or, That Time I Launched My New Website and My Email Crashed.
All the writing, designing, editing, critiquing, changing, reworking and on and on that goes in to putting your beloved website together — it’s a labor of love, and somewhat painful at times.
You want it:
to be descriptive, but not too wordy
to be warm and engaging, without being lame
to capture your sass, without being bitchy
to be bright and dynamic, without being off-putting
You finally get it to a place of pride, you write up the ‘birth announcement’, and roll it out, and wait (breath held).
Some pretty awesome feedback and enthusiasm rolls in, and that’s lovely. So very lovely.
Until the emails from friends start to come to your personal email account.
“Hey, I tried to reply, but it bounced back.”
“I couldn’t email you from the announcement.”
“FYI…”
STOP.THE.PRESSES.
Is it me, did I do something, can my site not handle traffic?
Fortunately, no, it was none of that, just harsh coincidence and a system-wide server problem that I could not do a single solitary thing about but wait. And be patient.
Oh the suffering I could have saved myself if I had just gotten straight to that conclusion.
First, I panicked. The blood rushed, the pulse raced, and maybe there was a tear(of frustration). Possibly a mild tantrum. For sure, I texted my beloved: ‘SOS – need to be talked down’.
Ultimately there was a cocktail, but only after I got to the place of surrender. There wasn’t a thing I could do about the situation, and once I figured out the entire network of users was affected, I went for a walk to catch my breath. It was just 100% complete and utter bad luck.
I actually had to consciously remind myself that building a business is a marathon, not a sprint, and that in the grand scheme of it all, this was not important. Some important learning for me is how I manage myself when things don’t go the way I hope/dream/expect/want. What more can I do to catch myself on the precipice of panic, and make a conscious choice about which path to go down?
What do you do to catch yourself before the panic reaction sets in? How can you identify when to just Let-It-Go? Message me, I’d love to hear! Meanwhile, something I like to ask myself in such situations:
