Sometimes your quest for the legal tender gets you into hot water. Let me tell you a most harrowing story of one of my early paying jobs.
I got paid $25 to be the sound man for weddings.
For a 15 year old kid, that was pretty good money.
So one day during the wedding ceremony I’m on the job and this couple is getting married and the piano begins to play and the soloist starts to sing.
But the singer’s microphone is not working. Her voice sounds weak and frail and you can barely hear her over the piano. I crank up the volume, adjust the input gain, and… nothing.
PANIC. FRANTIC SEARCH FOR REASON WHY. WHY IS THIS MICROPHONE NOT WORKING???
Then I realize: “I forgot to plug her microphone in!” Not only does it sound bad, but this lovely song is now going to be all screwed up on the tape I’m making for this couple.
Plus there’s another song coming up. I’ve GOT to fix this.
After the song was done, I crawled on my hands and knees down the side aisle of the church – no one could see me – and made my way to the edge of the stage where the microphone cable was laying there on the floor, inches away from the socket where it was supposed to be plugged in.
I inserted the connector into the socket.
There was a resounding audible CLICK – and suddenly – while the minister was speaking to this starry-eyed young couple about the joys and responsibilities of Holy Matrimony – the PA system started howling with LOUD feedback.
I had forgotten to turn the slider down on the microphone. And here I was at the corner of the stage, 100 feet from the mixing board.
I jumped up suddenly and BOLTED back up the aisle to the sound booth. While I was sprinting, the wedding guests experienced 10 eternal seconds of horrible obnoxious heart-pounding electrifying squealing.
Finally I reached my destination and turned the slider down.
As the squealing was suddenly cut off, you could hear the echo of that squeal die another eternal half-second death as it continued to resonate through the auditorium.
The minister murmured, “Excuse us” and continued with the ceremony.
My mind reeled. I felt the blood of mortifying embarrassment fill my face. I felt the adrenaline flush through my body. My head swam in lingering panic and aftershock. My ears were hot and my heart pounded and my palms were sweaty and I felt as though I ought to be dead.
Surely this did not just happen. This is impossible. No, this did not happen. No I did not just ruin some couple’s one and only wedding. Surely they’re not going to get divorced someday because the sound man wrecked the memory of the bride’s special day. Surely I am not so stupid as to forget to plug a microphone in, then crawl on my hands and knees to plug it in, and have forgotten to turn the slider down. Duh Perry, that’s where FEEDBACK comes from. Surely I am not so utterly STUPID as this.
I re-recorded the soloist during the reception… I edited the feedback out of the tape… I gave the couple their newly doctored cassette with profuse and profound apologies. They accepted my humble contrition and they were kind and forgiving and did not rake me over the coals. Nor did the minister, who was my dad’s best friend.
But I replayed the memory of that experience over and over again for MONTHS. I shuttered that I had seen my typing teacher in the audience, and this was her first contact with me outside of school.
For a long time, the howling feedback was the first thing I thought of when I woke up every morning.
The guilt, the disgrace, the pure paralyzing STUPIDITY of it. The thought of having ruined someone’s one and only wedding. Because I was too stupid to plug the microphone in and check all the mics before show time.
There were consequences. I was on sound system probation for several months after that. I had to sit though a series of weddings for zero pay under a cocky guy named Tony who talked down to me as though I were a child. He explained the knobs on mixing board to me as though I were using them for the first time.
My humiliation was captured on video, too. One of my parent’s friends, Randy, told me he watched it. He thought seeing my head suddenly pop up and me speeding up the aisle, it was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen in his life. He was laughing so hard.
Most people think this is a pretty funny story when I tell it. But there is still a certain amount of ugggggh. Isn’t it odd how the interpretation of an event like that depends on your perspective?
Well… one thing I know, I’ll sure never forget to plug in a microphone again.
Another thing you can be sure of… if your work involves you in anything that actually *matters* to anyone, you’re going to have your share of disasters. Some of them are going to be pretty dramatic and make you feel pretty icky.
