Win some, lose some

A pep talk for being a human who tries (and sometimes fails) in public

When she walked off stage after performing in her school talent show, I knew from the way she was hugging me that ice cream was in order. That is how, earlier today, I found myself leaving my daughter’s school and heading towards Cold Stone Creamery at 7:30 PM on a school night.

Eva has been playing the cello since she was 3.5 years old. I almost typed “we’ve” been playing the cello, because, any Suzuki parent knows, it’s a team sport. In this specific method of teaching music to very young children, there is one designated adult who serves as the practice partner and learns alongside the child. I did rent a full-size cello for a few months, but now, 5 years into this musical adventure, I am mostly a silent partner.

There was a moment about a year ago when she stopped wanting my Juilliard-trained, helicopter mom helping style—I wonder why?! (Sarcasm.) I can “hear” her rolling her eight-year-old eyes right now.

These days, when she practices, I try to “disappear,” staying close enough that she could easily ask for my help, but not so close that she feels my presence judging her.

Is this what growing up feels like?

I think I could write a whole book on what I have learned from this journey she’s been on with the cello. It’s taught me so much about myself and my creative practice; it has softened some scar tissue, helped me get reacquainted with a childlike part of myself that I get to visit only as I watch her learn. It’s incredible. She’s incredible. I’m so grateful.

Today, though, we learned a new lesson.

As the stickiness of sprinkles and sweet cream fell onto their booster seats, I knew I wanted to get the words down for me, and maybe for you.

Her performance at the talent show didn’t go as planned. Things went wrong. Most of it was neither her fault nor within her control. I won’t share the unique details here; that is her story to blog about one day. You’ve heard the old adage, “You win some, you lose some”? Well, today we lost some.

On the way to get ice cream, I told her about some of my losses.

• That time at my senior recital in high school when my reed cracked in the middle of the first piece, and no sound was coming out of the instrument.

• That time, I got so much water in my back-octave key while playing a concerto that all of the top-octave notes came out lower, and there was no time or way to fix it.

• The very specific and hurtful words that people have said about my playing and my writing over the years

• The many auditions I did not win

• When the thread on an English horn reed came untied during a concert, the sound just kind of slowly slipped away. (Many of my “losses” involve reeds, I’m an oboe player, after all!)

There are dozens more humiliating moments that make my face hot to this very day. My husband was traveling and couldn’t make it tonight, but I even dug up some of his top embarrassing moments to the delight of the gigglers in the back seat.

As I let their laughter wash over me, I realized I had Eva’s attention. And just for a moment, I got to be someone she trusted to speak truth to her—not about her intonation or bow hold— but about what matters most. Not slinking silently nearby in the kitchen, but locking eyes in the rear-view mirror.

No one told me how special these moments would become as they age, when you’re standing at a vulnerable juncture with a young person who still somehow trusts you more than anyone on the planet. Holy ground.

So, I said a prayer silently, Oh, please don’t let me mess this one up, and started to give a pep talk to someone I love very much. A pep talk to myself, too, and to you, if/when you need it.

Because we do lose some. That is, if we are being brave.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be up there and risk embarrassing myself than in the audience longing for enough courage to take the stage.

Not giving up, keeping going, finishing anyway— these things are more valuable and more attainable than perfection ever could be.

If you’re lucky (which you are!), this performance, project, or creative endeavor will be one of many. There will be good, there will be bad, there will be everything in between. What matters more than the quality of any one performance is who you are becoming. Let the ones you lose make you more resilient, compassionate, tender-hearted, and tough-skinned.

Nothing you do or say or play or make has anything to do with your belovedness. Whether you win or lose does not change what the people who matter most think or feel about you.

We talk so much about the “wins” that we miss the value of the losses. We treat losing like a void—a lack of accolade or applause, an empty pit of embarrassment and shame. But after watching Eva navigate the silence of a talent show gone sideways, I realized that “losing some” isn’t absence or lack, it’s actually a kind of gain.

You may lose the pipe-dream of perfection, but you gain grit.

Perfectionism is as brittle and as thin as glass; it shatters the moment things go wrong. But when you lose your footing on stage and keep playing anyway, you trade that fragile ego for something much stronger (and more useful, frankly): resilience. The world didn’t end when the reed cracked or the key stuck. You’re still standing.

You may lose the audience, but you gain your people.

The wins bring the approval of faceless and fickle people who will come and go, but the losses bring loved ones with ice cream. We don’t need a standing ovation to prove our worth; we need those who will hold the cello while we cry.

You lose the “what if,” but you gain the “even so.”

The person who doesn’t try is haunted by “What if…?” And, even in losing, you get to be emboldened and say, “Even so, I showed up.” There is a specific, holy kind of peace that comes from being exhausted and unsuccessful, and knowing in your bones that you didn’t hide. Losing means you are doing the thing. And being upset when things don’t go well just means that you care. Caring is way more fulfilling than apathy; loving and losing is better than never loving at all. (These sayings are cliches for a reason: they are true!)

So, if you’re sitting in your own version of a metaphorical Cold Stone Creamery tonight, nursing a loss that makes your face hot: Congratulations.

You are doing the brave work of being a human who tries. Don’t rush to push the memory away or fix it so it never happens again. Instead, look at the “some” you lost and see all that you’re becoming through that experience.

Maybe“winning some” helps us pay the bills or feed the ego. But “losing some” is where the soul grows. And if I have to choose which one I want my daughter—or myself—to be rich in? I want to take the soul growth.

When we got home, after a bath and a book, when her brother was asleep, Eva reemerged from her bedroom. She wanted another hug, and of course, I obliged. When she pulled away, she asked me if she could practice cello a little. I tried to be neutral. I didn’t want to over-eagerly “mom” the moment and scare it away. I simply nodded and said, “Sure.”

I sat on the couch in the other room, held my breath, and listened.

She didn’t play the piece from the talent show. She played the next song in the Suzuki book, the one she’d been working on in her lesson. There was no stage, no judge, no audience. Just a girl and a box with strings in the quiet of a Thursday night.

In that moment, I realized that the “some” she had lost at the talent show—the pride, the perfection, the external validation—had been replaced by something far more indestructible. She wasn’t playing to be good; she was playing because the music was hers.

That is the hope I want to leave you with.

The losses don’t leave us empty.

Whether you are eight or eighty, what if the “lose some” moments are actually invitations to come home to yourself? To find yourself loved, regardless of your performance?

I need this pep talk as much as Eva does. With my new book launching in July, I am standing in the wings, feeling that familiar heat in my face. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to “win some.”

But then I hear the cello in the other room.

I remember that I didn’t write it to be perfect; I wrote it to be brave. I wrote it because I have something to say. Even if my reed cracks or my voice shakes, I wrote it because I believe creating is worth doing, win or lose.

So, if you’re hurting today because things didn’t go as planned, take heart. Losing is just part of the process. It means you are inside a brave, creative life. Let’s practice seeing losses as a tool to strip away the noise until all that’s left is a deeper, more honest core.

When you are ready, after the ice cream pit stop, go ahead. Pick up your bow. Start again. Not because you have something to prove, but because when you see the losses as gains, you realize there’s nothing to fear.

Thanks for reading, friends. A reminder that today is the final day to join the launch team for Art Is How God Loves Us. I’d love to read the new book together in June. Register and learn more here.

What are some of your most embarrassing “losses”?

Tell me in the comments, and I’ll share them with Eva! 🫣