Normally, these blog posts are articles that encapsulate the theme that I have been discussing in the other two mediums—podcast & video—for the week.
However, I had a curveball thrown at me this week, so I don’t have a theme running through all three.
In fact, all three are about something a little different.
“What happened, Scott?”
Well, for the first time since I started doing the podcast, I failed to release an episode on the usual day it comes out (Monday for the last couple of years).
Hence, the title of this post and the subject line of my email newsletter.
I’m not perfect anymore.
Now, please understand, I don’t mean that I ever felt that I was perfect.
Far from it.
However, I had a great streak going. I had gone 176 episodes without missing or being late one time.
I was close a couple of times, but I never missed a deadline.
Granted, the deadline was a self-imposed deadline. Nobody was holding me accountable to it. Just me.
But I had never missed one, single deadline.
Until now.
And that hurts.
It hurts because, as I said earlier, I’m not perfect.
Of course, I know that, have known that forever, and know that perfection is unattainable.
Yet in this small way, I actually had been perfect.
Not that my podcast episodes were perfect.
It was that I had been consistent in getting them out on time every week for about 170 weeks. (I released the first five or so episodes on the same day, so it wasn’t exactly 176 weeks of perfection, but it was close.)
That means that in one aspect of my life, I had been consistently excellent—dare I say again, perfect—at my production and responsibility.
And it hurts to know that I blew that streak.
What Went Wrong?
August is usually my busiest month of the year, especially with speaking gigs at schools who are having me out to speak before or as their fall sports seasons kick off. I speak at my share of Pre-Season Athlete/Parent meetings, and beforehand to coaches, too.
While this year is a little lighter speaking schedule for me, I had one gig on Monday (the day my podcast episode usually comes out) and one next week with a couple of new presentations for me, so I was busy getting ready for those.
On top of those, though, I have also worked a trip to Chicago in there this week to visit friends and see Bruce Springsteen in concert at Wrigley Field on Wednesday night (and then again on Friday night—yeah, I’m a huge fan of “The Boss”).
I was so busy getting ready for all three trips that recording my podcast totally slipped my mind.
I realized it as I was walking out the door on Monday morning to drive 5 & 1/2 hours to speak in Sidney, Montana.
That’s the morning when my podcast comes out!
So, I ran downstairs to my office, grabbed my microphone, and threw it into my bag, so I could record the podcast in my hotel room that night or the next morning.
But when I tried to record it on Tuesday morning, I couldn’t get the podcast software to work.
So, I headed for home and did my recordings in reverse order from what I usually do.
First, I recorded my video on my way home from speaking.
Because I didn’t have the quote in front of me that I wanted to talk about on the podcast, and also because this was such a unique situation, I decided to do the video about the concept of Improvising, Adapting, & Overcoming when things get thrown at us that we aren’t prepared for.
That phrase—Improvise, Adapt, & Overcome—had actually been the subject of a podcast episode once before in Episode 33 with Jud Damon, the athletic director at Flagler University, as well as a video I did a few years ago.
I figured with what I had just gone through, it was a good topic to discuss. Besides, those episodes came out almost three years ago, so it’s not like the topic was fresh in your minds.
Then when I got home, I unpacked, packed for my trip to Chicago, and sat down and recorded the podcast.
The podcast is about a quote from an obscure source—a paper written by an airman at Sheppard Air Force Base named Kyle Geese.
His paper was titled Success vs. Significance: Making Good Leaders Great, and in it, he talked about the qualities that make for a life of significance.
It was a really good paper, and the quote that I talked about on the podcast pinpoints some really key elements for us to consider if we want to be leaders of significance in others’ lives.
That is the type of topic that I have been discussing for months in all three mediums, so it fit in perfectly this week.
Because of my mishap, though, I abandoned my usual method of giving you a theme for the week.
This week, each of the mediums by which I come to you—podcast, video, & blog post—has something different for you.
More Discipline, Please
While it’s not what I planned on doing or wanted to do, I decided this was the best plan of action for dealing with the curveballs that were thrown at me (or that I actually threw at myself).
“Why would you say that you threw them at yourself, Scott?”
Because in some ways, this situation was self-imposed.
In fact, in most ways it was self-imposed.
Had I been more disciplined and focused on what needed to be done, it wouldn’t have happened.
Had I set up a better schedule for myself and then stuck to it, it wouldn’t have happened.
Had I not let some things go until the last minute, it wouldn’t have happened.
This is a great lesson for all of us to learn from.
It’s also a great lesson for all of us to teach our kids about discipline, preparation, habits, and consistency.
The irony is that the very afternoon that my podcast was supposed to be out in the world, I was telling coaches and athletes about the importance of having discipline and the problems that ensue when you don’t have it.
Talk about feeling like a phony or an impostor.
That was me on Monday.
But I also know the importance of not beating myself up over it.
It’s time to learn from it, grow from it, and get better at it.
In fact, I am trying to do just that right now.
I am writing this on Wednesday morning at 7:30. I want to finish it and schedule it to be published on Saturday morning.
Then I want my newsletter to go out on Saturday morning, too.
But I will be in Chicago on Saturday morning.
So I am typing away and working on those things before my flight later this morning.
Hopefully, if all goes well, you will be reading this on Saturday some time, and I won’t feel as much like a failure as I did the last two days.
We’ll see what happens, but I know this: I will be a whole lot more focused on making sure this doesn’t happen again.
At least not for another 170 weeks!