September 29, 2026
Every business has a moment when hope is the only thing that keeps it going.
For a while, mine was the same. The training, the speaking, the whole Caveman theme came down to me totally believing in it, even when the enquiries just were not there. Some days, it was only this belief that was the business.
But then something shifted. Bookings started to happen, enquiries and opportunities opened up. Discovering new ways of working all came about with some tiny green shoots starting to show, and they have been growing.
In today’s newsletter, I am sharing the honest story of what hope actually looked like in my business. It is not the Instagram version that everyone posts, but the hard graft, gritty, keep-showing-up version that has eventually led to somewhere, and it is worth it for me to keep going.
Being honest about something that most business people in my position do not say due to fear, showing a weakness, or believing all the hype about faking it until you make it does not reflect the authenticity of growing a new business.
When I started, there were months, not weeks, when I ran my business based entirely on a conviction that what I am doing is beneficial for all. The website was done and published. The framework of my work and service offerings was there, and the ideas behind them were too. However, the enquiries were not. Every morning I looked in my inbox, and there would be nothing to suggest the world had noticed what I was building. I would sit staring at the screen for a moment, then try something else. What else could I do? I had to keep going. From being part of the PSA (Professional Speaking Association) I worked the network like I never had before. David Hyner was the first to invite me to his Mastermind.
David taught me that you show up. You grow the business from the ground up. You keep doing the work, even when the evidence of doing the work is thin. You show up, present and stay on point. You become the regular voice and face of your subject, even with no bookings.
I am not telling you this because I am over this stage and I cannot afford to be philosophical about it. I am telling you because I think it is important that someone says it without the fluff, without adding any cherries on top of it. Building something from nothing, that is all yours, something that comes from your own commitment and wanting to do something cool all from your own experience, from your own belief about what the world really needs, is soooo hard. The gap between having an idea and having a business is as wide and unforgiving as you can imagine, nobody warns you how long it is going to take to cross it.
Gathering your friends, the people you trust and those who are willing to show you a path is invaluable. Anthony Stears is another who showed up when I had no idea about marketing, I thought I did, but obviously, as there was no work, I clearly needed help. Processes, procedures, recording and following up were huge pieces of the puzzle I was missing.
The caveman equivalent is not far off, imagine coming back from a hunt empty handed for the third time this week. The fire is burning lower than you’d like, and the tribe were depending on you. You don’t have the option to complain about it or question where the prey has gone or whether you were wrong to think the next valley over was worth exploring. You put the failure behind you, sharpen your spear, study what you now know, change your approach (but only if it needs changing), and go back out the following morning with the same determination as always. You keep the fire going for tonight, if for nothing else, it is so that you have the option to go out again tomorrow.
The word “Hope” is not a feeling, it is a survival strategy. The brain can hold onto a purpose when the evidence of success is less than thin, the trick of using hope is that we can keep the brain going long enough for the evidence to become stronger. Cavemen knew this, an absolute need for food meant that tomorrow we cannot fail. We are the descendants of those people and we carry their perseverance in us, even when we forget where it came from.
The question, as always, is what kind of persistence you will bring to a difficult time.
If you are a Hunter (this is me)
The Hunter’s version of hope is not sentimental, it is much more directional. When enquiries dry up, the Hunter does not sit and wait for the market to come and find them. They try a different route, adjusting the pitch, changing the channel, knocking on different doors, trying to look at the problem from a different angle. A Hunter in a quiet season is still moving, because they know movement is what they feel and trust most. The shift in approaches tends to come from a Hunter not because circumstances have changed, but because the Hunter is bored and has changed their approach so many times that eventually one of them hit the right note.
If this sounds like you, the danger in a difficult season is that relentless turns can become thrashing around, jumping from one thing to the next before anything has a chance to work. The caveman wisdom for the Hunter right now is to keep moving, by all means, but to move with a strategy rather than just speed. I made myself work on a theory a month at a time, no changes. This is either why it took me so long to get where I am or why I got to where I am today, the right answer might drive me mad.
If you are a Protector
The Protector’s hope is more relational, they keep going because people are counting on them. For the clients who trust them, for the people who say that something they built made a difference, for the family or team whose stability depends on the business working. When the commercial element is hard, the Protector uses that relational burn almost instinctively, because it is the deepest and most impactful push to motivate them to get on with it.
The weight of responsibility drives a Protector so they can (over a long difficult season) become genuinely exhausted. Carrying everyone else’s need for their own success is a gift and an undeniable pressure. If you are a Protector who has been in your quiet season for a while, it is worth checking whether you are running on “purpose” or running because of “duty”. They feel similar on the inside, but they don’t sustain you in the same way.
