Reinvent yourself
You are not stuck.
Greetings Prosperous Soul,
This week I helped out with the Sozo Summit. It was a lot of work. Usually, I sit in the back and help manage the event, set up/tear down equipment, and run errands.
This year, I had to do a lot more.
“Can you do sound this year?” A church staff member asked me.
“Sound?”
I had never run it before. Granted, I’d been around the gear when leading worship, but actually operating the equipment was different.
The proposal was that I’d show up on Sunday afternoon and learn the trade. Over the following three days, I’d handle everything. Simple, right?
In hindsight, yes. Everything was set up so well that I could simply just walk over and push a few buttons. But for someone who’s never operated the gear, it was intimidating.
I lied in bed on Saturday night and wondered, Is this going to work? Will I completely bomb?
The thing that got me through was a simple phrase I heard in my brain: Reinvent yourself.
Huh?
I told my wife and she felt it meant a couple things:
I wasn’t stuck with my current abilities.
I could move forward and reengineer myself.
Why couldn’t I run sound for an event? Why couldn’t I be a good sound person? I have a brain and I’m able to adapt. If I embraced a mindset of growth, I could do the impossible.
So, on Sunday morning, Mom and I drove down to Sacramento, and I began the process of learning. I followed the sound guy around as he explained the system and I made sure I had answers for any potential problems.
In the end, I only had to call him twice to address some random tech issue.
Overall, it was a success. Everyone complimented my work. How did I do it? By reinventing myself. I wasn’t the guy who lacked information on sound tech. I was a man who could take on new things and be good at them.
Reinventing myself,
Cory De Silva
About: Cory De Silva is an American poet, singer/songwriter, short story writer, actor, and screenwriter. He has released two studio albums, acted in three films, racked up over 1 million views on nosleep, and published a small book of poetry. He is a graduate of CSU Long Beach, and lives in Northern California with his wife, Colleen, and their children, Bryght and Ayralan.