Today, we’re exploring the resilience entrepreneurs need to navigate the uncertainty we’re all experiencing right now.
In this episode, Eric explains that navigating uncertainty requires resilience, which is strengthened by taking action, embracing continuous learning, and serving others. He shares personal stories to illustrate that every business or career inevitably faces doubt, setbacks, and challenges.
Tune in to discover how you can keep moving forward, even when everything feels unpredictable.
Starting a Business Requires Action, Not Certainty
When launching a business, there are no guarantees. Belief matters, but execution matters more. Progress comes from putting your head down, working consistently, and surrounding yourself with people who are honest, supportive, and willing to challenge you rather than flatter you.
Complacency
Growth stops the moment complacency begins. Staying slightly uncomfortable keeps you alert, curious, and engaged. Continuous effort and self-reflection are essential for staying sharp and avoiding stagnation.
Crisis Exposes Character
Coming close to losing everything during a significant event because of someone else’s dishonesty was a hard lesson for Eric. What saved the situation wasn’t luck or wishful thinking, but taking responsibility, being honest with his clients, and moving fast.
Problem-Solving
No major project ever goes exactly as planned. The ability to respond, adapt, and find solutions is not an exception in this industry. It is the job. Those who enjoy action under pressure are the ones who last.
Economic Crises
During downturns, survival depends on protecting top talent, staying visible, and actively maintaining relationships. Retreating increases risk. Engagement builds resilience even when timelines and recovery remain uncertain.
Adaptation Is a Strategic Skill
Every crisis requires assessing the environment, forming hypotheses, taking action, and adjusting along the way. Waiting for perfect information only prolongs uncertainty. Decisions create clarity.
Learning
Growth requires deliberate, consistent learning. Times like COVID revealed how little time most professionals dedicate to learning. Skill development, deep thinking, and education matter more than passive exposure to occasional industry content.
Focus on What You Can Control
We cannot control geopolitics, tariffs, and global instability. Action, learning, and contribution can. Progress comes from directing your energy toward improvement, simplification, and making a meaningful impact rather than speculation.
Technology as a Tool for Growth, Not Fear
AI and automation create uncertainty, but also opportunity. The goal is not to resist change, but to allow technology to simplify your processes, operate more effectively, and serve people better.
The Three Anchors in Uncertainty
Taking action, learning continuously, and helping others will create stability even when the world remains unpredictable. Those habits don’t remove uncertainty, but they will make it more manageable.
A Growth Mindset Changes Everything
A growth mindset turns challenges into fuel rather than barriers. Stress, change, and disruption always bring opportunities for those willing to adapt and stay curious.
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“Luck doesn’t happen by watching a screen. Luck happens when you take action and when you fight and fight and fight and never give up.”
Eric Rozenberg
Full transcript of episode 307 of The Business of Meetings podcast, a solo episode with Eric Rozenberg. Lightly edited for readability.
Eric Rozenberg: Hello and welcome to the Business of Meetings podcast. I’m your host, Eric Rozenberg. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of helping businesses in the meetings and events industry grow and succeed, and I’m excited to share that experience with you. If you feel alone and overwhelmed, and if you’re looking to take your business to the next level, improve your strategy and sales, and connect with like-minded professionals, you are in the right place. I invite you to visit eventbusinessformula.com and join our community of event business owners dedicated to exponential growth. Now let’s dive into today’s episode.
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Business of Meetings podcast. Today I want to talk about something that has been on my mind for several weeks now, listening to the people I’m interacting with, the conferences, reading about it, and it’s about the resilience needed and the uncertainty that we are currently experiencing. And by the way, I think we’re experiencing that all the time but only specifically now, but it seems that there’s some sort of peak on that, and I want to address it.
Have you ever seen any entrepreneur, a successful person, and thinking that, oh my goodness, everything goes well for them, they know what they want, they so certain of what they doing, and everything is developing the way they want? Well, I don’t know anyone who went from starting something to success without having doubts, without having downturn, without having issues to face. I just want to share with you some of the examples I personally face in my life, and also give you some thought and some ideas on how I basically overcome that, and we want to start with the first one, which is when I decided to start my business.
You’ve read one of my posts in the past, you know how that happened. The question at that moment was, what I’m going to do, is it going to work? And obviously you never know, but what I did at that moment is not only believing in myself, but putting my nose down and working and working, and making sure that I was surrounding myself with the right people, people that wanted good for me, people that want to help me, but also people that will tell me exactly what they thought about what I was doing without any complacency, and really to truly help me.
And it’s a never-ending story. I always believe that the day things will, I would say that things are going perfectly, that’s when I was going to fail. And a friend of mine reminded me recently that every time he was asking, so how are you doing? I said, well, so far it’s okay, and he started laughing because he said, you’ve been saying this for years. I said, yeah, I’m intimately convinced that the day I would say everything is fine, that’s where I’m going to start slipping down. Probably I should see a shrink for that, but that’s how I really cope with it. And my point is, taking action is really what always helped me, and especially in that situation.
