When I worked in the New York City music scene as a mastering engineer during the 1990′s, the clock ticked at about $12 a minute or $700 an hour. Top-40 stars would fly in on the Concord (remember that?) just for the day to have their albums sonically groomed before they were pressed into Platinum. That meant that anytime something broke or stalled in the studio where I worked, it was costing someone an awful lot of money. Down time was not tolerated by the studio. I had to learn how to think ahead, to plan for what was coming next. I also had to learn when to be open – when not to act – so that time would not be wasted undoing what I had just done. In every moment, I had to prepare for what was next.

Fast forward to my life today, and I’ve kept the preparation habit. Here it is, a balmy Saturday night in June, and I’m spending a quiet evening at home preparing for the coming week as well as the next 90-days. I was drafting a fresh To Do list, reviewing my schedule, and keeping up with my email. Anyone in this profession might do the same, even on a Saturday night.

The thing is, you just never know what’s going to come your way. You may think you have a handle on your schedule, that people will do what they say they are going to do, or even that you may somehow disengage the link between your results and other people’s activity. It’s just not the case. It will never happen, for we are human beings and life is unpredictable. And so the question then becomes…

How fluid are you? How well can you adapt to the unexpected? What are you able to make up on the fly?

I got an e-mail out of the blue tonight asking me to be involved in a movie – more like a documentary, really, but they’re calling it a movie. There’s no way I could have planned for that. There’s every reason for me to commit to it, yet it will mean weighty financial investment on my part. That’s how these things work sometimes. It will also mean dropping everything in the middle of an already burgeoning schedule, flying to another state, traveling about 3,000 miles round trip, coming up with something interesting to say, and being “on” for a couple of days.

Is it worth it? Sure. The production is likely to be quite successful. Am I prepared? Ironically, the answer is “yes.” The movie is in line with my personal and professional goals. I’m clear on that. The solid structure of my preparation has met the fluid nature of this opportunity. It all seems to fit.

If someone had asked me hypothetically this morning whether I was prepared to make a movie, I probably would have said “no.” But this evening, having faced the impromptu question, I have a response that surprised even me. “Yes, I’m prepared.”

“How do you know when you-ahrrre an ex-prrt?” droned the mechanical voice from the speakers on my PC. His name is Microsoft Sam, an entity out of some early Star Wars tavern fantasy, devoid of personality and strong on authoritative content, barely recognizable as speaking the English Language. Tonight I half expected a synthesized oboe to provide the background music in swing time. “What makes you quah-li-fied to speak on a gih-venn sub-jekt?” >>squee-awk<< (In my mind, the oboe has a broken reed.)

I took another sip of Pinot Grigio as the early summer night air settled on my cheeks, and the curtains flickered in the evening breeze. The scent of the spring flowers still dripped from the trees, so late this year due to La Nina. “Heck, I dunno,” I sassed. “You tell me. What makes an expert?” I thought of the many contracts I have pending, the numerous impossible deadlines I’m required to fulfill by autumn, Amazon promos for my audio books blaring my name from my Internet browser while my house mate’s cigarette smoke wafts in randomly through the open window. “Does the typical expert have to deal with this? With breathing second-hand smoke? With editing out the background noise of the Boeing Field traffic redirected? With conflicting agendas and insomnia? With self-induced information overload?”

The answer is yes, probably.

“The typ-i-cal ex-pert is con-tin-u-uh-lee ler-ning uh-bout his ay-ree-uh of ek-sper-tease,” droned Sam. He was reading from an eBook that I’d downloaded in March as part of a package of products I have the rights to resell. As the eCommerce Gal, I make it a point to invest all unexpected revenues into building my online business. As a matter of course, I read the products and occasionally repurpose the content according to my resell rights; my Text To Speech software helps immensely.

In other words, I write off my edutainment. Sam is my constant companion. We’ve got a thing…

I work on my craft about 15 hours a day, sometimes 20 when I’m under deadline. I can’t stop thinking about my topic. I’m concerned that I bore people to tears because I simply won’t stop talking about it. I love it like a close friend, and we understand each other. If anyone asks me about it, I blush because it’s so intimate – but then I open up and I just drone on and on. If I could, I’d have pictures of my laptop in my wallet, and I’d flash them like some people flash photos of their kids or their dog or their summer house. When I pick up my Seagate 1.5T hard drive, I speak lovingly to it and pat it softly on the back like an old companion. It travels with me everywhere around the country, and we’re seldom more than 20 feet apart.

It’s odd, some would say, but there’s no doubt that my work makes my pulse quicken. My first thoughts in the morning, before cappuccino and Qi Gong, are of my business and how to move it forward. My last thoughts as I meditate at night are prayers to bring my IP to the right people. And as I pray, I give thanks that I have finally found my life’s meaning, my reason for being alive, my means for existence, and my justification for breath. I pray that I can go on, in spite of all impediments, to cheat death until my To Do list is finished, outsmarting the most challenging foe, fate and chance, until my last measure of devotion to my constituents has been exhausted… to be as much as I can be for Sam, for my audience, for myself.

What makes an expert?

PASSION!

“Un-buh-rye-dulled, un-uh-bash’d pa-shun that will ne-verrh be quelled, that cah-not be quenched makes an ek-spert.” Just ask Sam. He’ll tell you. He knows me well.