Big Red Car here. Brrrrrr, winter in the ATX is cold, y’all. It is 33F headed to 54F. This is winter. Of course, it’s going to be sunny because it is Texas after all.
So The Boss is talking to a couple of brilliant CEO entrepreneurs and he says to one of them, “You have to know when show time becomes go time.”
The CEO, who is brilliant, says, “What does that mean?”
The Boss ‘mansplains it to him. If you are around The Boss for any length of time, you will hear him say, “Get in the moment. Stay in the moment. Make something happen. Now.”
As you know the Big Red Car likes to write about business, entrepreneurial startup business, politics (boring, Big Red Car, very boring), and the military.
As it turns out the phrase “show time v go time” has some pertinence to each of those subjects.
The entrepreneurial show time v go time
When you are an entrepreneur out raising money for your brilliant idea, you will be filling the world of fundraising with your elevator, taxicab, and board room pitches. Lovely words that Shakespeare would envy. Believe me.
You will be dealing your pitch deck, your rehearsed spiel, anticipating the questions, answering them as crisply as a winter day, showing off your business engine canvas and just, generally, filling the world with the promise of great things to come and pain to be made well. All by YOU! Damn, you’re good!
You may even have some kind of fledgling product but you are primarily pitching some future to be built with the audience’s money even if the audience is your rich Aunt Ethel (who has always liked you).
You are full of more promise than a Democratic Alderman running for re-election. There is not a pot hole in Christendom safe from you.
And, then, you get the commitments, the documents, the money.
And, then, dear beloved CEO, you make the transition from show time to go time. Now, you have to put aside all your childish fundraising pursuits and perform.
And in the startup game that is the transition from show time to go time and you better make it crisp and keep it real because from here on out, it is a graded exercise and you are burning daylight and money.
The political show time v go time
The GOPe — the Republican Establishment — cannot figure out how to derail Donald Trump. They have been trying by supporting their handpicked handmaiden, Jeb Bush. They have slapped him with their checkbooks. They have reminded him and the electorate, “Hey, he’s a Bush. His father was President. His ne’er do well brother, W, was President. It’s Jeb’s turn.”
No sale.
Trump, on the other hand, has stolen the oxygen from the world Republican, has completely mastered the tail chasing media and has made them his bitch, has polled like free ice cream but now the primaries start.
Now, the lovely ingenue is going to have to pull his dancing slippers on and begin to whirl about to the music while counting noses — first in Iowa and then New Hampshire and then South Carolina.
By the end of South Carolina, only three candidates are still viable and the race becomes the race.
And, that, dear reader, is when show time becomes go time — when the first caucusier (a word? I don’t think so, Big Red Car but, still, I sort of like it) stands up and says, “Donald Trump is my boy. I am his and let’s get it on.”
Show time becomes go time.
[Pro tip: When the race is winnowed into Trump, Cruz, Rubio — the votes begin to fall in line. Don’t believe all the baloney about a brokered convention and the last gasp of the GOPe to maintain some thin veneer of relevance. When the field is narrowed, it becomes a two man race quickly and Trump wins. He does not arrive at the convention 150 delegates short. He clinches it before the convention site is swept clean in anticipation of the union crew setting up. Trump wins the nomination outright before the azaleas bloom. If he doesn’t, the deal making fool anoints one of the other stooges as VP and they become a package deal. The guy is a deal making wizard. Oh, yeah, there’s going to be a deal. Count on it.]
Military show time v go time
In the military, you make a plan in the spirit of finding, fixing, and killing your adversaries. It is the nasty business you have chosen and you are good at it. You put it on a map. You make a sand table of the objective. You publish a five paragraph field order. Folks know where the casualty collection point is and you know the radio frequencies of the artillery, the gunships, the fast movers, and medevac. You write them down, you memorize them, you make damn sure your RTO knows them, also.
You conduct a map exercise. You sandtable it. You walk it through. You rehearse what happens if you get killed.
And, then, the planning is over. You check, double check, re-check everything and the minute hand touches the spot on your watch from whence things can no longer change and destiny shows up for a ride to the objective with you.
If you’re a paratrooper, you get up off that cold ass runway and load up. You’ve been to the latrine four times and you can’t wet a postage stamp with your tongue. You’re pregnant with a parachute, a reserve, a drop bag, your weapon, ammo, and your fears.
You load, you stand in the door, you jump, you enjoy that incredible moment of peace as you float under your silk, and it becomes go time.
Show time becomes go time when you walk through the wire, when you jump out of the plane, when you step off that chopper, when you cross the LD (line of departure) and whatever the world thought it was going to do that day is changed forever and you, American soldier boy, are the agent of that change.
Show time becomes go time.
In your life, look for and respect the transition between show time and go time. What time is it right now in your life, Ace? Go make it happen. Cause, it’s GO TIME, baby, and you, dear reader, are about to change the world. Do not make the Big Red Car look bad, y’all.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car! Be good to yourselves, you deserve it.