Now, two years after starting my business, I was confronted with a crook that I thought was an amazing person, great reputation, involved in a major association, and actually almost lost my entire business because of her during the FIFA World Cup in Paris. A lot of stories for another time, but fake tickets and a lot of issues with people that were with someone that was lying. It was a real crook. But at the end of the day, I went to my client, I said, I think we have a major issue, and as you told me the first time we start working together, we always deliver. And so I don’t know how, but I’m going to deliver.
And there again, I went into action, start calling people around me, in one month I’ve seen every single person that was from far or inside involved with the FIFA World Cup in Paris. And at the end of the day, everything went well, but that’s a story for another time. My point being, I almost lost everything. I had a lot of doubts. Thank God things went well. But you need luck. But luck doesn’t happen by watching a screen. Obviously, luck happens when you take action and when you fight and fight and fight and never give up.
And that’s also what we like to do in this industry. I never had one project in the 20 years I’ve organized sales meeting product launch incentive trip all over the world in over 50 countries. I never had one project that happened exactly the way it was planned. So I think as well that if we are in this industry, and if you have your own business in this industry, you somehow have to have a kick when something is happening, when you’re moving into action and finding solutions.
And then another example that we went through is the subprime crisis. And if you’ve experienced that, you know that suddenly the world economy shuts down. And obviously a lot of us in the industry were faced with losing clients, losing project, people being laid off. And then again, what you start doing, and I remember reading an article at that moment saying that in terms of crisis, you need to keep the best people in your team as much as you can. You need to go out and be more visible, and you need to maintain relationships with your clients, with your vendors, with everybody that you’re usually working with, and also reaching out to them. Again, action will help.
Huge uncertainty for over two years. I was still working in Brussels, and when I bet that the crisis would last two years, it did last two years in the US, but in Belgium it was much longer, is probably still the case. But then you have to adapt and take decisions. But it’s really looking at the environment and say, okay, what am I going to do? What is my hypothesis, and what are the action I’m going to take? And then you have to adapt to the situation for sure.
And then another example that we’ve all faced is when COVID hit. Again, there’s so much you can do, but one of the thing that I started doing more than ever at that time was actually allocating some time for me to learn, to learn new things, to learn new concept. And that is also something that I see in our industry, especially for business owners, we don’t take the time to learn, and we sometimes rely too much on the one or two hours of content that we will be given during a fam trip or during an hosted buyer program, which is all very fine, but at the end of the day, if you compare the number of hours that you spend being better, getting better what you do, versus being there to meet new vendors and new partners, it’s, I think the balance is extremely going into the direction which is not getting better and spending time for you to be a better professional.
So during that time, not only did I wrote a book for my daughters, but I also kept learning. I read a lot, watch a lot of videos. And that brings me to today, we have so much uncertainty, and denying it would be a lie. We don’t know what’s going on in the world. We don’t know about geopolitics. We don’t know about tariffs. There’s so many things that we don’t know. And for those who know me, they know I’m very interested with it, and I read a lot, and I try to focus on two things: one is to take action on what I can control, and two is to learn and learn and learn and learn, and always thinking and be curious, a thirst for learning to be better at what I do. And taking the action for me is helping people, and I always love doing that.
So today, that I have my mentoring and coaching business that I have launched, my own AI, Eric AI, to help mentor people in almost 80 languages, 24/7, there’s a lot of uncertainty how to get to the market with people understand what they can do with it. And then you have the geopolitics, and then you have all so many things that coming up together. My goal is to get better what I do. My goal is to learn more about how I can use AI to simplify my processes. My goal is to always look at what I can do to be better, not only to help people, but also for myself, to improve, to simplify my processes, to use the technology to make my life easier.
I’m also extremely convinced that the day I stop learning, I’m going to die, and as late as possible. So I know, for once, that I’ll never retired, but the goal being, what can I learn? What can I apply? Always be curious with that and taking action.
So I realize that when I take action, I realize that when I keep learning, and I realize that when I’m helping people, the uncertainty is still there, but I’m coping better with the situation and using my time to again focus on those three things. Taking action, learning, and helping people. And that to me is the essence of not only what I like to do, but the essence of coping with the uncertainty, the essence of making sure that I go through it. And as one of my friend always say, at the end everything will be fine, and if it’s not fine, it’s not the end. So there is a lot of uncertainty for sure, there’s a lot of stress for sure, it’s a lot of change for sure, and it always bring opportunities.
I just want to conclude this by sharing with you one book that I believe everyone should be reading, and that will be helpful as well today in times of uncertainty, and that’s the book Mindset, from Dr. Carol Dweck. I wish for all of us to have a growth mindset, that would be very helpful. And if there’s any way I can help you, please reach out. Thank you, and have a nice day.
Thank you for tuning in to the Business of Meetings podcast. I hope you found today’s episode valuable. If you enjoyed the show, the most important thing you can do is leave a review and share it with your colleagues. It really helps spread the word. I truly appreciate your support. And if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, don’t forget to visit eventbusinessformula.com to learn more about how we are helping event business owners like you. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