If you are a Gatherer
The Gatherer’s hope is all evidence-based, it sounds cold and non-emotional, that is, until you understand what is actually going on. A Gatherer who is in a difficult season looks at data and finds signals in the mess. They can pull the one enquiry that came from an unexpected direction, a newsletter that has an open rate that keeps creeping up and be able to work it. A conversation that did not convert but felt somehow different from all the ones before it, they will analyse the lot. The Gatherer does what they always do, Gather information, and they trust that if they can understand the picture clearly enough, they will find the right path through it.
The Gatherer’s risk is when the data just isn’t there, and the analysis becomes circular, they become trapped. They keep looking for a pattern that will make sense of everything, and without enough data points, they start creating narratives from tiny fragments. If you are a Gatherer in a quiet season, the most useful thing that you can do is to be honest about which signals are informative and which ones you are pulling apart just because you need to read something.
If you are a Healer
The Healer’s hope comes from purpose. They keep going because they believe in a genuinely and deeply emotional pull in what they are doing, and what it does for people. A Healer who receives feedback that their framework gave someone resolve they didn’t have before, or that a session changed how they think about their team, does not file it away as a nice piece of feedback; they carry it. It acts as fuel, a specific and sustaining kind, this sort of evidence shows that what they are building actually matters to real people. This is what sustains a Healer when the commercial landscape is harder to read than the human one.
The Healer’s challenge in a quiet season is not a crisis of their purpose. They rarely doubt their why. It is more often their visibility. They worry that the work they are doing is not being seen, and that the people who need it the most do not know it exists and therefore they cannot help them, and it hurts. That gap between their value and their reach is too wide to bridge on a belief alone. If this is you, the answer is always to find a better way to tell your story, because your belief is not the problem. Your communication is.
All four versions of hope have one thing in common, none of them are passive. They are not hoping someone is waiting to rescue them, or are waiting for someone to validate everything they do, or waiting for the moment when it becomes easy (we all dream of this last one but know it doesn’t happen). These are the hopes of someone who has decided the thing they are building is worth the difficulty of building it, and who gets up the next day and tries again.
This is the honest version. Not the overnight success everyone seems to want you to believe, not the fantastic bit of luck that changed everything, not the carefully cut showreel of a business that was always going to go somewhere. This is the version most people building something real can recognise, even if they cannot yet name it.
For me, the green shoots are showing now, 12 months of head banging frustration and disbelief is all coming together. The bookings are coming in. The enquiries are landing, and the work I do is finally finding the right people that it was meant to. I cannot pretend this does not feel good, after all the dry seasons it has taken to get here, because it does. It feels very good indeed, but I am not going to rest on my laurels.
I want you to think about this true and fun post: are you in your difficult season right now or can you remember what it felt like, or do you want to start your own journey? The persistence will not be wasted. The days when the only thing in a business is the belief that a business is worth building. For me, these 12 months were the foundation. You cannot see a foundation from the outside, which is why the Instagram version of success will never show the true graft needed, but anyone who has built anything worthwhile already knows it is there.
Take the free Tribal Sorter to find out which type you are: https://cavemanprinciples.com/#quiz
If you are leading a team through a difficult season, understanding how your people process uncertainty, where they find their fuel, and what support they need is the difference between a team that can hold it together in difficult times and one that starts to break up. That is exactly the work I do with organisations.
Find out more: www.carljones.org
If you would like me to bring this conversation into your next event, I would be glad to have a chat.
Book me as your next keynote speaker: www.carljones.org
Caveman Thought
The caveman who came back from the hunt empty-handed did not sit at the mouth of the cave and contemplate his navel, wondering whether hunting was the right career choice. He went back out in the morning, not because he was certain of success but because the tribe needed him to keep trying. The most important resource in a difficult season is not money, contacts or luck. It is the willingness to keep going when the evidence is thin. Watch and look after your hope carefully. It is worth more than most people realise, as we all need it.
Parting Question
Think about the difficult season you have been through at work or in your business, the one where the only thing keeping you going is your belief that it is all worth it. What was the nature of your hope? Was it active or passive, relational or purposeful, evidence-based or rooted in something deeper? And if you are in that season right now, which of those four versions of hope best reflects you?
As always, tend your own fire first. It is the one that actually warms the people around you.
Your friend,
Carl – The Caveman.
P.S. When you are ready, here are a few things that might help you;
- You can book me to attend your next event as a Keynote Speaker.
- Want to take a FREE personality test? Check out The Caveman Principles Tribal Sorter.
- Check out my theories – The Caveman Principles and The SLAP Technique
- Grab a copy of my book The Caveman Principles, directly from my printing agent.
- You might want to book a spot on one of my eLearning courses to help you master a new skill.
- Or, if you have time and want to schedule a Caveman chat (with virtual coffee) for a discovery call, do it here.