I lost the 110 blogs I wrote and published to my site between 2011 and 2014 in a transition from hosting my site on GoDaddy to Digital Ocean last year.
When I realized what happened, I said to myself (and others), “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
Did it suck? Yes. Was I devastated? At first, yes. But now I see the positive side of it. A silver lining of sorts that I turned into a full-fledged positive event.
Framing is important and staying positive will make you much happier. So, I turned a negative into positive and here’s my 5 takeaways:
1 – Nobody gets to see my old/bad ideas
This is great. I had some not good ideas that I published to the internet. Now that my views have evolved, nobody can say I’m a flip-flopper. Which is great. Especially if I decide to run for King President in 2028.
2 – I keep a “clean” image
That’s apparently important to some people: to have a role model who is clean. It also, obviously, encourages haters to come out of the woodworks to do everything in their willpower to tarnish that image. Some really bitter people (Mr. King, looking at you, and anybody hating on Tebow outside of his football play at the professional level).
Peyton Manning had one (I don’t think the recent digging up of his sexual harassment that was settled 20 years ago will ruin his legacy). Tebow still has one. It’s tough to have and keep. I’m no saint: I’m not a virgin, but I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone (I wasn’t in a frat or a football player, so that helped).
3 – Clean Slate
I’m 27. Getting a clean slate for anything is tough. But I get one. I’ve had this opportunity before – at 25, when I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my dreams. It’s amazing I still haven’t floated off into the ocean yet.
4 – My writing is better
I’ve learned so much about writing, especially for the internet.
a) people don’t like chunks of text, no matter how good the info is
b) people like lists – ie: this post
c) people like information they can talk about broken into bite size bits
d) but you can still give a full plate of food for anyone who wants the meal
e) people love analogies (I think)
5 – Learn from mistakes
Not properly backing up my site = not being prepared.
Don’t go into anything unprepared. There’s rarely a good enough excuse for not being prepared.
Be like Peyton – do your homework!
There you have it. When you make a mistake, learn from it. Then it’s a positive event. No more regret or worrying about spilled milk. Move on. Get better. That’s all any of us can do.