Instead … this is what people saw when they got to the webinar. Yes, a hand-made sign – I’ll tell you in a minute why I did it that way and how … but first…

I wish I could tell you I had a brilliant backup plan and I seamlessly shifted the whole webinar to the backup location.

But I didn’t.

I have a complex webinar setup with a harp and it’s not highly portable (but trust me I’ll be trying to figure out how to make it portable!)

I like to be LIVE.  Reeeeally live.

I’m a musician. A composer, performer & coach.  And in my online courses I teach musicians about improv, passion and performance.

I like to answer questions by playing and showing.  I LOVE to really connect.  That’s why I love doing live video teaching webinars with my electric harp.

Yesterday’s crash made connecting tough!  But it also gave ME the opportunity to experience technical challenges the way my students do – because they all have technical challenges.

I tell my students to embrace imperfect action.  I tell them to connect deeply with what they CAN do, using whatever technical ability they have, as they are, right now.

So when the computer crashed, I had to put my own teaching into practice.

First I had to find a working computer and quickly get a message to the people who’d signed up. Some had rearranged their days and I wanted to get to them as soon as I could!

I knew that others would miss that email and try to log on.  Connecting to them was harder.  I had to download the webinar app onto the borrowed computer, and the computer I found wouldn’t download it.   Finally I got in on another computer 5 minutes after the webinar should have started.

But … how could I leave a message people would immediately see??  How do you pin a message to the door of a computer window???

I quickly wrote the note you see at the beginning of this post and pinned it to the shelf above the computer so the message hung down over the eye of the webcam.  Nobody could miss that message!

Then it was time to fix the actual problem. My computer guru, Gordon, was emailing from California with a list of next-steps.  He said it sounded like …

It called for Chips

So I ate a bag of chips .  Then I used my phone to email back to all the people who’d emailed me trying to get in to the webinar, to let them know what happened.

Then I went to Microcenter. For the memory chips.

Gordon said he’d never heard of TWO RAM chips going at the same time, but after testing each separately – sure enough both seemed to be faulty. (Note the difference between the potato chips and the memory chips above – do not mistake them)

I made it to Microcenter about 20 minutes before they closed.

Well … I’m sorry … I’ve tried turning this photo right-side up but it won’t go.  But you get the idea … this is microcenter and I’m relieved because I got there in time!  And got the chips in…

And … fingers crossed … my computer’s been running – FAST – since last night.

So now what?

Over 200 people signed up for something that didn’t happen.  That’s a lot of lemons to make lemonade with.

But this is what life is LIKE. And that’s why life is like music.  And why music is like life. And this is what improvisation is all about – and THAT’S what I’m teaching in my classes.

I tell my students to keep going.

I tell them to embrace imperfection.

I tell them to embrace their technical challenges and to perform real music right now, exactly as they are in this moment.

I tell them that ‘problems’ are opportunities for creative action.

And I tell them, above all, to have fun with exactly what they have, no matter what that is.

So this is a moment I get to live what I teach.

If you were one of those people who signed up for “Take off the Handcuffs!” webinar I hope you’ll join me when I reschedule it.  (And I’ll be sending you download gift – I hope you like it!)

I’m pushing my computer as hard as I can today to see if it breaks again.  If it doesn’t, I’ll rescheduled the webinar.  If you’re already signed up, I’ll send you an invitation to the new one.

If you’re not registered and you want to attend, register free for the rescheduled webinar here.

And it will be such a glorious moment when we actually connect!

p.s. the webinar was a warmup for my “Hip Harp Toolkit” course that begins tomorrow (Check it out here http://www.hipharptoolkit.com).  If you play the harp, I hope you’ll join me for the full course.  And until I get that next webinar up and running, you can use the code CRASH (all caps) to get $75 of the course.  That’s just one little way I’m hoping we can all feel like we got something unexpectedly good out of this!

p.p.s. thank you for all the sweet emails I got from people who were coming and wished me and the computer good luck!