B-, At Best

I had a speaking engagement yesterday. I've been excited about this one for a while now. My official grade for my performance: B-, at best. It's been a while since I spoke, and the content was oriented differently from my last few gigs, and I wasn’t as crisp as I wanted. Needless to say, I was disappointed with myself. Perhaps I'm too harsh a self-critic (which I'm told often), but I know what I'm capable of.....and that wasn't it.

Do I regret it? No. Do I wish I could undo it? Certainly not. I have a lot of woulda, shoulda, coulda's, but it would be wrong of me to wish it away. After all, even a B- has the potential to make an impact on someone. I pray that someone in that room was positively impacted by what I had to say. So even if I'm disappointed with my performance, it doesn't mean it's a loss.

I think about this often, as far too many times I've harshly judged myself and questioned whether I should or shouldn't have tried to do xyz thing. However, every time I do, I come back around to this realization that not doing it would have done zero good for this world, and doing it, even at a B- level, has the potential to move the needle.

This is one of the hardest pills for me to swallow. In a journey filled with failure (or perceived failure in some cases), I'm constantly reminded that showing up and doing the work is the prerequisite to impact. I wish everything I did were as put together as a Hollywood film and wrapped up in a pretty little bow, but that's not how life works.

We have a choice to make: 1) Play it safe and stay out of the game, essentially removing the risk of failure, or 2) Get on the field and scrap it up, knowing that the risk of failure goes hand in hand with the possibility of positive impact.

I wholeheartedly recommend option number two.

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