“You are as good as your last show” is a common saying in our industry.
You have probably heard it plenty of times, especially from veterans who remind you that this is a thankless career, one where whatever great thing you did yesterday might not count if you screw up today.
To be honest, it is a good way to keep yourself on your toes. You are challenged to leave your ego aside, to remember that any glory is already part of your past. Your success will buy you extra trust (and hopefully money), but it won’t matter if you don’t perform today.
As with everything, there is another side to this saying. What happens when your last show was a failure?
How do we overcome that terrible mistake that put a whole team’s work in jeopardy? When will people stop pointing their (imaginary) fingers at you? When will you feel that they finally stopped talking about your mistake?
As I have shared with you, I believe my career is a successful one. But I’ve had my share of failures too. Some have been more visible than others. Some have been on bigger stages.
Just like many of you, it has been hard to process, admit, and let go of my mistakes. Some of them still chase me to this day.
I lost over 25 minutes of one game in the most important women’s national team competition in the North American region. I did not see the problem coming, and some of my decisions helped cause it.
It was in Monterrey, Mexico, a few years ago. That moment of complete silence, when the truck went dark and we could not find a way to bring it back up soon enough, stayed with me for months.
I felt like the only one responsible for the mistake. The person ultimately accountable for the production. Literally the one who turned off the generators, even though I was about 50 meters away from them.
One of the first phrases that came to my mind was, of course, “you are as good as your last show, kid.”
If that was true, I was terrible at my job.
Right after the game where we had the issue, I felt awful and my thoughts were extremely negative.
But as the weeks passed and we finished the tournament we were delivering, I realized the saying works both ways.
The good thing about this business, though, is that in many cases we quickly get another shot to prove ourselves again. One more game, another series, the next concert, or the call for a studio show.
There is always another chance to show that a mistake should not define you.
The key, however, is how much you learned from the issue you faced or caused. If your next show is a success but you forget the recent error without learning anything from it, the risk of falling into it again is right around the corner.
If you owned the mistake, identified the causes, and learned how to avoid it, you are on the right path.
Regaining trust
When your last production was a nightmare, or you made an error that affected air, trust is one of the first things to take a hit.
Your self-confidence erodes easily. Your mind starts playing games with you, and you see that error replayed on a loop in your head.
On top of that, you start to feel that your boss, your colleagues, your team, all lost their trust in you.
That double punch can be hard to manage.
But I can guarantee you that, in most cases, your teammates are not nearly as focused on what happened as you are. They moved on quickly. They had other things to think about. And you have some credit with them.
You have helped the team deliver multiple amazing shows. You have taken bullets for the team. You are a good person your colleagues appreciate and want to support. (If you are a jerk, forget that last part and start worrying, because it will come back to bite you.)
So, to get that trust back, start with yourself. Go over the problem. Write down how many times you have been the one “saving” the show. Put a name to your fears.
Slowly, you will realize that the mistake haunting you, the one eroding your confidence for hours, is not a life-or-death one. You are not a doctor. This is just TV (or streaming, or digital, or whatever it is now).
And to regain that confidence, remember: YOU ARE NOT AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST SHOW. YOU ARE MUCH MORE THAN THAT MISTAKE, OR THAT SUCCESS.
If you don’t do it, the fast pace of live production will remind you that you need to move on and get back on your feet quickly, rain or shine.
Never forget it.
A recent production we lost a leg of power. Ouch. We repatched power. We could not get the production switcher back. I used the router to bring up a single camera. We went live. Everyone punted. The client was extremely grateful we were able to get back on air.