There are moments in life when everything you built gets tested.
Not slowly.
Not gently.
All at once.
For Matt and Lauren Borawski, that moment came when COVID-19 hit.
They owned Child’s Play Challenge Courses in Scotch Plains, New Jersey — a business built around obstacle courses, social gatherings, shared equipment, school programs, and people coming together. In other words, almost everything their business depended on suddenly became difficult, restricted, or impossible. At the height of the outbreak in March and April, Lauren said they lost all of their business.
Imagine that for a minute.
You build something.
You believe in it.
You pour your time, money, energy, and heart into it.
Then one day, the phone stops ringing.
The bookings disappear.
The calendar goes empty.
And now you have to decide what kind of person you are going to be when the dream gets punched in the mouth.
That is where grit shows up.
Not when everything is easy.
But when quitting starts to look reasonable.
Matt and Lauren had been through business decisions before. Back in 2017, when they wanted to expand Child’s Play Challenge Courses, they worked with the New Jersey Small Business Development Center at Kean University. They originally considered taking out a large loan to have their obstacles professionally designed and manufactured, but they were advised to slow down and use the prototypes they already had. Matt later said that advice saved them thousands of dollars and helped them learn what worked and what did not. During that period, their business doubled and even quadrupled.
That part matters.
Because sometimes wisdom looks like slowing down.
Sometimes grit is not just pushing harder.
Sometimes grit is being humble enough to listen, learn, and adjust.
Then COVID came.
And everything changed again.
This time, Matt and Lauren reached back out for help. They asked questions. They looked for guidance. They learned about options like the Paycheck Protection Program, Economic Injury Disaster Loans, unemployment, and other forms of financial assistance.
But here is the part I respect most:
They did not just wait for things to go back to normal.
They reinvented.
They moved bookings outdoors.
They sanitized equipment.
Their staff wore masks.
They created ways for participants to stay socially distanced.
They added touchless hand sanitizing.
They reconfigured obstacles when needed to reduce contact.
That is what small business owners do.
They adapt.
They solve problems.
They wake up with pressure on their chest and still find a way to serve people.
By June, business started picking up again. And what looked like the end of their business became a season of rebuilding. Child’s Play Challenge Courses replaced every canceled event with a new client, and customers who had canceled asked them to come back the following year. Lauren said they matched the previous year’s bookings, their fall business was up, and they reinvented school enrichment programs into backyard enrichment programs for small groups. At one point, they went from doing six classes a week in schools to eighteen classes a week in backyards. In October alone, they booked 101 events — a 248% increase over the previous October.
That is not luck.
That is grit.
That is resourcefulness.
That is refusing to let one bad season write the whole story.
And maybe that is something all of us need to remember.
Life will throw obstacles in the road.
Business will test you.
Faith will be stretched.
Plans will change.
Doors may close.
But sometimes the closed door is not the end. Sometimes it is the moment that forces you to build a better way forward.
Lauren later said they learned that no matter what life throws at them, they would find a way to reinvent themselves and keep moving on. She said thriving during the pandemic empowered them as business owners, and that there are always opportunities if you make opportunities.