When you fall, you still move forward

And other times, you take action and it doesn’t quite work out the way you thought it would … like what happened recently.

Yesterday morning, with “moving to action” on the brain, I jumped into launching a live LinkedIn broadcast. The catch? I didn’t realize I need a third-party broadcaster to do so. (Did you know that?). I figured it was like Facebook where I simply click a button and away we go. Nope, not at all. Way more complicated than that.

I had a few people who had signed up to attend this spur-of-the-moment live broadcast and as the minutes ticked by, I expected my LinkedIn account to alert me and present a button of some sort to begin the live broadcast. 

That never happened.

Instead, I tried earnestly to figure out how to get my live LI video and what I discovered surprised me. I needed a third-party broadcast app. What did I do? I messaged the people online, apologized for the “technical difficulty”, and canceled the broadcast.

It didn’t work out and that’s fine by me. Why? Because it was a low-risk event. There were only a few people online and the impact was minimal. Though inconvenient to them, I believe they related to the fight we all have with technology from time to time. 

Sometimes just doing something is worth the risk if the impact of failure is low. 

In this case, aside from the embarrassment to myself and inconvenience to anyone who tried to join me online and couldn’t (sincere apologies), it wasn’t a high-profile crash and burn. It was a learning experience.

Now I’m wiser and will make a measured decision if it’s worth me pursuing the hassle, costs, and learning curve involved with getting a third-party broadcaster. I’m not even sure how many of you would be interested in live video broadcasts. I could just as easily share a YouTube pre-recorded video with my LI colleagues, right?

QUESTION: what do you find more convenient? Live broadcasts or watching pre-recorded videos?
(Please answer in the comment section below … your responses will help guide my actions).

Here’s the take-away I want to share with you: Next time when you’re hesitating to move a task to action, I encourage you to consider the risks and go for it if the risks of failure are low. On the other hand, if you know that risk of failure is high and the consequences of failure low, it’s not going to jeopardize a lot, just take the leap.

You live, you learn. That’s what leaders do.

PS: remember to post below if you prefer live broadcasts or recorded videos.

#leadership #resiliency #communication #takingrisks #fallingforward