When I began Hand in Hand Productions many years ago I was constantly pushing the envelope. I pushed hard to find better ways to do things. I then got scared. This fear drove me to keep things status quo for many years. I was comfortable doing what I knew. It’s not broken so no need to fix it. If anything this last year I found out that change can hit you like a freight train. Well maybe we don’t want to get hit, but it is coming and the light at the end of the tunnel will be here sooner than we know it or want it. See the freight train left the station many years ago for me. I just couldn’t hear it and I wasn’t in the darkness of the tunnel.
Yeah lot’s of metaphors to unpack here. When looking at my darkness it came from a couple of forms, personal and professional. I need to make it clear though my professional darkness was a result of my personal darkness. I will not be going into the details of my personal darkness in this post. It is safe to say though that like the announcement on the plane to put your oxygen mask on before helping someone else I was not doing that. While I was acting in selfish manners I was to outwardly facing and not taking a look at was going on in my own world and definitely needed that oxygen mask. I think this can be a moment that we can all relate to and it is important in these moments to stop the world going by and focus on yourself to get healthy. Truly dig in. Get some definition of what is important. My time took many years and I was truly stuck in the black tunnel. I was always just trying to find the way out, but could not because I had the lost the light. I don’t want it to seem like I was helpless. I was living, but I was not thriving. I truly believe we are built to love and thrive. I finally found the way out of the tunnel. I put the oxygen mask on and breathed the breath of life.
With the personal far from perfect (as there will never truly be perfection, more on that later) I began putting the business back together. I had no idea how badly I had been just to afraid to start something new. Experiment with making things better. I had no idea though the train was about to catch up with me. I was beginning to start to figure things out when a moment in time that changed the entire world caught up to me like everyone else. COVID was a game changer and as I turned to look into the tunnel that I had just left I saw that light at the other end of the tunnel coming straight at me. That light was a freight train that as an event production company looked like a complete collapse of business. The world dramatically changed and changed quick. I made a choice to not get flattened by the freight train, but to jump on and see where it was talking me.
Changes like going back to my roots of scrappiness. Things got messy. I decided since I had nothing better to do I would embrace my broadcast roots and started doing virtual interviews of people since I couldn’t interview them in person. It was a mess of ideas and emotions, and gear as well. I had to patch things together since I had a business that had gear focussed on doing live events in person. It was a learning curve, but man it was fun. I learned so much and adapted a new workflow for an evolving world that will probably never look the same with live events. We will now be in some sort of a virtual/hybrid world and the knowledge that I gained in those early days of virtual production have been crucial to the success of Hand in Hand Productions today.
Messiness is so helpful to get into both personally and in business. First, personally as if you truly aren’t looking at our messiness as an individual you may be missing what you are truly supposed to be doing with your life. You may also be not being your best self and living your life as a walking lifeless shell of yourself. It is in these moments of messiness that you learn about yourself. You learn about what it means to live life. Second, when looking at business I don’t want it to seem like you have to break something. Your business may be incredibly successful and you are a well oiled machine, but if nothing else this last year has taught us that we have to plan for everything. What if your entire customer base disappeared overnight. What does that look like for your business, or you as an employee within it? We as good humans owe it to each other to wade into the messiness as it truly is a rewarding experience. It sucks in the moment, but has so many great outcomes.