Day 98: Something Good

Hello beautiful people!

Let’s flash forward to reflect back.

One of Keith’s favorite things to say is that our ability to manipulate a thing is proportionate to our ability to understand a thing. That’s a big part of why we spend so much time studying the history of the buyers, tracking patterns, identifying pace cars, getting clear on the commonalities in successes that have come before, and of course doing deep-ass dives on ourselves so that we don’t inadvertently block our own next-tier paths with junk we could easily clean up if we’d just commit to having a lower tolerance for what’s not working in our lives.

That said, when it comes to our own experiences, we’ll often make judgments too soon rather than committing, going all-in on a well-mapped-out plan, and then later tracking success or failure in the rearview mirror.

TRANSCRIPT HERE

So, here are the big takeaways for today: Not only is it okay to fail but it is guaranteed that we will fail. We. All. Will. Fail. We all already have. How many times? A bunch? Yes. But let’s reframe failure so that word doesn’t have that big weight to it anymore. True failure is not trying. True failure is giving up before starting. True failure is pulling the plug before we’ve given things time to fully develop.

What actually happens that we (wrongly) label as failure is just a part of the growth process. An important part of it! And those of us who are content-creating machines? We don’t even notice it enough to have it register a blip on the enoughness scale. #BigOl5!

Click to enbiggen.People who are hugely successful are just constantly doing it. There’s no room for high achievers to focus on our “failures” because we NEVER. STOP. CREATING. STUFF. And we give all of it long enough to fly on its own before deciding it’s crap. We kill it off later, if it didn’t exceed our expectations. And we dispassionately label it… never using it as a tool for beating ourselves up with.

I’m not telling you to create a thousand things right now. I’m telling you that you’re going to fail anyway, so just get started. Fail fast and fail forward. That’s a big part of how we get to the next tier.

Click to enbiggen.And if you’re bummed you’re not moving something forward often enough to fail *or* succeed, remember that you’re making headway just by staying with this. You’re still in the game. And sometimes that’s a lot of headway to make. Don’t sit still forever… but be okay when that’s what you’ve got, some days.

Of course, when you’re focused on those things you can control — so many things you now know (or maybe always knew but were reminded about in these days we’ve shared) that you can drop in on whenever you want to move things forward in any specific area — and creating content that turns you on, aligns with your storytelling purpose, serves your fanbase, *and* potentially shows your buyers you’re low-risk for the next tier, you get really motivated to just keep churning things out.

You do it because it feels great! You do it because it’s why you’re here. You do it because you can’t NOT create… and then the fact that the buyers come sniffin’ around is a bonus (and it’s no accident).

Click to enbiggen.Here’s a great bit from my interview with Tom Everett Scott (the whole interview is waiting for you in The SMFA Vault).

So, that’s my advice: Go out and do that. Go out with your friends, rent a space, pick a play, pay the copyright, make posters, go out at midnight and put your posters up where you’re not supposed to put ’em, and then put on your show. Feel great! Talk to your friends afterward in the lobby and do all of the fun theatre things that come with it and then see what comes from there.

They weren’t always great plays, but we felt they were great because they were ours. We were supporting each other and this was our clubhouse.

Meanwhile, you’re making headway. You’re creating things that may or may not be defined as a success when you flash forward and look in the rearview mirror to assess. You’re gaining clarity on what it is to be in the YOU business. You’re proving to the buyers that there’s little risk in investing in you because — OMG look at what a great idea it was when *you* invested in yourself! Duh! Of course they want to be in the YOU business! You showed them it was totally worth it when you did it.

Click to enbiggen.Today’s work: Map out intersections that have meant everything in your career. Practice the “flashing forward to reflect” muscle we’re going to use next by starting with listing off key relationships that you can see have made a difference in how you’ve gotten to where you are now. The person you met who led to your current HELL YES rep. The freebie gig you said yes to that led to the next three paid gigs that came after it due to how much you rocked on that set. This sort of thing. Next, start looking at today’s meet-ups, the new relationships, the encounters with every single person you connect with going forward… and flash forward to imagine whether this relationship is one you’ll log as a turning point for your successes to come. Look for harbingers of a lifetime of tier-jumps. They’re everywhere! You’ve had some as a part of the time we’ve shared already!

Next, list up your failures. Yup. No, I’m not trying to torture you! I’m wanting you to get really okay with saying, “Oh yeah… that was a DOG!” and dispassionately labeling (there’s that labeling thing again) these things will help you care less (ooh… we like this) when you misfire next time. Ah… and that’s how we begin to fail faster and fail forward! See how that works? Lovely! So… what’s the thing you shouldn’t have said yes to? (We’re gonna start off with that language I’d normally correct you about using, because we’re gonna be flipping the relationship with regrets and “I shoulda known better” type stuff through this work.) What’s the thing you launched that didn’t go anywhere? That low-viewership webseries? The crowdfunding oops? Oh, man, that improv troupe misfire? Yeah. That stuff.

The most important part of today’s work: What did you learn from each of those “failures”? Extra credit: Include relationship failures. Like, “I trusted a colleague as if he were a friend and I got burned,” followed by, “and from that I learned what to look for thanks to red flags my eagerness helped me ignore back then.” (That’s you using that rearview mirror to assist future you, BTW.) How does next-tier YOU reclassify these “failures”? I don’t know about you, but I find this to be super-fun work once I’m on the other side of it! 🙂 I start looking forward to what the next lesson will be. And of course, I’m looking forward to your responses here!

’til tomorrow… stay ninja!

Bon Sig