Among the many news stories that broke over the weekend, one that caught my eye for all the right reasons was Jewish singer, songwriter, and mom-of-two extraordinaire Pink forgetting the lyrics to her 2006 hit song, “Who Knew.” She was performing her first of two sold-out Beautiful Trauma shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden last Wednesday evening.
ICYMI, as the guitarist begins strumming, she pauses. “I forgot the words. Sh$%!” Then, like the pro she is, after a couple beats, some laughter and some words to the crowd, she goes right into the chorus and nails the rest of “Who Knew.” Afterward, her fans roared and heaped major praise on social media – and some even (jokingly) sent her the lyrics to the very song she co-wrote.
“I feel like Billy Joel right now. Two nights at The Garden?!” – @Pink #PinkMSG pic.twitter.com/NjNYiFcC7J
— MSG (@TheGarden) April 5, 2018
In a world of perfectly crafted Instagram streams and carefully curated Facebook feeds, it was refreshing to see an injection of real life blowing up on Twitter over the weekend: a mess-up that actually made a singer more relatable and lovable.
I was fortunate to see Pink in concert last month with some of my best friends in Michigan. That show was absolutely flawless — I’m still in awe when I look at my pics and vids from that magical night. But after hearing about her “oops” moment on stage, I couldn’t help but think about four life lessons she just unknowingly taught her kids Willow, now 6, and Jameson, now 1, lessons that we can teach our own kids, and even ourselves.
1. ALL humans make mistakes. All too often we see celebrities, politicians, sports figures and royalty as separate entities. But they’re not – they’re human like us, and they flub up, too – they just happen to sometimes do it on a much bigger stage, a la Pink. It’s how you handle the mistake that matters most. (See #2.)
2. Don’t give up. Pink didn’t turn and huff off the stage or ask the guitarist to start over – she totally could have; it was her own concert after all. Instead, she waited until the words came back to her, and owned the song like the badass rockstar she is.
3. Laugh at yourself. Life’s just too short to get hung up on the drama. When you’re selling out arenas around the world, you surely have every right to laugh at yourself. But even if you’re just ordinary you, you still have every right to laugh at yourself. Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you don’t, the rest of the world won’t, either.
4. Get over it.While we tend to be our own worst critics, we ordinary folk are lucky that we don’t have tens of thousands of people judging us every night on stage. I think back to how many times have I’ve messed up during a presentation at work and admonished myself for it for hours afterwards – yet I can’t picture Pink dwelling on this (or any) “oops” moments for long. In fact, the very next night she was back on stage at another sold out MSG concert! How’s that for perseverance?
So the next time you stand up at a staff meeting and stammer over your own words, flub up with an accidental Reply All to the whole office, call a new mom friend by the wrong name, or fail a test you studied hard for, picture Pink singing “So what, I’m still a rockstar …” and give yourself permission to move on.
