I had no idea how prophetic I would be when I first announced that I was headed on a much-needed vacation with my family and extended family – when I spoke about 404 errors I meant that I would be relatively sparse when it came to email and community interaction – not that I’d be hit with a few days of server failure!
It’s been a stressful and seriously disappointing few days as my hosting provider made some significant errors on their side and stopped cold some of the momentum that we were building on our new Community Forums – talk about epic failure!
And your typical emotions and thoughts crept in as I contemplated every single option imagineable when something like this happens, like if I should start shopping around for a new hosting provider, should I re-architect and re-engineer my services, should I invest in a better redundant backup, and even if I should get out of the web business entirely!
I mean, sure, that latter point is ludicrous but when you’re emotional and stressed out things can go completely haywire in your head!
This is what my vacation is about...!
But in a moment of calmness I realized something critical and it helped me get back on track – I remembered that there’s nothing perfect on this side of heaven and that failure and challenges will inevitably come!
I remembered that I can choose to have a better perspective and attitude about things, especially when it comes to servers and hosting, and that nearly all will fail and disappoint you at some time.
And I choose to think positively about the issue instead of being bogged down by significant insecurity and anger.
Please know that I’m far from being perfect in this regard but the challenge of being a ProBlogger means that you’ll inherit every inherit challenge of being an entrepreneur, self-starter, and freelancer – and that lifestyle is a tough one!
Besides trying to run your blog business as you should you’ll encounter random hiccups and frustrations nearly every single day – but you decided that that was your unique fate the moment you handed in your 2-week notice!
Your perspective matters (and not just for your blog) a lot and having a positive one is vital for your success. Sure, you will experience epic sadness when it comes to your blog but that’s the norm – rebounding positively is what you need to make sure happens!
Having a healthy perspective and attitude is one of the most critical and important aspects of your success as a blogger – perhaps even more important than all your strategy an execution!
Beach baby....!
And heck, we might not even be fully out of the weeds in terms of finding some stability with the server and this is the last thing I want to be doing right now while the sunny beach and cool water awaits me – but there are just some things that even I can’t change, some things that I simply cannot control.
Thanks for your willingness to endure such a long downtime and I’m sure you invested your time wisely in your own blogs and other communities!
I will work on making sure that this doesn’t happen again!
[This is part of the Escaping the 9-5: My Road to ProBlogging series.]
It must have been all the more frustrating as you are on vacation – but this post is simply beautiful! And because this is the kind of content you push out and the trust you have built around TentBlogger, we understand and will (somewhat) patiently wait for things to be fixed because posts like this are worth waiting for.
Try and relax now it’s back!
you guys are incredible. seriously.
John,
We aren’t going anywhere. Momentum may have been lost but Tentblogger is like an Aston Martin DB9, slick and fast off the line.
It won’t be long until everything is back up to speed again.
Enjoy your family time bro.
i had to look up this picture…
wow……
I told my wife when we got married that it was going to be my mid-life crisis car
I noticed the site was down but I am glad to see it back up! Sometimes these things happen but we all learn from the experience.
-Jean
thanks for hanging by jean!
John, you will not lose our readership because the site goes down here and there.
Enjoy you vacation. We will be here when you get back.
thanks trevor! getting back to it!
Ditto Trevor.
That’s what real community is all about … sticking together and providing support where needed. You’ve certainly done your part to support us with your awesome content … the least we could do is stick around
thanks chris! appreciate it……!
Sorry to hear about the snafu’s…especially while on your vacation. Personally, I’m sticking around and I bet a ton of others are too. We understand that sometimes things happen outside our control and we can only control how we react to them. Enjoy your vacation with your family, we’ll be here when you get back.
ROI detector… tell me about that…..!
Love your site. Very helpful. Your article hit a chord with me; even you hit some bumps along the way. But, it’s how you handle these bumps and you seem to be handling them very well! Keep up the great work …
thanks dave for being a part of this community!
Enjoy the vacation!! Don’t worry about the blog! Readers will have the huge archives to keep them busy till you come back.
Hmmm why apologize over something have no control over? Go for a swim dang it! Enjoy your vacation…VACATION…did ya hear that? One more time, just in case…V A C A T I O N!
sand castles…..!
Great perspective John. This is what makes Tentblogger so valuable: even in the midst of crisis you share an important fact on choosing a better way to repond. Not only does this speak to bloggers, but humanity as a whole.
Well said John. Enjoy your vacation… They always move way too fast!
thanks for this reminder justin…… appreciate your support…..!