By Fernando Gonzalez, an EO Colombia member and vice president of strategic planning at Solutions Group S.A.

It was 2007, and my marketing and outsourcing firm, Solutions Group, was about to go bankrupt. I was facing a tremendous amount of pressure from my partner, not to mention personal, family and health-related problems, on account of all the stress. We had debts all over town, owing banks and third parties close to US$1 million. Added to the pressure were the 120 employees that relied on us for their livelihoods, dreams that would be dashed if we didn’t recover. We were in shock, to say the least.