Sometimes the bottom falls out.

I have been working on a live “community project” for coaching clients and potential clients for the past six weeks. It is been a flurry of learning the platform, creating workflows, making two series of video lessons, writing tons and tons of content. A lot of work. We did a soft launch last week to test everything out. Everything was set to go. We did a hard launch yesterday.

Today it is all gone.

Really, the details don’t matter, but evidently the platform I was using was hacked, and they lost a lot of the communities they hosted. Mine was just one of many. And I am sure that some of them were farther along than I was, with large lists of clients and members, and years worth of webinars and on-line lessons.

I won’t expose the platform. They have enough problems. They have been sympathetic. Refunds are in the works. All they can do. But the bottom line is the same, I have to start again from scratch.

I won’t even pretend I am not devastated. It took me forever to settle on a platform. And these last six weeks were busy ones, intense ones. I was jazzed. Now? I am just beat up.

It happens. It is not the first time it has happened to me. And I kind of know what to do now. When the bottom drops out, the process is simple whatever “it” is.

• Give yourself time to mourn and rant. You need to get that out of your system before you begin again, because if you don’t, that mourning and anger will color your work as you start over, and not in a good way. Get it out, but don’t wallow. And give yourself a specific amount of time to get it out of your system. I am giving myself till Friday, and them I will start again. The exact time doesn’t matter – but Do set a time to start again.
• Ask yourself what lessons you need to take from what happened. In every disaster, even if caused almost completely by someone else, there are lessons for ourselves to take home with us. Things we could have done better. Figure those out before you dive back into it, so whatever you build again will be that much stronger.
• Don’t see it as a “sign” or anything mystic. Stuff happens. Everything in life is not a sign. Just get back to work. The disaster is only temporary. For all my successes in this world, I have also experienced some pretty devastating disasters. They aren’t signs. They are just life.
• Do something you CAN control. It might be something as simple as doing the dishes, or in my case, I am going to work in my art studio and stretch some canvases and do the grunt work of being an artist. Mindless, but it helps you feel back in control before you get to work again.
• Get to work. Don’t wallow. Just get back to it. Success goes not to the smartest, or the most talented, but the most persistent. Get back to work. The success you wanted is still out there. Do the work, and claim it.

So, back to work with me. I already know what I will do differently. So I will rant and rave the next day or two, and get back to it.

So can you.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom