About last night…. Isn’t that how they start off when they want to bring drama and excitement to their story? Well, I can honestly say last night was AMAZING!
I spoke at this event called FailFest! It’s an opportunity for people in the nonprofit sector to share some of their most impactful fails and what they learned from them. Speakers shared experiences about hiring the wrong person, conferences that failed because of poor planning, personal values not meeting organizational values, trying to use influence to manipulate others to get what they want and having it backfire, etc.
Well you know me – I had to be extra and talk about personal fails. Like growing up without a father in the house, getting pregnant at 17 and being raped at 18. Then adding my biggest fail of allowing that inner-me to get the best of me and give up on my dreams. I ended my speech by saying ‘even though I had fails, I WAS NOT A FAILURE’. I was feeling pretty good about my extra – ness!
Then this morning when I got up and saw the video and the pictures splattered all over social media, I cringed! I hid like a child waiting to get a whooping! Like OMG!
I thought about all the things I should have done – like pull my shirt down, wear Spanx (I knew I was going to be in front of people), stand up straight (that in itself would have covered some of the flaws), and make more eye contact with the audience. And then the voice of my Toastmaster’s teacher screamed in my ears ‘articulation is 90% of your presentation’ – Oh well my articulation may have been a little off cause I was speed reading! Heck they only gave us 5 minutes and I had a lot to say!
But then the gentle voice inside of me reminded me of the lady that came over afterwards and said, “Thank you for sharing your story – there are so many people that could relate including me!” Or the woman that said, “Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing such a personal story. You were amazing”. Or maybe it was the two organizations that asked me to come speak with their clients (one of which I’ve been trying to connect with for over 2 years). But then there was the one lady with tears in her eyes that said, “Thank you! Because of what you said, I no longer feel like a failure!”
Let me tell you that made all the “fails” of last night simply amazing!
We are so hard on ourselves. Always looking for the things we did wrong instead of the things we did right. We can pull a compliment for someone else out of the air but struggle to find one good thing about ourselves even when everything is “perfect”.
Well about last night… it taught me
- I do have a story to tell and it will change lives!
- To make 95% of what I say come from my heart, everything else will work itself out!
- To be true to who I am and embrace my past – it has made me stronger!
- People really aren’t looking at what I have on if I’m bringing a message they can relate to!
- I may have failed some things in my life but I am not a failure! In fact, I’m pretty awesome!
Here is the video from last night. Hope you enjoy it!
Until Next Time,
