Bad Things, or Good Things? It Will All Work Out

Do you ever feel like your life is just an unbroken string of disasters; of things falling apart, things not working out, and challenges on top of challenges? You are not alone. Most of us suffer similarly, to one degree or another.

In this podcast, we'll talk about how disasters bring opportunities, often where you least expect them. Life is meant to be good, and it is, as soon as we learn to tell the endings from the beginnings.

To get hold of me and talk about how I can best help you, go to https://natewalkercoaching.com/contact-1 and share your thoughts, notes, comments, or aspirations in the comments section. Or, DM me on Facebook, etc.  Tell me how I can help you best, and we'll schedule some time together, free of charge, to discuss it. 
 
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Transcript

Podcast 64: Bad Things, or Good Things? It Will All Work Out

Hello my friends. 

A man named Gordon Hinckley, whom I greatly admire was fond of saying, "it will work out," or, "things tend to work out," or, "it all works out in the end," or some variation thereof. It can be difficult in certain times of our lives to think anything is going to work out at all. In fact, it often looks like everything is a disaster. 

I was asked to speak at a big community and university event, one time, about how I had gone from a life on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, to the position I then occupied as an international trainer. It's easy when somebody stands up in front of a group to think that person is being held up as the standard by which others should measure their success, but that is not true. 

One of my podcast episodes was about survivorship bias. I don't know which episode it is. Maybe I'll look it up, but I encourage you to find it and listen to it. We get the wrong idea sometimes from seeing people in some position and thinking, “oh, I need to do what that person did because that person is rich, famous, influential, good looking, whatever.” We stand people up in front of a group and hold them up as the model, or sort of the measuring stick, by which we should measure our own success.  

Most of my success has been due to a string of what I thought were unmitigated disasters at the time. Can I share a couple of those with you to give you some idea?  

I had great plans as a multiple full ride scholarship recipient and music major. I was going to conquer the world, and I was going to do things in the world of music, and it was going to be great... But I was also taking care of a young family and I needed some extra money despite the scholarships, and we had housing to pay for, and you know how that goes. Diapers. Formula. 

And so I had some extra jobs. I worked at a print shop for a while and I learned quite a bit about the print industry and quite a bit about design. I worked at a video store and I learned a bit about not just video machines and rentals, but the technology behind video. I did not know that that was going to come in handy in the future. 

And so I started working really, really hard, and I had an advisor who happened to be the music department head at a university that all of you would know if you heard the name. I'm going to leave that out just to protect the not very innocent. But my advisor, as the music department head, had me taking everything there was to take in the area of music, saying, "we need you in this group and in this ensemble and doing this thing, and you ought to take this class," et cetera. And I got a letter, three and a half-ish years into my four year degree, from the registrar's office saying I was about to be kicked out.  

Shocked, I went down and visited with them to see what was going on. One of the classes that was taught at that university was used to weed out 80% of music majors. It was fairly difficult, and it included a 100, 200, 300 and 400 level version of the course. This was something that I knew about. This was something that I had been raised with. It was as easy for me as breathing, and so I challenged out of the course. All four levels. The registrar's office said, "no. That is not okay. You cannot get credit for something you already know how to do." That seemed a little weird. They were insistent on kicking me out of the university for not having filled the requirements of taking those courses. I said, "well, I took them. I challenged out of them. Give me the credit for it and I'll just pay for the credit." 

It became a big knockdown, drag out fight. Other things came into play and it resulted with me walking away from that university, a semester shy of what I thought would be my graduation date. Do you know why it wasn't? Because I followed my advisor's advice, and it turned out I had 109 total credits. 103 of them were music. They said, "You're not academically well-rounded enough to even be close to graduating."  

Shocked, dismayed, and downtrodden, I left that college, on the advice of the dean, and had a couple of part-time jobs in between, and started at another university. They too gave me some scholarship money and I worked a couple of additional jobs, but most of my additional work was playing in a band. 

It turned out that I made quite a bit more money playing in a band than I did in any of my "real" jobs. But, while I was there, it was determined that they had a special course that they could design, and I would get a bachelor's and a master's degree at the same time. That one more year there would send me out the door with both. I was really excited and I worked really hard. I had a 4.0 GPA and things were going great. There was an instructor who was assigned to oversee this custom degree. He is the one that helped me come up with it. We set the criteria and got them approved. He decided that it would be fun to have a fling with one of the younger students, and the two of them left the country, leaving me high and dry. This was about two months before I would have received both a bachelor's and a master's degree. I thought it was the end of the world. 

I had learned a bit, while I was at that university, about how the internet worked; taken a couple of courses that acquainted me somewhat with some web design stuff. That would turn out to be helpful, but I didn't know that at the time. I walked away having been denied the degree, denied any more financial aid, and with no way to complete it without that instructor's presence. I thought that was strike two, and I was really discouraged.  

So I started selling men's clothes to pay the bills. I sold men's clothes at a high-end store and learned a bit about that, and I kept playing in the band and started making some serious money. In fact, that band was booked a year in advance, for some of the larger gigs, for nearly 15 years, but I didn't know at the time that that's what would happen. After hours at the clothing store, I would go to talk to my friend at a local music store, and he started explaining this new emerging technology called MIDI, and that it was going to change everything. I didn't understand it. I didn't know what it was, but after spending some time with him, I caught the vision. 

I became the first person in the state, I think, to get an electronic drum kit that I would use on stage, and I would use MIDI commands to control live sound from on stage. I became very good at it. I started teaching seminars on live sound reinforcement, especially from on stage. I started composing using MIDI capable software and systems. 

I bought a computer that had MIDI capability. The computer arrived completely broken. It had evidently fallen from the UPS truck. It looked like it had been run over three or four times. But I called Sony, who was the manufacturer, and they said, "well, we can send you the parts if you want to repair it yourself." I had never used a computer before and knew nothing about it. The learning that I had to do to repair it myself, which I decided to do, would come in really helpful, but I didn't know at the time.  

The loss of the first scholarship and degree opportunity, followed by the second, followed by a broken computer and a whole bunch of trouble with that, were all disasters. At least I thought they were at the time.  

I got a call from a college saying, "we heard that you know something about MIDI and we wonder if you are capable of teaching a course on that at our college?" Just one course. The fact that I had repaired the broken computer and learned some more about MIDI and how it worked, put me in a position to teach a couple of courses at the college, some about using computers as composition tools and music writing tools, and some about MIDI and its application in live sound. Imagine that.  

I began doing seminars and consulting all over the Northwest. Within two years, that couple of courses turned into the largest music technology and recording program in the northwestern United States. It grew many, many times in size, more than doubling in size several times. I even got a letter from a student in Nepal saying, "can I be part of that program?"  

I had teaching experience, consulting experience, audio experience, computer experience (Mac and Windows), stage experience, MIDI experience, and print experience, by that time.  

I was given an opportunity to head the sound and technology in a nine million dollar auditorium that was under construction. I spent six months submitting a bid for what system should be installed, and I was promised that the contract would be mine. One week, that contract was illegally awarded to a cousin of one of the board members, and taken from me. Six months of work down the drain. I thought I was a failure. It was another disaster. I had spent all that time learning how to do system design on a large scale, and it all fell apart.  

I got a call from a huge country swing dance club that was going to open. Was I the guy that could help them design a system that would function on a large scale, and could it include some contracts, some cost estimates, some pro audio networks, and some system design that included computer networking and audio networking? Of course, I was the guy. So I began learning as fast as I could, and spent five months getting ready for installation. The day before installation was to begin, the whole thing burned to the ground. Another disaster.  

