Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
Mon, 19 May 2025
In this episode, Liz Hutson, Principal Consultant and Owner at EGH, LLC, joins Scott Becker to explore the often-overlooked “middle” phase of projects and businesses.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We're joined today by Liz Hudson, who's one of our most listened to guests. We're going to talk today about a topic that's near and dear to everybody who's ever founded a business or even beyond founding a business.
The topic is one that resonates with people going through any effort they're trying to get through and to improve in and so forth. Liz, let me ask you to tee up the subject and we'll start to talk about it. Why don't you go ahead and tee it up?
Chapter 2: What challenges do we face in the middle of a project?
Sounds great. Thanks, Scott. Yes. Today's topic is navigating the middle. When I say that, recently I was reading about a company called IDEO. They're a design and innovation company, and they talk about this
v-shaped curve that they call the project mood chart and what it is is basically imagine a v at the beginning of the v you're very positive very excited very hopeful uh things are things are just you know you have these ideas that are cooking and of course once you make it through the project or make it through the kickoff of a company of a project of a product development
At the end of it, you also feel very excited because you're confident that you just solved it. But the middle, from the beginning to the end, that middle part of the here to there can have some negative, hard parts on this. And so I found myself really just kind of reflecting on this idea of that middle. And how do we get through that slog? Because that's actually where we spend time.
most of our time is in that middle. So there were three tips that came to mind, Scott, that I felt like would be worthwhile to share with you and with your audience.
No, and thank you very much. We've seen, there's been a lot of discussion and I've read a couple of books on it. This concept in building a business of the middle zone or the gray zone or whatever you want to call it. And this is the point where,
where you built a team, you started to get enough revenues, things are going okay, but you've not quite gotten to that sustainability spot where you've built a big enough team and enough clients, enough business going on that you really feel secure and stable. And that's that middle zone of growing from smaller to a little bit larger to feel a bit more secure and stable.
And I think it resonates with projects, with products, with all kinds of efforts. And so now talk about this middle zone, this gray zone, in either product development or what you're doing and how you get to that next stage and some of the thoughts on it and tips on it.
Perfect. That's great. So there's three ideas here that I want to talk through. So the first one is When you're in the middle and you're just kind of spinning and it feels frustrating and that's where most of the work is, first thing is remind yourself of why you're there. Your why is really important because I think that helps with context. What problem are you trying to solve?
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Chapter 3: How can we remind ourselves of our 'why' during tough times?
If it's product development, can you visualize the ideal future state of what you're trying to do? So if it's a new company that you're starting, if it's an integration that you're doing, if it's navigating a manufacturing transition, whatever that is, can you visualize that ideal future state and then almost manifest that ending, right? What is it that you're trying to do in all of that?
And when you can focus on the why, when you can focus on the bigger context, it gives value to the hours, to the debate, to the frustration, to the dollars that you're spending on it. It gives it some sense of purpose. So that's the first thing is just reminding yourself why you're there.
Chapter 4: What value does the journey itself provide?
Chapter 5: What are three tips for navigating the middle phase?
No, and thank you very much. We've seen, there's been a lot of discussion and I've read a couple of books on it. This concept in building a business of the middle zone or the gray zone or whatever you want to call it. And this is the point where,
where you built a team, you started to get enough revenues, things are going okay, but you've not quite gotten to that sustainability spot where you've built a big enough team and enough clients, enough business going on that you really feel secure and stable. And that's that middle zone of growing from smaller to a little bit larger to feel a bit more secure and stable.
And I think it resonates with projects, with products, with all kinds of efforts. And so now talk about this middle zone, this gray zone, in either product development or what you're doing and how you get to that next stage and some of the thoughts on it and tips on it.
Perfect. That's great. So there's three ideas here that I want to talk through. So the first one is When you're in the middle and you're just kind of spinning and it feels frustrating and that's where most of the work is, first thing is remind yourself of why you're there. Your why is really important because I think that helps with context. What problem are you trying to solve?
If it's product development, can you visualize the ideal future state of what you're trying to do? So if it's a new company that you're starting, if it's an integration that you're doing, if it's navigating a manufacturing transition, whatever that is, can you visualize that ideal future state and then almost manifest that ending, right? What is it that you're trying to do in all of that?
And when you can focus on the why, when you can focus on the bigger context, it gives value to the hours, to the debate, to the frustration, to the dollars that you're spending on it. It gives it some sense of purpose. So that's the first thing is just reminding yourself why you're there.
I think this concept, but I think this concept, when you're going through difficult times in anything or trying to get through what we call a fight through or something else, this concept of remembering why you're doing something is so important. So I love that thought and tip. So everybody's in that middle zone at times in everything they do, and they can either quit or keep at it.
And to keep at it, you sort of got to know why you're doing it.
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. The second thing is to remind ourselves that in that depth of that V shape that I was just talking about in the beginning is to remember that the journey itself has great value. Because not only are we moving our way towards the end or to the ideal future state, but we're learning things that we probably didn't expect we were going to learn.
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