The thing I had to realize was, just because I had done this didn’t make me permanently stupid. It actually made me smarter, if I was willing to accept it and move on.
Yet I have to confess, there was a very powerful impulse that tempted me to define myself by this most-terrifying moment. To label myself as a permanently irresponsible loser. To live under the guilt and self-condemnation of this experience.
One of the things that many successful entrepreneurs have in common is: A bankruptcy.
Anyone who’s been through that can tell you how shameful it feels.
Those who have been through that horrifying experience, though they’d prefer to never repeat it, also know that the world does not come to an end. After that they’re less afraid to fail because they’ve been to the bottom and they know they lived to tell about it.
Truth is, it’s only as shameful as you make it. Obviously some people exploit bankruptcy laws so they can go on Mediterranean Cruises and not pay for them, but my customers are not those kinds of people.
Entrepreneurs have to take giant risks sometimes, but there are mechanisms in our society that allow risk takers who fail to not be saddled with that failure for the rest of their life. You do not have to be forever defined by your most humiliating moment. I always liked what Zig Ziglar said: “Failure is not a person. It is an event.”
Events are frozen in time. People change and grow.
One of the most courageous women I know spent a few days with her son in a homeless shelter. That’s how close to the bottom she got. She had left an unhealthy relationship that was providing a roof over her head, and she had nowhere else to go. But the homeless shelter with its smelly blankets and leering eyes was less damaging to her ego than that relationship was to her soul. I respect her more for the time she spent in that shelter, not less.
She is fearless. She is not afraid of ANYTHING.
Got a failure story? I’d love to hear it…. you’re welcome to share your own story in the comment box below.
We accept people who fail around here.
And of course… if there’s a victory that comes out of it, I’d like to hear about that, too.
Perry Marshall
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
60 Comments on “My most humiliating, most horrifying moment”
LMAO!
I can totally relate to your post. The last wedding I was at I managed to fall over backwards onto a table full of wine.
I had to take my tux back in a nice rouge colour although I hired it in white! :-)
Well Perry, your story reminds me of my early days in broadcasting. I made my share of mistakes one of which became immortally included in books that specialize in on air mistakes. Believe me, I felt your pain (while laughing at the same time).
Hi Perry. Great story! Another story of victory from failure is in my book called Being a Sharefish in a Selfish World. I think you would be able to relate to it. I’d love to send you a copy if you would like (or you can always get it on Amazon).
Beautifully said Tim. I also believe that our actions play a significant role in determining our success or failure in life. :-)
Humor is critical! I have had to seriously budget and cut back to be able to make a dignified effort in realizing my dream, but that’s ok.
I had a friend ask me if I was doing alright and I told her that I couldn’t complain. I said that I had just bought a toothbrush on installment plan. We laughed so hard we cried. :)
It is not what happens to us in life. It is what we do about the things that happen to us that determines success or failor!
The shame in business can come at a terrible price. Twice now I have sold for crooks without knowing it. In both cases I believed in the company and the products. I had researched and interviewed the principles and had been fooled completely.
Much like the brokers who had earned huge commissions from selling stocks to Enron employees must have felt, that’s how I feel.
I am even facing litigation for my participation in one case, though I was just a salesman.
So here I am, too. Broke, ashamed, and at rock bottom. But your message is encouraging. I am not defined by past failures, instead my resolve to never work for anyone else again is firmed up.
Huge Thanks for pointing the way.
I’m worn out from all the things I’ve tried and failed at for the last five years and I’ve got through a large amount of money and feel a total failure.
I’ve hatched a plan that may just keep my head above water. I’m letting out my apartment and taking a job that is not too full on but provides a small salary and a rent free flat. I should manage to pay the bills this way and over time get out of debt. At least I should not be constantly fire fighting. I feel in a strange way that in giving up I may actually succeed if I use my spare time wisely.
Our School district announced a speaking contest for 5th to 8th graders. A large number of older kids entered from various schols.
