There are moments in life when everything you built gets tested.
For us, that moment came when COVID-19 hit.
We owned Child’s Play Challenge Courses in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Our business was built around people coming together — obstacle courses, school programs, group events, shared equipment, laughter, movement, and connection.
Then almost overnight, everything changed.
The calls stopped.
The bookings disappeared.
The calendar went empty.
At the height of the outbreak, we lost all of our business.
It is hard to explain what that feels like unless you have lived it. You pour your time, money, energy, and heart into building something. You believe in it. You make plans. You picture the future.
Then one day, it feels like the whole dream gets punched in the mouth.
And in that moment, you have a choice to make.
Do we quit?
Do we wait and hope things go back to normal?
Or do we find another way?
That is where grit showed up for us.
Not in some loud, dramatic way.
It showed up in hard conversations. In asking for help. In trying to stay calm when we did not have answers. In looking at our business and saying, “Okay, if we cannot do it the old way, how can we do it now?”
This was not the first time we had to learn and adjust.
Years earlier, when we wanted to grow our business, we reached out for guidance. We had considered taking out a large loan to have our obstacles professionally designed and manufactured. But we were advised to slow down and use the prototypes we already had.
At the time, that advice may not have sounded exciting.
But it saved us thousands of dollars. It helped us learn what worked, what did not work, and what our customers really responded to. That season taught us something important: sometimes wisdom looks like slowing down.
Sometimes grit is not only pushing harder.
Sometimes grit is being humble enough to listen, learn, and make better decisions.
Then COVID came, and we had to learn all over again.
We reached out for help. We asked questions. We looked into financial assistance. We learned about programs that might help us survive the season.
But we also knew we could not just sit still and wait for everything to become normal again.
So we started rebuilding the business in a new way.
We moved bookings outdoors. We sanitized equipment. Our staff wore masks. We created ways for people to stay socially distanced. We added touchless hand sanitizing. We changed obstacles when we needed to, so there would be less contact.
None of it was easy.
But we kept going.
That is what small business owners do. They adapt. They solve problems. They wake up with pressure on their chest and still try to find a way forward.
Little by little, business started coming back.
By June, things began picking up again. Events that had been canceled were replaced with new clients. People who had canceled asked us to come back the next year. We found new ways to serve families, schools, and small groups.
When school programs became difficult, we turned them into backyard enrichment programs.
At one point, we went from doing six classes a week in schools to eighteen classes a week in backyards.
What looked like the end of our business became a season of reinvention.
That was not luck.
That was grit.
That was faith.
That was refusing to let one hard season write the whole story.
Looking back, we learned that life will throw obstacles in the road. Business will test you. Plans will change. Doors may close. Fear will try to talk louder than faith.
But a closed door is not always the end.
Sometimes it is the moment that forces you to build a better way forward.
We learned that no matter what life throws at us, we can find a way to adjust, reinvent, and keep moving.
And maybe that is the lesson for all of us.
You do not have to have everything figured out.
You do not have to see the whole road.
You just have to take the next honest step.
Because sometimes grit is not about never getting knocked down.
Sometimes grit is looking at what is left, taking a deep breath, and saying, “We are not done yet.”