There are moments in business โ and in life โ that test everything you believe in. Moments that force you to choose between what’s easy and what’s right. Between short-term survival and long-term integrity.
I faced one of those moments in 2020.
I’ll never forget the feeling. I was reading a 13-page letter filled with complaints and accusations from a member of our work team. My stomach dropped. Just days before, I had met with this person face-to-face and asked directly if they had any issues. They shared none.
Yet here it was โ a massive written litany of problems. Conversation by conversation, all recorded in writing. Degrading comments about me and other team members. Plans to share confidential client information behind my back. Conspiring, casting doubt about changes we were implementing.
I felt completely blindsided.
As I sat with that devastating letter, old voices crept in:
“You’re a career employee, not an entrepreneur.”
“You like paychecks and certainty. What do you know about starting and running a business?”
Everyone looked to me for answers, and I felt lost and inadequate because I didn’t have them. I wanted to slip into oblivion.
I woke up at night tossing and turning, thoughts racing in a million directions, running through worst-case scenarios. What about the potential for lost revenues and legal challenges looming over my headโat a time when we could least afford it?
Isn’t it enough that we’re in the middle of a pandemic? And now this?
Shortly before I received this letter, we had proudly summed up the values of TerraPro Solutions. And then โ BAM โ right out the gate, it felt like those values were being tested.
Those values framed who I am as a leader and what I stand for:
I had vowed to create a culture of truth, openness, and integrity, where employees were valued for their humanness and their intelligence โ not just their ability to deliver results for clients. I wanted to eliminate the demoralizing cycle of hiring when numbers are up and firing when numbers come down. I would create something vision-driven and lasting, so that other women could build their careers too.
I would prioritize people over profit.
I recalled why I had started this business in the first place, ten years ago โ on my own, with no partners and no investors, in the midst of a bitter divorce following a 25-year marriage.
I made the decision after a final job interview, just as I was about to sign an agreement to go work for another company. But it didn’t feel right.
Why was I going to work for someone else again?
Now, a decade later, my team of 20 and I are considered leading experts in the field of renewable energy development โ an industry where only 13% of the workforce is women.
Yet here I sat with this letter, wondering: What kind of leader am I?
Do these values really mean something, or are they just words?
Am I really going to prioritize people over profit in the middle of a pandemic and falling revenues?
Prioritizing profit would mean maintaining the industry status quo. But that didn’t feel right.
What about the alternative? If we put people first, what would that mean for the business when we were already struggling?
What about the people who looked up to me as a leader? Would they still respect me? Would I lose people if they felt like they could no longer believe in me? What about our reputation of integrity that I had worked so hard to build?
As I thought about the other leaders that had let me down, I felt like this moment โ this decision โ would define me.
Did I have the courage to stifle those voices of doubt?
I knew I had to take the much harder pathโfrom “what if” to “now what.”
No finger-pointing. I would have to get into the trenches, have the hard conversations, make the hard decisions.
They would not win.
I would find my fierce.
I made a commitment to myself and my team:
I wish I could tell you that we didn’t lose money. But we did โ almost half a million dollars.
I wish I could say that I felt better right away. But I didn’t.
I wish I could say I woke up every day and it was way easier. But it was not.
The remaining months continued to be very difficult as we struggled with falling revenues and worked hard to retain our employees.
But we kept going.
I had crystal plaques made with our values engraved and sent them to all our employees to emphasize their importance. But these aren’t just words on the wall now. We live these values.
We openly share them with our teams, with our clients, and on our website so that everyone knows who we are and what we stand for.
I fought through the doubts and the challenges to come out stronger. I moved into and through the difficulty and kept working. I made the hard decisions. I prioritized the needs of our clients so that the results could speak for themselves.
I’m so happy to tell you that the client at the heart of the dispute called recently โ and they want to come work with us.
We have the kind of company and culture that they want to work for.
I feel vindicated.
Our organization has quadrupled the number of projects entrusted to our firm.
We became โ and are staying โ open for business.
We found our fierce.
I encourage you to find your fierce โ the stand that you’re willing to take for your business and for your life.
I believe we are not put on this planet just to mark time.
We are here to make our mark.
At TerraPro Solutions, we are leading experts in real estate and title consulting for renewable energy projects. We pride ourselves on delivering results for our clients while maintaining a culture built on integrity, humanity, and excellence.
TerraPro Solutions uses Accessibility Checker to monitor our website's accessibility.