What Do You Do When Things Go Wrong?
And what to do about it
“Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” –Mike Tyson
Earlier this week, I booked some studio time. When I showed up a couple of days ago, the studio didn’t have my reservation.
The guest was there.
I was there.
But the studio didn’t have the two hours under my name.
To make matters worse, I was supposed to record two episodes. So not only was I letting down this one guest (who was right in front of me), but I was also letting down the guest who was about to show up in an hour for my second episode.
Immediately, I got that sinking feeling. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the same one that happens when the teacher asks everyone for their homework and you don’t have it. Or when someone counted on you to get that project done and you didn’t.
It’s the feeling of letting down people you care about, wasting their time, or making a mistake.
My first thought was…
Who’s fault is this?!? Either me or the studio. But who cares. It’s my fault for not checking, double-checking, and triple-checking. What’s wrong with me?!? What if this guest hates me???
But then my second thought was…
What can I do about it at this moment? Well, one thing I can do is try to find some available studio time. Another thing is to take these emotions and create something (like this newsletter or some short-form content). Another is to create systems in place to make sure this never happens again.
Inevitably, this will happen to all of us. We’ll have a plan. And then something will derail us from that plan.
How you react is instantaneous. But how you respond is entirely in your control.
And if you can stop yourself at that moment and redirect your thoughts somewhere else… you have a massive competitive advantage.
How do you get better at this?
Meditation helped me a lot.
A lot of time with my own thoughts has helped me realize how crazy the monkey mind can be.
(It’s also an incredibly useful skill to practice as a podcaster, too. Your mind has the capacity to run all over the place in the midst of a conversation. Can you come back to the present moment? Can you not create a false narrative? Can you judge each statement that happens as it happens — instead of imposing your own story on it?)
When this moment happened, I sat in the uncomfortable and unfortunate situation that was in front of me.
I felt the emotion of that moment. Let it hit me. Understand the mix of sadness, anger, and shame I was experiencing.
And then I redirected my thoughts.
I started looking for different studios, went to a coworking space, started writing this newsletter, and figured out when I could record my next episode.
In other words, I turned the negativity into some positive action.
If you run a podcast — or exist in the world for a long enough time — I can almost guarantee something like this will eventually happen to you (if it hasn’t happened already).
So here’s to redirecting your thoughts, actions, and energy into a more positive place.
New podcast episode with Dwarkesh Patel is going live later today. This man is one of the 106 people Jeff Bezos follows on Twitter and really smart. He’s also 22 (insane!). You’ll find out how that went down soon. Also look out for my second appearance on the popular podcast This Week in Startups — which should be going live later today. Pumped!
Way to go on channeling that energy towards something more productive! I feel like I've been falling short in all kinds of ways recently so this was quite helpful to read.
Things like this will happen and in a way it's like getting pressed against a wall. We can choose to step forward, climb the wall, or something of that nature. There's also the choice to look at the wall and let it color your perceptions and quench your mind of any desire to rise up and face it.
Facing these things head-on is courageous and painful, yet it exposes new growing opportunities. It's very hard to do that though. I think a lot of it can be trained to be instantaneous, but there will probably still be a piece of it that lies in your court. Tough lessons to learn but they can lead to so many great improvements and learning. Thanks for sharing!