The Alarming Fate of High Wire Walkers Who Perform Without a Net

Learning how to take responsible risks

Hello, Party People!

I wanted to let you know that starting next week, I’m experimenting with a new format for the newsletter. You will be getting newsletters Monday through Friday until at least the end of May.

You will also notice the newsletters will look a little different. There will still be some essays and lots of haiku comics. However, there will also be some other stuff that makes me feel truer to my weird self.

Also, Sci-Fi Haiku will be available for purchase starting Tuesday, April 29th! I’m not putting this book on pre-sale, I’m just launching it into the world next week.

The Alarming Fate of High Wire Walkers Who Perform Without a Net

You cannot make changes in your life unless you are willing to take some risks. But not all risks are created equal.

Circus performers, high-wire walkers, and trapeze artists used to always perform with a net. It was crazy not to. No matter how skilled you are, bad things can happen — often things outside of your control. A gust of wind, a loud bang from the audience that breaks your concentration, or improperly assembled equipment can make you lose your balance.

When you’re hundreds of feet off the ground, any slip or momentary lapse can send you tumbling down to the ground below.

Without a net, the consequences of any mistake are almost certainly fatal.

You might still get hurt if you have a net, but you will live to dance in the sky another day. Walking the wire with a safety net is still risky, but it’s a responsible risk.

However, everything changed for circus performers when the Flying Wallendas came to prominence.

The Ringling Brothers Circus hired the Wallendas after John Ringling saw them perform in Havana. The group’s first American show was at Madison Square Garden in 1928. Their safety net never arrived at the venue.

This performance was a big break for the Wallendas. If they failed to perform, they wouldn’t get paid. They most likely would get dropped from the circus and might never work in the U.S. again. The phrase, “The show must go on,” isn’t for the honor of the performers or the enjoyment of the audience. It’s for the protection of the owner’s profits.

The show must go on, and so, the Wallendas did.

The group did their tricks up on the high wire with no safety harnesses and with no net, and they got the loudest, most enthusiastic applause of their careers. The Flying Wallendas never used a net again. The circus business was, and is, a cutthroat world of copycats and narrow margins. Performing without a net became the industry standard for high wire walkers and trapeze artists.

The Wallendas used one of the bedrock rules of storytelling, raising the stakes, to unlock steady work and minor celebrity status for generations.

Perhaps the risks were too great.

Something you should know about the Flying Wallendas is that a lot of them died in tragic circus accidents. Brothers, cousins, fathers, sisters, and aunts sometimes fell, and there was no net to catch them.

Running your own creative business is a lot like walking the high wire. There are a lot of things you have to focus on simultaneously to safely make it from one end of the day to the other.

Many artists and freelancers fail to make it a single year before they fall. If they have a safety net in the form of savings or a reserve of credit, they will likely bounce back and learn from their mistakes. If they are desperate because they quit their job on a whim, they will end up back in the employ of someone else and will likely never start their own business again.

You can live a completely happy and fulfilled life as an employee, even if you are an artist. But some of us aren’t wired to be employees.

Some of us need the thrill of being our own boss. We need to try and make our creative vision come to life.

One of the core values of the middle school my children attended is taking responsible risks. To learn and grow, you have to take risks, but not all risks are the same. In sixth grade, a responsible risk might just be raising your hand to answer a question, even if you’re not 100% sure you have the answer.

I love the idea of taking responsible risks. As an adult, a responsible risk might be selling your art, starting a newsletter, or asking for a raise.

However, randomly quitting your job to try and make it as a writer without any savings or plan is not a responsible risk. You might make it. Lots of people succeed when walking without a net, but if you fail, you will be devastated.

I love having rollicking adventures, so long as once it’s all over, I get to go home to my family, my piles of books, a comfy chair, and an excellent meal. I love life too much to want to be a death-defying performer. I’m basically a hobbit.

I do not want to risk more than I am prepared to lose.

I have seen so many people quit their jobs without any kind of savings or business plan, and end up back working for someone else and feeling worse about themselves and their talent than before. But they didn’t fail because they weren’t good enough.

The truth is that almost every creative solo business takes months, if not years, to find its footing. These people only failed because they tried walking without a safety net.

Of course, you can overcorrect. You can wait too long to take the risk. You can wait until you are assured of success. That means you will never take the risk. You will stay stuck with your status quo forever.

Responsible risk is still risk. You can still fail. The difference is that with a responsible risk, you can bear the consequences of the failure. When you high-wire walk with a net, you make it much less likely that you will die or end up with a life-changing injury. But you might still fall.

What kind of responsible risks are you willing to take? How will you build your safety net so that you can enjoy the view hundreds of feet off the ground, without having to worry about breaking your neck?

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Be the weird you want to see in the world!

Cheers,