Turns out, very.
What I thought would be a quick consulting project became nine months of hard, humbling lessons about leadership, courage, and responsibility.
The business was breaking down in every way: financially, operationally, and culturally. Trucks were out of service. Bills were piling up. People were quitting left and right, including the manager.
And yet, in those early weeks, I still believed I could turn it around.
I saw a few quick wins, a light at the end of the tunnel.
But that light? It was an oncoming train.
And it took me nine long months to come to terms with that.
Avoidance vs. Ownership
In this business, avoidance had been the way of life. Problems were minimized, rationalized, or ignored.
The concept of ownership was non-existent, except for the name on the side of the trucks.
Avoidance is seductive because it feels safe. It buys time, but it breeds confusion, resentment, and decay.
Ownership, on the other hand, builds trust, energy, and clarity.
Ownership is delivering what you promise.
It’s answering the phone when the corporate liaison calls, knowing full well they’ll probably yell and tell you that you’re failing.
It’s showing up with empathy but speaking the truth.
Once I started doing that consistently, morale shifted. People began to trust again.
It was still messy, still uncomfortable, but it was honest.
The True Cost of Avoidance
Avoidance feels easier in the moment, but it’s incredibly expensive.
It costs time because problems compound.
It costs trust because people can feel when you’re hiding. They infer that you’ve stopped caring.
And it costs energy because running from problems is a full-time job.
In that business, every moment of avoidance became a debt we eventually had to pay. And the interest rate was steep.
The Power of Extreme Ownership
The longer I led through that storm, the clearer it became: Extreme ownership is powerful. It creates trust, clarity, and momentum when everything feels uncertain.
In the end, we made the painful decision to exit the business. We left with financial scars, but also with lessons you can only learn by living them.
Leadership is never about the title, the power, or the profit.
It’s about the willingness to own what’s yours, to look squarely at reality and still choose integrity.
That experience changed how I coach, lead, and live.