Tech Troubles and Next Levels

While on retreat this week, I stayed on task with my commitment to create valuable content for my community. I shot a video, took some great B Roll shots and came home to put it all together for my newsletter to be sent out on Wednesday. But The Tech Gods had other plans for me. My phone didn't have enough storage to upload the main video to Dropbox.

FRUSTRATING.

After what seemed like hours of deleting content off my phone, the video finally went through. Then, I put it into my trusty Screenflow video editor that I've been using for well over a decade. But, the frame rate was funky and the image didn't match the sound.

FRUSTRATING.

I didn't know what was wrong, so I couldn't fix it. I'd been looking into a new video editor that I could use from my phone or laptop and decided this was the prompt I needed. I opened up Capcut and got started. Learning a new software typically involves hours of watching tutorials, hunting & pecking and making lots of FRUSTRATING mistakes. 

Clever girl that I am, I decided to save time and simply assign a role to Chatty G and have her answer my exact questions as they came up. Big mistake. For hours, she sent me down rabbit holes, around loops and over hill and dale with misinformation. When I finally did find a video tutorial on Youtube, I was able to create fades between clips in minutes. 

I lost it. 

My delicate little ego through a sh*t fit. "I suck. I'm worthless. Why am I even trying to do this?" That kind of drama. It especially stung because I've been editing videos for decades and had the privilege, while creating our children's relaxation CD, Chill Children, of sitting next to one of the best sound engineers in the world for 8 hours and watch him edit. 

What is frustration, really?

Frustration often shows up when the ego has latched onto a particular outcome, timeline, or way things should be. Spiritually, life flows in its own timing. The freakin' friction I felt was the gap between my will (ego’s agenda) vs. Thy Will - the larger Will (universal intelligence, dharma, divine timing).

I feel like the huge level of frustration I was experiencing with all the tech troubles was like a scramble up some rocks - and through the brambles - to a higher level. The frustration was ego holding back as my soul pushed ahead.

Frustration spikes at thresholds. I wrote last week about all the energy work I'd done recently and I realized that the work often shakes things loose to be discarded, transformed and/or integrated.

But what the ego wants is for me to give up. Stay the same. Not push out my comfort zone into new territory. I recognized this and was able to shift my perspective.

This reframe has helped me to see where I am on the path - leading up towards my highest and best life, not lost wandering in the thicket. 

Now, the video is done. The B Roll is tucked in beautifully right where it belongs with fades and transitions in place. I've learned how to edit in Capcut and I'm ready to uplevel video content. 

The newsletter went out late Saturday afternoon, not Wednesday. But I'm certain, and you can be too, that no one is looking at the clock waiting for my newsletter to drop. (Pro tip: don't point out to your community when you're off your own content schedule. No one is paying attention).

This is the entrepreneur's rollercoaster. This is the personal development program disguised as a business opportunity. These are the markers on the path that challenge us to grow, to step out and to step up. 

Just like travel - it doesn't always go the way we planned. But the seeming detours often lead to something surprising, interesting and even amazing.

Keep going. You've got this - And I'll continue to remind myself of this on the never-ending adventure of solopreneurship.