It means that you are in the crucial moments. That all your planning and such can only bring you so far and after that, you have to perform. It can be a wedding that you cater, where you walk into an unknown kitchen, blind, and learn to work without a large pot or enough sheet pans. When you are up to elbows in hot soapy water, trying to scrub the upc code stickers off the shot glasses you bought, because some maladjust thought that it would be cool to put stickers on every.damn.glass.
Or it could be a day like any other, you've got kids to feed, paper to chase, yadda yadda. But then you get a monkey wrench in the form of one of your staff calling in sick. And while you may think to yourself, the next time, they had better be calling in dead, you know you don't mean that. And there is no second string. You are the only string on this violin, so you better tune up and play.
You are in the paint, you have to make your presence felt.
