Mistakes

"In order to do something well, we must be first willing to do it badly."

I've never seen myself as a perfectionist, but I guess in some ways I am--especially with work. This came to my attention as I recently took over our statewide events. I took it on willingly because I'd been craving a new challenge and it sounded like fun.

The first Summit went smoothly and my confidence was high. The second Summit was private labeled for the Utah Jazz to host all their sponsors. I spent many late nights and weekends unraveling all the details--thinking if I just worked hard enough, I could make it run perfectly.

It was all coming together, (well except for a near disaster a few days before when we realized I had 25 people all scheduled to golf at 3:30. Tee times? What are those?) then at 6:00 the night before the "bewitching hour" struck. I realized I'd scheduled our two speakers for the same day! I was so focused on the details, I didn't see a major error. I went to my co-worker's office and started to hyperventilate, "What do I do???"

She calmed me down and I finally got a hold of the speaker in the airport and my boss and I were able to arrange a different flight and rearrange his speaking time. Then the Jazz wanted a room to watch the game. . .Then the speaker needed to have extra av. . .Then I lost the $2,000 camera. It was just one costly problem or mistake after another.

Thankfully everyone ended up having a fantastic experience,and I learned some important lessons.

1. No matter how hard I try, I'm going to make mistakes. I need to judge the success of things by the number of good things that happened instead of the number of things that went wrong.

2. I need to be okay with depending on other people and letting them help me when I need it (my event staff, bosses, and the hotel staff saved me over and over again--they were an answer to the urgent SOS messages I kept sending to heaven.)

3. Things don't have to be perfect for me to be happy. Walking around the golf course in Park City enjoying the stunning fall colors, talking to my phenomenal co-workers, sitting in the most amazing jacuzzi ever--looking up at the stars between the clouds of rising steam--there is a lot to enjoy and be grateful for in life.