Lies.
I recently said that about the original finance workshop date and our sponsors. Again, as I often have been, I was proven wrong.
The original date, in June, had lined up an all-star cast:
- Thrivent Financial (a Fortune 500 company)
- Wipfli (in the top 20 largest accounting firms in the US)
- Pros from Ellingson & Ellingson and All in One Accounting
Incredible people, and they said yes.
The days were ticking down, and registrations weren’t coming in.
I looked at Samantha, my wife, and said:
“I just don’t think we get more shots at this. We need great people at this level to commit to supporting what we’re doing. I think if people don’t register, that’s that.”
…And then it happened.
We had to reschedule the workshop; not enough people had registered.
I’m gonna get raw here: I spiraled a little.
Whenever something like this happens, I question myself… and all of us.
I wonder if I absolutely suck at building things.
I wonder if Seconds are worth trying to build things for.
I wonder if efforts to support us have existed in the past but were doomed because we whiffed it.
That’s not true. I don’t. We are. They didn’t.
Also, the workshop has been rescheduled for September 24th.
Same speakers. Same Sponsors.
Register here…not because reading that made you feel guilty, but because it’s an awesome workshop that Lisa, our Head of Workshops, I, the speakers, and the sponsors custom-built for Seconds and Second in Commands.
After I quarantined and dealt with the existential life questioning that comes from failure, Lisa and I called all of our sponsors and speakers to let them know we needed to cancel and hoped to reschedule. We so appreciated their support and would love to have the opportunity to work with them in the future.
And they ALL said, “Let's try again. Is there anything else we can do to make this successful? I’d love to invest in what we can do to drive this forward.”
Matt Posey was like, “Dude, I think anything we come up with where we can get some partnership stuff together is the right move.“
BTW, Matt is a gentleman’s gentleman and you should connect with him and tell him I told you to. We MAY be in a contest to see who can introduce the most people to the other person and you should help me win, which is really a win for everyone cause he’s great.
That’s the response I got from my apology. Not only did we not get “1 shot at this”, they all said, “You get AT LEAST 2 shots, and we’d like to help!”
I showed up with my tail between my legs, and they said, “What are all the other ideas we have?”
Let’s assume for a moment that I didn’t know some incredibly gracious people who believe in this “Seconds” thing and that we’re doing cool stuff and this mission and kind of human being are worth investing time and attention into.
Let's say we absolutely torched those relationships.
…Are those really the only relationships we could find in companies with over 3,000 employees nationally or globally? What about trying again on another date, in another town, or even another country?
I think we DO get more shots. We get SO MANY more shots.
We get so many shots that we struggle to imagine just how many we get.
This is one of the cruxes between the 1iC and Second identity types.
1iCs have this ability to just…act. They tolerate risk in hilarious fashion, in ways that often make us petrified.
And maybe it’s because they deeply understand that they’ll get another shot.
And another.
And another.
AND YES, OK, there ARE things in life where we can make a disastrous move and absolutely lose the game, and we do ONLY GET ONE SHOT at it. That really DOES exist, and it would be a disservice to ignore that.
…But most things aren’t like that.
Most of the time, when we tell ourselves we only get one shot, we’re just saying that to protect ourselves. It is within our Self that gives us more to do, more to polish, and more to wait for.
Fear of being embarrassed, wrong, or the plan not working.
The fear that we only get one shot at this is a lie that obfuscates what's inside.
Because what I said was, “We only get one shot at this,” and I really meant, “I have to come up with exactly the right plan for this to go exactly the way I want it to, or I will have failed forever.”
But the “worst” happened, and here I am, alive.
Taking another shot. And another. And another. Still building, still worth building for, still being supported in doing that work on behalf of all Seconds, along with our collaborators and the rest of the staff at H2B2.
And living into the daily reality that not only do we get more than one shot at this, but it is worth taking more than one shot. It is worth taking a bunch of shots. It is worth picking a roundabout exit and taking it, not knowing for 100% certainty that it is the “right” exit, because we can probably reroute later and take another shot at it.
We only get one shot at this? That’s probably a lie.
Clarity > Certainty. Take the shot.