I got a call from a company needing an internal business network. I was ready to take anything at the time, and so I called some friends and I said, "I don't know how to do a network. This is a Windows NT network, and they've got some Unix stuff in there too. Can you teach me?" "They said, how long do we have?" I told them, "two days, and I'll pay you to do it." And so they came and fire hosed me with information for two days. I took notes, tried to make little memes in my head that would make it easier to understand, and the following Monday, started installing a corporate network. By some miracle, it was successful, and they totally thought I knew what I was doing, and had known what I was doing for a long time. Nope. I didn't, but it worked. I knew enough to get the job done.  

I saw a job posting from a university that needed someone with a very specific set of skills—I know, it's like I'm quoting a movie—but I was the only candidate in the U.S. who met the criteria, which included audio experience, computer experience with Mac, Windows, and Unix, networking experience, stage experience, live sound experience, MIDI experience, print experience, contracts, cost estimates, large system design, large system networks, consulting experience, and teaching experience. All of those disasters qualified me for that position.  

While I held that position, I still played in bands—this time, in three bands in two states, and turned down a record contract. But I sent an inquiry to a web analytics company, saying, "if you ever have a training position open up, I know how to make complex things simple to understand." I got a return and a request for an interview in 40 minutes, and was hired soon after. Two years later, I was one of the most, if not the most prolific web analytics trainer in the world, and people would ask me all the time, "what did you study to get into this position?" I had no idea how to answer that question, but what I always wanted to say was, "I studied how to learn when disaster struck." And if they had time, we would usually end up having dinner together, and we would talk about the horrible string of disasters that put me in the place where I then was, and the horrible string of disasters that put them where they were, and how all of them worked together to become blessings, learning opportunities, experiences that would qualify us for other opportunities in the future. 

That's really what it was. That's really the key to success. That position lasted more than a decade and took me all over the world. It has now branched into several new areas and several new opportunities by which I now make my living, and by which my life has been unbelievably enriched. I have friends on several continents and continue to have daily and weekly experiences that make me weep with gratitude for where I now am, and what I now know, and what I have learned from all that disaster.  

Things really do tend to work out. Why? I'll tell you why. Because God's plans for you are way bigger than yours. Had I gotten or remained in any of those positions that I thought were my ship coming in, I would never have learned what I have learned. I would never have experienced what I've experienced, and we would not be having this conversation. His plans for you are way bigger than your own, and as long as you can trust that that's the case, and move forward, you will be able to see that golden thread in the tapestry of your life. So what things did I learn that were most useful? Was it the networking stuff, the music stuff, the performance stuff? What was it?  

I'll tell you.  

Number one, perseverance. Just be stubborn enough to keep going. When things don't work out the way you thought they would work out, you don't know that they didn't work out. They just didn't work out the way that you expected. You have no idea whether or not that's the end or the beginning. Perseverance is number one.  

Number two, faith. Just have faith. The biblical definition of faith is things hoped for but not seen. That's one way to describe it. We could have an hours long conversation about faith. Don't give up on yourself, and don't give up on God, or whatever force you believe is driving your life.  

Number three, trust. Trust yourself. Trust that what you are is valuable and helpful to somebody somewhere always, and just keep going. Like I said, the things that you believe are disasters may or may not be such. They could be beginnings to something grander than you can imagine. Trust God, trust yourself, and trust the process of learning. Just keep going.  

And number four, divine providence. Had it not been for some divine intervention, I don't think I would be anywhere good. We have to understand that we are not in this alone. This journey through life is not something that we can take on our own power, or simply by ourselves. If you study the lives of anyone who believes that they can muscle through all of mortality alone, you usually find very unhappy people whose lives or whose stories end badly. 

Perseverance, faith, trust, and divine providence, with hope for the future, will keep you going. It is not the end. It may just be another beginning of another learning experience that qualifies you for something you never dreamed you would qualify to do. You are not a failure. You just don't yet have the whole picture. 

Keep moving forward. God himself cannot steer a ship that's not moving. As the Brazilian writer, Fernando Sabino put it, "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.  

We'll talk again soon.