Fyreside Newsletter - 6/1/26

Hey Reader,

We're back to Monday newsletters, which is great, but I'm in a pretty terrible mood this morning. I'm in a bad mood because I discovered I made a pretty significant mistake. Not only that, but it's a mistake I feel like I've made too many times to still be making, but here we are.

Long story short, I deleted something I shouldn't have.

Remember that haunt marketing seminar?

Yeah, I deleted the recording.

Not on purpose, mind you, just out of my own chaotic disorganization. I'm really upset because I still planned on doing a lot of things with that video. YouTube videos, still frames for LinkedIN, clips for TikTok, just to have as a reminder of the accomplishment. Alas, none of those things will happen, and, unfortunately, my disappointment/frustration/sorrow isn't going to bring the video back.

So, what now?

You learn a lot from losing.

When I was in high school, I played roller hockey. (It's hockey on roller skates. That's not relevant.) We were not very good. In fact, we were awful for 2.5 of the 4 years I played on the team. I'll never forget, my freshman year of high school, being up 7-2 after two periods, thinking we were finally going to get our first win, only to lose the game 9-7. We had a decent run my last few years, but, point is, we lost a lot.

Look, I hate losing. I'm competitive to a fault and a chronic try-hard; every loss sticks with me, even if they happened in a hockey rink more than 15 years ago. That said, if you want to participate in anything at a competitive level, you have to accept losing as part of the process. "You can't win 'em all" is something I'm pretty sure either Confucius or Sun Zu said. If you're pushing yourself to be your best, you have to put yourself in situations that may not work out for you.

Every loss stings. They feel bad when they happen and they stick with you, but that's their value. Those bad feelings and core memories create the opportunity to learn and improve. It's easy to remember times when you win, but the finer details of the process are often overshadowed by the joy of success. Losses though, they leave scar tissue, and we tend to hyperanalyze each and every moment that caused those scars. They force us to learn, to improve, to not do it again.

So what lessons am I learning.

Something, something, practical takeaways.

Don't Overutilize Multi-tools: I use my phone for far too much. I use it to film, to edit, to post, to communicate, etc., etc. I ended up in this mess because I was keeping the recording of my presentation on my phone. My phone's memory started to get full and I needed to free up space. Thinking that I had already duplicated the video to my PC, I deleted it from my phone. And that leads me to my next point...
Double Check: Should I have made sure that the video was on my PC before I deleted it from my phone? Yes. Did I do that? How dare you ask.
Be Timely: That presentation happened more than three weeks ago. That video should have been transferred from phone to PC in week one, and that's on me. Putting it off gave me time to make assumptions and do silly things like delete an important video.
Be A Digital Hoarder: This is the big one, so it gets a whole heading.

Be a digital hoarder.

There's a closet full of stuff at my parents house that qualifies me to give advice on hoarding strategies. I don't advocate for hoarding in the real world, but as far as digital files go, KEEP EVERYTHING.

There's no reason not to. Files are small and can be compressed. Digital storage space, whether physical or cloud based, is incredibly cheap. You can buy a 128GB flash drive for $10 at Micro Center, and probably a fraction of that online. There's rarely, if ever, a reason to delete things that you still plan to use or may be relevant to you later. I'm not saying you need to save every memo you wrote during your first internship, but holding on to raw footage and project files for a few years is always worth it.

The real key to digital hoarding is organization. You need a clear and easy to understand file structure. You should have subfolders inside of subfolder inside of subfolders and they should all be consistent and labeled. For instance, I have a Bahnfyre PR folder that has a half dozen subfolders in it. One of those subfolders is labeled "CLIENTS" and inside of that folder is, you guessed it, a folder for each client. Then each "CLIENT" folder has subfolders for "DELIVERED," "IN PROCESS," and "ADMIN." Inside the "DELIVERED" subfolder is a subfolder for each year, yada, yada, yada, you get it. Be organized, have a process, and, as stated above, be timely.

Now what?

As much as can be learned from losing, you also have to move on and put it behind you. I'm not going to wallow over the things I can no longer do without this video. It's on to the next thing, lessons learned, hopefully this time they'll stick. Now I just need another opportunity to give this presentation, and I'll have a new video to use.

-MC

p.s.

Thanks for letting me externally process this loss.
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