Been watching some of this stuff with The Rock coming back and getting involved with Cody Rhodes. It’s quite the show, gets you thinking.
Made me remember something from way back, actually. Wasn’t wrestling, but it had that same kinda vibe, you know? Big personality swooping in, changing the whole damn picture. I was working on this community project, putting in hours, really building something with a small team. We had our plan, our ‘story’ you could say, all mapped out.
The Shift
Then this big shot donor type got interested. Loads of promises, loads of noise. Suddenly, everything we’d planned felt like it was on shaky ground. He had his own ideas, his own ‘finish the story’ angle, and it wasn’t quite lining up with ours. It wasn’t hostile, not really, just… big. Overwhelming.
I spent a lot of late nights just going over the plans again. Trying to figure out how to make it work, or if we even should try. Do you stick to your guns? Do you try and blend the ideas? Do you just step aside?
- First thing I did: Talked to my core team. Just laid it out plain. What we built, what the new situation looked like. No sugar-coating.
- Second: Tried to have a real sit down with the new guy. Understand his actual goals, not just the loud parts. That was… tricky. Lots of talking, not always much listening on his end.
- Third: We actually sketched out two paths. One sticking close to our original plan, adapting where we could. Another fully embracing the new direction, seeing what that looked like. Put the pros and cons down on paper.
It was messy. Felt like wading through mud for weeks. Lots of meetings that went nowhere, lots of feeling like you were banging your head against a wall. You put your heart into something, you see the path, and then suddenly, the whole landscape changes because someone with a bigger microphone walks in.
In the end, the project kinda fizzled out into something completely different. Not really what we started, not really what the big shot initially pushed for either. Just… changed. Sometimes things don’t get a clean finish. You just record what happened, what you tried, and move on to the next thing you gotta do.
