Note: This post references character backstories and early plot elements from the ITV series Coldwater. While it doesn’t give away the show’s central mystery or ending, consider it a mild spoiler alert if you prefer to watch with no context at all.

I heard the phrase on an episode of Coldwater, a British psychological thriller that follows John, a man who uproots his family from London to a remote Scottish village after a violent incident he failed to stop. On the surface, it’s a suspenseful drama about new beginnings gone wrong. But the line—“Everyone’s hard thing is their hard thing” – captures the heartbeat of the story, the hidden force driving every character’s choices.

It names a truth we often overlook: difficulty is never objective. Each person’s burden has a private gravity no outsider can fully weigh.

Inside Coldwater: Different Lives,
Different Hard Things

What makes the series riveting isn’t just the dark twists. It’s the intimate struggles each character carries—struggles invisible to those around them.

• John’s hard thing is guilt and identity collapse. He froze during a violent attack in London, and the shame of that failure travels with him to Scotland. Moving house doesn’t move the memory. As he tries to prove his worth in a new place, he becomes easy prey for manipulation.
• Fiona, his wife, carries the weight of trust and protection. She hopes the move will heal their marriage and give her space for her own writing, yet she senses danger long before John admits it. Her challenge is rebuilding safety when the partner meant to protect her is unraveling.
• Tommy, the neighbor, hides malice behind a mask. Outwardly devout and charming, he is in fact a predator. His hard thing is the darkness he refuses to face, channeling it instead into control and violence.
• Rebecca, Tommy’s wife, wrestles with complicity and fear. Whether blinded by devotion or quietly calculating, she sustains the lie that keeps their life intact.
• Moira-Jane, their adopted daughter, embodies moral courage. She discovers evidence of Tommy’s crimes and must choose between family loyalty and truth, knowing either path will cost her.
• Cameron, their son, yearns for his father’s acceptance. That hunger for approval makes him slow to believe MJ and dangerously susceptible to Tommy’s influence.
• The children—both families’—face displacement and insecurity. They are shaped by adult conflicts they can neither understand nor escape.

Each storyline affirms the Coldwater thesis: every hard thing belongs uniquely to the person living it.

What Leaders Can Learn

This isn’t just a family or village drama. It’s a mirror for how hardship unfolds inside organizations.

• Unseen burdens – Like John’s guilt, employees and leaders carry private struggles that affect their decisions and relationships. Performance reviews or casual check-ins won’t reveal everything.
• Charm as camouflage – Tommy shows how charisma and good optics can hide toxicity. Culture must prize behavior over performance theater.
• The necessity of dissent – Fiona’s quiet skepticism is a form of risk management. Teams need space for instinctive “something’s off” warnings without fear of reprisal.
• Moral courage at every level – Moira-Jane’s resolve to expose the truth, despite danger, echoes what’s required to blow the whistle on unethical practices or to speak up in boardrooms where silence is safer.
• Identity and integrity – John’s crisis is what happens when self-worth rests on fragile definitions of success or masculinity. Leaders who haven’t grounded their identity will buckle when decisions demand costly conviction.

A healthy business culture isn’t one that eliminates hard things—it’s one that honors their presence, refuses to rank them, and builds capacity to face them together.

Strategic Reflection Prompts

Use these to bring the lesson home:

1. Unseen Struggles: Where might hidden guilt, shame, or private battles be shaping choices in your team or organization? How can you create space for those stories without demanding disclosure?
2. Surface vs. Substance: Are there “Tommy figures” in your world—people whose surface performance or charm may be masking harm? What accountability structures need strengthening?
3. Courage and Voice: Who plays Fiona or Moira-Jane in your context—the quiet intuitives or truth-tellers? How can you amplify their warnings before crisis forces action?
4. Identity Under Pressure: How secure is your own leadership identity when hard decisions challenge comfort or reputation? What non-negotiables define your integrity?
5. Culture of Compassion: What practices could help your team stop comparing hardships and start supporting one another’s unique hard things?

About Giselle

About Giselle – Giselle Hudson is a writer, possibility thinker, Strategic Alignment Facilitator™, and MCODE Legacy Coach whose work revolves around asking the one question Every engagement begins with The One Question Every Business Must Answer™ — the catalyst for every strategic decision we’ll make together.