Can You Make It Rain Harder?

I have spent the pandemic decorating my home. There is a place in my garage where I need something. I have rock and roll paraphernalia there but need an extra piece. I was listening to Prince today and decided I needed something Prince related in that spot. I immediately thought of either his infamous symbol or an image of his 2007 Super Bowl halftime show.

Tonight at dinner I was talking to a friend about this and we started talking about that halftime show. What a glorious event. The best halftime show ever. What made it great had nothing to do with any of the planned aspect of it. It was the rain.

Of course, Prince is a legend. An icon. As the halftime show was approaching it was pouring rain. The producers asked Prince if he and the band needed anything. He looked at the field and asked, “Can you make it rain harder?”

As a consummate performer, Prince knew an opportunity when he saw it. Most performers would want the rain to stop. They would want a miracle to occur and everything to be perfect when they went out to perform. But Prince knew that was not the best opportunity. The best opportunity was to be the performer who went out in a howling storm and knock the crowd dead with a tremendous performance (in high heels and bell bottoms on a rain slick stage). And end his set with Purple Rain…in the rain.

And that is exactly what he did.

It rained so hard that, while the instruments worked during the performance, they would not come back on afterwards. They were ruined.

How do you respond to adversity? Do you ask for the clouds to part and the path to become easy? Or do you say, “Can you make it rain harder? Let me show you what I am capable of.”

Guess which image I am hanging in my garage as a permanent reminder to rock and roll through adversity.