Just ONE Thing
This Is What Resilient Shop Owners Do Differently
Episode 233
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Hey, good morning everybody. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ. We are a coaching and training company for independent auto and truck repair shops, and this is my Just ONE Thing. I'm gonna do something I don't normally do.
Last time we talked in our Just ONE Thing, we talked about the storms, right? And that there are no bad storms—it's just not being prepared. And we talked about how awareness, recognition, and preparation are gonna help you face what you can't control.
But here's the thing I want to make sure we talk about. Even when you're prepared, the storm can still change everything. This is what I need you to understand in that moment: survival doesn't come from strength alone. It comes from your ability to bend. Now that we have awareness, recognition, and preparation, the next step is resilience and adaptation.
Being able to adapt when you have a storm coming—being resilient and adaptive—is what keeps you standing and growing. No matter what happens, no matter what life throws at you, you got this.
There's a really great old story about a birch and an oak tree, and I'm gonna just say it real quick.
When the sky darkened and the wind began to howl, the oak tree stood tall and proud, confident in its strength. The birch, on the other hand, looked fragile—its slender trunk swaying back and forth, bending almost to the ground as the gusts of wind intensified.
All through the night, the storm raged. The oak resisted every gust, refusing to bow. The birch went low, letting the wind pass over and around it.
By morning, the forest was silent again. The oak, mighty as it had been, lay splintered on the ground, its roots torn from the earth.
The birch, though battered and bent, still stood—rooted, alive, and reaching once again toward the sun. The oak had strength. The birch had flexibility. But the birch also had something else: it had resilient adaptability.
What do I mean by that? Resilience is your ability to stay grounded, to stay true to who you are—your purpose, your values, and your identity—when life gets rough. Adapting is the ability to flex, to shift, adjust your approach when the world is changing around you.
Resilience keeps you standing.
Now, there's something I want you to understand. Resilience keeps you standing. Adaptation helps you move forward.
Resilience is the depth of your roots—your purpose, your values, and your identity. Those are your roots. Being adaptive is being flexible with your branches. When you have both, storms stop becoming threats. That's the cool thing about this—the storm stops being a threat and it starts to be a catalyst for growth.
When you're resilient without being adaptive, that equals being rigid. And you stand strong until you snap, until you fail.
Being adaptive without resilience equals instability. You're constantly changing based on whims and whatever blows your way, but you end up losing who you are. You lose your identity. This is important because both are incomplete on their own.
Don't think of it as an on-and-off switch. Think of it as a spectrum. There are times when resilience and standing firm is exactly the thing to do, and times where adapting makes more sense.
It doesn't mean giving up. It doesn't mean losing who you are. But it's giving yourself the gift to be flexible. To be adaptive.
Right now, there's stuff changing. There's a lot of uncertainty, and people are scared. If you keep doing what you are doing, you are the oak.
"It's gonna come back. I'm gonna weather this storm." It could uproot you.
But if you can be firm in your purpose, in your values, in who you are—and then adapt to the external environment—that's where strength comes in. Strength is in that balance.
If you refuse to change pricing or technology, you're an oak. If you chase every new system, every new trend, every new idea, you're a birch—completely rootless birch.
The successful ones? They're deep-rooted. You're grounded in your identity and flexible in your approach. Write that down. You're grounded in your identity and you're flexible in your approach.
So how do you build both?
The first thing you gotta do is clarify your roots. Identify your roots. This is where you build resilience. Reconnect or connect with your purpose—how you're gonna get there—with your values and identity.
Who are you as a company? What do you stand for? How do you want to be seen by other people? When you know that, everything starts to shift. The first thing you gotta do is identify your roots.
The next thing we gotta do is strengthen the trunk. The way you do that is by building processes and relationships that hold you steady.
See, when you have a group of people around you—a community—when you are going through something, they're gonna buffer you. They're gonna take some of that brunt so that you don't snap. As you have better processes and better relationships, it's gonna give you more stability.
And when you have more stability, you're gonna have more flexibility. Your systems make being adaptive possible.
You gotta train your branches. You gotta practice flexibility. You gotta experiment with things and learn and adjust. The way we did business 10 years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago, is not the way we do business today.
The ones that still are—they're in trouble. They're hurting. They need to hear this.
None of us are meant to weather everything alone. One of our core beliefs here at 180BIZ is that we do life together. Sometimes we fall down, and it's up to the people around us to help pick us up and move us forward. That's what we're here for. That makes a difference.
So you gotta train your branches. Remember who you are. That's a big part of it. When you know who you are inside—your values, your purpose—resilience isn't pretending it doesn't hurt.
It's staying anchored in your identity and the direction that you're going so that the storm doesn't redefine you.
So what I want you to do is step back and identify who you are, what your values and purposes are. Look at your processes and relationships.
Share this video. People need to hear this, please. There is a lot of turmoil. We are in a storm. Storms don't destroy every tree—just the ones that refuse to bend.
Pocket Business Genius and our Shop Owners Round Table—I believe it's December 11th, 7:00 PM Eastern. Would love to have you in there.
Where in your life or business have you been standing so rigid that you might break? Where have you been bending so much that you forgot who you are?
You gotta be deeply rooted. You gotta be willing to bend. That's the strength that weathers any storm.
Resilience is what holds you to the ground. Adapting is what grows you.
Please share this video. People need to hear this. God bless. Have a great week. Have fun and go make some money.
I'll see y'all later. Bye bye.
