Yesterday I taught my first live workshop. Ever.
I’ve run lots of free webinars, but I’ve never run a live workshop that people paid to attend.
I wanted to deliver.
I worked really hard on the workshop.
I created a PowerPoint presentation — I’ve made tons of those — but I was presenting it via a streaming service I had never used before.
So I was a little stressed out on the technology end of it.
This streaming service is called BeLive, and it allows you to do conduct a workshop via Facebook Live and also share the screen so you can deliver a PowerPoint presentation while you are on camera.
See?
Once you know what you are doing, it’s pretty easy, and I find it less confusing than Zoom to set up, because you don’t need to integrate a whole bunch of sh*t together in order to pay and register and everything else.
So I made a private Facebook group for my workshop, and everyone who signed up for the workshop joined that.
In order to practice broadcasting, I made another private Facebook group that only I was a member of.
On Thursday I practiced getting everything set up early in the morning when all the kids were still asleep. I had my laptop next to my computer and I did a little practice to myself.
I felt comfortable enough with what I was doing that I checked that part of what needed to be done before the presentation off my list and moved on to the next thing.
My workshop was at 1 pm on Saturday.
At 12:30 I started logging into BeLive so I could get everything set up with plenty of time to spare before I had to start for real.
But one thing I forgot to take into account is that my computer downstairs in my office is not connected directly to the modum or router or whatever you call it.
It’s wireless.
And at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon when it’s raining and your kids and your husband are home, the wireless connection for a live presentation just doesn’t cut the mustard.
Everything was super grainy and pixelated and slow and totally not good.
And so at 12:40, I had to relocate my computer and all my stuff upstairs to the playroom because the computer that’s upstairs doesn’t have a camera, and if there is a way to use my phone I’m just not tech-savvy enough to know what that is.
So I had to disconnect my computer, bring it upstairs, get it hooked up, get it turned on and log into everything all over again.
The upstairs playroom is also a loft area that can’t be totally closed off so any noise downstairs goes right up there.
Plus it’s right by all the kids’ bedroom doors and the bathroom door, and the potential repercussions of that were significant.
So now I was panicking a little.
Okay, not a little.
I was totally freaking out.
Around 12:55 Number 4 got home from a run, and came into the family room which where the TV is. It’s also the room the upstairs playroom/loft area opens up to and looks out over.
She’s been doing P90X 6 days a week because I have the whole DVD set, and that’s the only TV we have in the house.
“YOU CAN’T BE IN THERE!” I yelled. “I HAVE TO DO MY WORKSHOP UP HERE!”
“I can’t do P90X?” she said?
“NO!!!!” I yelled.
Earlier in the day I had told the kids they would have to be in their rooms for at least 90 minutes, from 1 – 2:30 or 3:00, but this new location threw a wrench into the plans.
Now it was 12:58.
I was supposed to be starting in 2 minutes and I hadn’t told the other kids what was going on.
I logged into the practice Facebook group I had created to make sure everything was working.
The picture was clear, the internet connection was strong, and everything looked pretty good.
Now I had to go threaten the kids within an inch of their lives.
I did not want them to burst into the room mid-workshop or be fighting or flushing toilets or anything else where people could hear.
Ugh. This was not the way I wanted to be preparing for my workshop.
I rushed out into the hallway.
Number 4 was making multiple trips up and down the stairs to her room, carrying 8, 10, 12, and 15 pound weights up with her.
I yelled up the stairs to Number 6 where he was playing in his room.
I opened the door to Number 4 and 5’s room where Number 4 and 7 were playing Yahtzee and Number 4 was setting up her home gym.
DON’T COME OUT OF YOUR ROOMS!
DON’T FLUSH THE TOILET!
DON’T SLAM ANY DOORS!
DON’T DO ANYTHING AT ALL!!!!!
I was yelling and panicking and losing my shit.
AND MY WORKSHOP WAS ABOUT HOW TO GET YOUR KIDS TO HELP OUT WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SHIT.
This all would have been fine.
I mean people panic and lose their cool sometimes.
Except I happened to be doing it live to the people in my workshop because I hadn’t logged into my practice workshop group to see if everything was working properly.
I HAD LOGGED INTO THE REAL ONE.
So… the first two minutes of my workshop about not having to lose your shit in order to get your kids to help out began with me losing my shit on my kids.
WHOOPS.
I didn’t totally lose my shit.
I wasn’t screaming or swearing or anything.
But I was panicking and not parenting the way I would be advising people to parent about fifteen minutes later during my workshop.
After that though, everything went really well!
So I can focus on those two minutes.
Or I can focus on all the other stuff I did well and use that two-minute lesson as a teaching tool for next time.
And that’s the moral of this story for all of us.
A reminder.
We are going to mess up stuff all the time.
It’s okay.
Because in the end, all those mess ups are the things that help make us even better than we are right now.
And that’s one of the best things about life.
Wherever you find yourself right now, there’s a better version of you waiting, just a few minutes — and fuck ups — down the road.
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