I was the only fifth grader. I had worked on and given my speech repeatedly in various classes at our school. I had it down.
The day of the contest, I was one of the first to speak. “Ladies and …” I couldn’t even remember the next word in my introduction. I started over. Same result. Finally, I left the platform, totally defeated. Needless to say, I didn’t win the contest.
I have done a lot of public speaking since that time, and have never frozen again, although I still get butterflies. I learned that that humiliating experience was not the end of the world. That experience freed me to speak and I have been priviledged to do so for many years.
Hi Perry,
Firstly, your messages over the Christmas break have been every inspiring to me, thank-you. Reading your most humiliating moment really resonated with me. As I have been in private industry all my working life, I know and feel the pressure to deliver, with your rubber stamp all over it.
But what I would like to share with you is my story of a humiliating moment, again related to a wedding, my sisters actually, It’s not really my humiliating moment, nut I’m sure you will agree that this is along the same lines as what you experienced, thus striking a chord with me.
When my sister got married, the wedding party was arranged with the best man to be flying in from interstate (about a 1 ½ hour flight). When the fit out for the wedding party was conducted to ensure that we were all matched up, the size of the suites that we were to wear were tailored up and the best mans suit was posted down to him for him to bring up to the wedding.
As I was Groomsman, my suit was hung in the cupboard front and centre.
The best man flew into town the evening before the wedding and while unpacking his cloths, discovered that he forgot to pack the suit for the wedding. A mad and frantic panic erupted to contact anyone back at his house, pack the suit up and express post it up over night, resulting in a change of plan in the morning to drive to the airport to see if the package had in fact arrived.
It was a long shot to even think that the suit would arrive in the morning, considering that the wedding was scheduled at 10am and it was late in the evening when the embarrassing discovery was made.
Wedding day: Instead of taking a leisurely trip to the Church for the wedding, we made our detour past the airport to see if the suit had arrived.
There was little over an hour before the wedding was to commence and her we were jumping into cargo containers to see if we could identify the package, if it was in there at all. Time was running out and the package didn’t make it. We could not spend another minute looking, time for the contingency plan as the wedding drew closer. As the suites were tailor made for size and colour, the closest suit that we could find before we left for the wedding (in case the package was not there) was a suit that I owned.
We made a decision before we left for the airport / church that if the package was not there, then I would sacrifice my suit for the best man so that, in terms of pecking order, the Groom and best man who traditionally stand next to each other during the service would not look too out of place, and also for wedding photos. Being third, the groomsman (me), just might not stand out as much as the other two.
So, out in the car park at the airport, here I was changing clothes from my suit to another and the Best man changing in the car park too! Not the place that the Groom had planned on being half an hour out from his big day.
The wedding: So here we were standing at the altar and waiting in formation waiting for the bride to make her way down the aisle, with everyone in the Church completely obvious to the events that had just occurred. Right now, if anyone was nervous, it was me, as I was the one out of place with the suit colours.
The bride slowly makes he way up the aisle and takes position next to the groom, so far so good. Her eyes start making their way around the wedding party, best man, and then me. Her jaw dropped, scanning all three of us, she could instantly see that we were not dressed correctly. As the ceremony started, no one could explain to her why we were dressed differently until after the wedding but it was clear to me that she thought it was a prank our behalf (especially mine being her brother!) I’m sure that was on her mid the whole way through.
Immediately after the ceremony completed, there were strong words said as the couple were walking out of the church together.
No one really knows what was said, but as the official photographer started taking ad lib photos, there was one picture that summed up the ceremony, the bride talking to groom with one finger pointing at his face with some strong words being said.
To this day, I have never seen the best man again.
Kind regards Perry and all the best for 2009.
Peter Menham.
Perry:
Heartening–both as a soundman who has done similar things, and as someone who is in the first months of a five-year bankruptcy process. I know there are good lessons I am learning now, but I would sure like to learn them quick and move on.
Thanks for all your posts.
Pat