Challenges are not failures.
Not everything is going to be perfect or run smoothly. In fact, if it always runs smoothly, that means that you are being lazy. Everything has a building curve. Everything has a learning curve. Learning and building curves don’t always coincide. It takes time to build teams. It takes time to train teams to work together. It takes time to learn how to best coordinate your teams even once they learn what they do. Once you throw someone new in the mix – which will likely happen quite a bit – it’s going to likely affect the “immediate” performance.
When “things” happen, that does not mean you failed. What it means is that something happened and you need to take a look at why it happened. It may have absolutely nothing to do with you. And what it may be doing is showing you vulnerable areas that need to be shored up.
One Sunday, I found myself with no one on sound or media at the last minute. Two of my regular people were out. The person I counted on to coordinate it had scheduled one of them but forgot to confirm. Add on top of that this was a setup/teardown scenario. I knew enough to set up the sound system, but not enough to figure out why there was no sound coming out of the monitors. (AKA… The band could not hear ANYTHING.) Throw on top of all of that a new singer with a new song in the mix and that I was tied up playing keys and running the band and THEN making a mad dash up to a soundboard I HAD NO IDEA HOW TO RUN… Yeah. It was just a perfect storm of “FUCK THIS DAY.”
We got through it. I junked my original plan and subbed a song everyone knew and went on faith. Not perfect. Extremely rough. And no, I didn’t hide what was happening from the congregation either. Is it about maintaining an image or is it about praising God?
And you know what? People need Shit Days too. Nothing provides perspective on what is really important LIKE a Shit Day. Nothing shows you what people bring to the table like a Shit Day. Nothing shows your vulnerable spots like a Shit Day.
And you know what else Shit Days are good for? They show you who truly has your back and who is waiting for the opportunity to jam one long rusty knife right in the middle of it. Shit Days reveal who people really are and what they are made of.
They still suck, though.
