Failure in Business

Facing the Chaos

I snapped this picture at Waimea Bay the day of the Eddie. The waves were 40-60ft!

The last few weeks of my life have been really challenging.

As an agency owner, customer churn is normal, but somehow I got hit with a tidal wave of it right at the end of 2024 that wiped out ~90% of my revenue.

Just bad luck I suppose. When it rains it pours.

What’s weird is that it actually feels like an invitation.

My business partner Bailey and I had already been talking for a few months about launching a brand/ product of our own that we could be an agency for (i.e. scale online ourselves) — that way we’d at least have one client that couldn’t fire us. I’ll explain more about this in the coming weeks, but for now it will suffice to say that we’ve landed on a product/ brand concept that we’re really excited about and will be launching it in the next 3-4 months.

When we got the phone calls that our current clients were moving forward with different strategies/ cheaper labor, I was devastated at first. All this momentum we had worked to build through 2024 was gone in a matter of weeks.

So much fear welled up in me. This business was a main support line for my own family as well as Bailey’s.

When I hopped on a call with Bailey in late December to share that two clients (in the same day!) had called to cancel our contract with them, I fully expected him to share my fear and disappointment.

To my surprise, as I shared the news with him, I saw a weight lift off of his shoulders. He let me finish my announcement and what he responded with shocked me:

He said “Jon — this is our chance to go for it.”

“We were about to be swamped with work in 2025 building other peoples dreams with them, and as much as I get hyped on that, I think we will be much better off doing that work for ourselves.”

All of a sudden it was like I could breathe again. This man can not be defeated. And his energy completely reversed the fear in me.

We had the skills to launch brands and products that crush, we’d seen that over and over again. And that was my comfort zone, it’s what I’ve been used to for over a decade now.

But developing a simple product/ business that we could create ourselves, that could scale with the strategies we’ve leveraged successfully for our clients — that was definitely a new concept. All of a sudden there was a lightness and energy to it that I can’t explain. And now we had a real opportunity to give it our full attention.

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After over a year of owning a business and earning money independently, one thing has become abundantly clear to me:

Entrepreneurship is a deeply spiritual matter.

It is an exercise in hope, abundance, wit, and above all focus. To me, none of these are possible without a rich inner life, and relationship with a loving God, not to mention a loving co-founder.

One of my main goals in 2025 is to re-establish myself as a spiritual being and embed rhythms of soul rest and replenishment into my daily life more than I ever have. I see this journey as directly relating to my wellbeing overall, but especially my ability to pioneer through uncertainty in the business world.

As the world tends towards distraction and spiritual confusion, I’ve come to realize these endeavors are something that the world deeply needs right now just as much as I do, so I plan to leverage this platform as well as my others to document my journey and learnings along the way.

But lets get back to the story.

A good friend and business mentor looked at me when I shared the news of our near instantaneous revenue loss and said something that has stuck with me:

“You’re never going to forget the next 6 months of your life.”

I think he’s right. In some ways my back is against the wall, and yet I feel a deep sense of agency. And beyond all that, I have a plan and a team that I believe in. I believe this year will be a year of grit, transformation, and growth unlike any I’ve experienced before.

I’m really excited to share more of this plan with my readers on here and my people across all social platforms, so please make sure you’re subscribed for the journey.

To all my friends and family who have been profoundly supporting and encouraging to me in the last few weeks around this unfolding story, know that it means the world. My wealth is and always has been the relationships in my life, and that gives me an incredible sense of confidence regardless of the direction my bank account is going. Thank you for being a part of my life. I can’t believe the people God has gifted me with in life. My spouse, my family, my friends all across the world. I am truly a blessed man.

If you’re reading this and had a similarly disruptive end to your 2024, welcome to the club. It’s going to be ok. There is opportunity in crisis. If you need to be encouraged, so do I, so please don’t hesitate to DM me on here or shoot me an email at jonathancaliguire@gmail.com

Let’s make 2025 the best year of our lives.