Shoot For The Moon

Allow me to start by expressing my deep hatred for my iPhone right now. I took a lot of notes today upon said phone and somehow, half of them were deleted. I can't imagine I deleted them but I also don't want to accept that my small piece of modern technology is plotting against my ability to blog about all of the wonderful things I heard today. This might be an important lesson in good, old fashion note taking. Get out your pens and notepads people, technology can fail you.

Thankfully, most of the major points that I wanted to take with me after the conference have stuck with me. For my first blog post today, I'd like to concentrate on a couple of areas. One will be my attempt at making a theme out of last night's wallflower heavy post. Another I touched on with the title of this post.

You might as well shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. This isn't something I recite at my reflection each morning (actually, positive affirmations have never been my thing). However, this is something I practice in almost everything I do without even realizing it. Some people call me a perfectionist, some call me anal (such a nice word, no?), but I prefer to consider myself committed to the end result. Do whatever it is you're doing with amazing passion and consideration for the end result and even if you miss the moon, you'll land among the stars.

This saying could not be more evident in my life than what happened this morning. For a couple of weeks, I have been working on my 2nd Year Testimonial speech for the Venue Connect First Timers Breakfast. I wanted what I was going to say to stick with someone. I wanted to make the difference for anyone listening that someone made in me last year. I wanted to be inspirational but also real (not always easy). I also wanted to make an impression. Humans are somewhat self serving creatures, and while I wanted to help ignite sparks amongst the audience, I also wanted to show those listening what I can offer. I'm passionate about what I do, I'm one of the hardest workers you'll ever run across, I'm smart, well spoken and darn it, I can write a speech! Reciting the speech was another thing - but I've never claimed to be the world's greatest public speaker (if a cute, shakey voice does it for you then I'm sorry you missed the breakfast, I was full of cute, shakey voice).

This speech, my 2.5 minutes in front of a brand new group of peers, was a success beyond what I could have imagined. While standing up in front of the crowd, with my shakey voice and written speech, my eyes met with nods of approval, agreement, and empathy. I saw realization in the eyes of people sitting where I sat last year. After the breakfast, I was met with words of encouragement, appreciation and congratulatory remarks. I was also met with the opportunity to take my words, refine them, and potentially have them printed in an industry publication.

I shot for the moon and just might have landed there. I can't even imagine today happening any other way. It's just not in me to sit back and let things pass by me. Life is an amazing gift - live it your way!

Now, as promised, to get back to that wallflower topic from last night. I'd like to spin that from a negative to a positive. Is it so bad to be one that stands back and observes? Am I searching out the right opportunity to insert myself before jumping into the first opportunity I see? What if my immediate and exuberant insertion blocks my ability to see another less prominent but amazing opportunity just waiting in the wings? My leadership style is definitely a "go get them" style but I'm overly conscience about my team and how the team works together. I am successful in what I do because hang out on the sidelines playing coach instead of quarterback. This isn't a bad thing, it's my thing.

At least I made it a point to meet new people today and also jumped all over the opportunity to take someone up on a lunch invitation. It's still the old Erin (she's too valuable to leave behind), just one trying to play a braver role.

(this is the third in a series of blog posts written while attending IAVM Venue Connect 2011 - let's see if I can keep this up all week)

follow me on Twitter @WoolyHands and keep up with my conference tweets with a #venueconnect search

Networking and why I'm a superb wallflower

I wouldn't say that tonight was a complete failure... at least not for the 100s of people enjoying themselves over a nice, cool adult beverage meeting new friends and keep up with old. It might have just been one for me. Also enjoying myself over a nice adult beverage, or should I say, from behind a nice adult beverage. It happened like it's happened so many times before. I choked and decided that what tonight's reception needed was an amazing wallflower.

Now, don't get me wrong. Every good reception needs a great wallflower... right? It completes the room and provides harmony where harmony might not have been before. I guess I'm doing a service for all events out there. It takes great skill to do what I do.

Great skill and a complete lack of guts.

I'm not sure at what point in my life I lost the ability to chat everyone up like I've known them forever. It was sometime in college, I know that much. It isn't that I can't find topics of discussion if I'm forced into a group setting or if someone sits next to me at the dreaded lounge configuration in any normal reception setting, it's just that I can't bring myself to be the one to join those settings. I'm perfectly happy waiting for them to come to me.

I would like to go to my own defense a bit. I had a terrible time finding people that looked to be about my age at tonight's event. I saw (and even chatted with) industry veterans. Upon asking them how many times the have been to this conference, I got answers like 40 years! 'Scuse me? 40 years? "hi" "bye", not my crowd. Awesome mentors? Yes. Will we leave best Friends on Friday? No. The next group was a gathering of excited girls all sharing cheese off of one plate (and none of them with the aforementioned adult beverage). I'm going to go ahead and guess that these girls don't make up my crowd either. Perhaps here from a college? Maybe, I wouldn't know though, I didn't chat them up (that is the point of this blog post). Then I would think I saw someone my age, I started to approach them, and then I recognized the slumped shoulders and a double dose of registration goodies marking them as assistants to the older person at the table. Perhaps they would have jumped at the chance to talk to me, but their boss whisked them away before I could even make a step in their direction.

And there I was left alone, playing the part of a wallflower well enough to be awarded for it.

I even went as far as to passively aggressively post on Facebook that having a coworker here would be swell and all of my problems would be solved. Perhaps I should retract that statement. I've always gone to conferences with coworkers (well, except this conference last year in Houston) and here I stand at the cusp of my next big opportunity to grow and I'm cowering in the corner, grasping my iPhone as I text friends back home. This isn't the way to be 30 years old, almost 8 years into an amazing career, and taking over the world. I'm ashamed of this person.

Self - I'm giving you an assignment. Get the heck over your fears. Jump out there, meet someone away from an organized session. Walk up to someone and introduce yourself. You're charming, funny, and impressive to boot. Go show that off to the world and quit complaining about it on your blog!

(this is the second in a series of blog posts written while attending IAVM Venue Connect 2011 - let's see if I can keep this up all week)

follow me on Twitter @WoolyHands and keep up with my conference tweets with a #venueconnect search

I've landed in the desert

I'd prefer it if we didn't dwell on the fact that I haven't blogged in over 4 months. It would be nice if I could say I had been whisked off on a 4 month African Safari sabbatical... or perhaps living in a beach hut working on my tan but I've been doing neither of those things. I'm not going to tell you that the only thing consuming my time since March has been work... or that I come home in the evenings and feel like collapsing in a heap because my brain is so tired from answering thousands of questions about what kind of concessions I plan on selling at the upcoming show... or that I'm just plum tired.

Let's not dwell on that.

Let's get right to the meat and potatoes of this blog post.

I arrived in Phoenix (as in middle of the desert Arizona) earlier this afternoon for the International Association of Venue Managers (here on out referred to as IAVM) annual conference, Venue Connect. Conferences are great for so many reasons - I really could spend all evening writing about each reason. But for right now, right this very second, at 5:13PM PST, the number one reason this conference is great is because I'm feeling myself recharge. That eager spark that had started to dim while sitting behind my desk, answering question after question for the past year is start to gain some strength. Sure, tomorrow I'll probably tell you that the conference is great for the networking or education, but for right now, it's just that it's fanning the flame.

Last January I wrote one of my favorite blog posts from my hotel room in NYC while there for the APAP conference. My creative side was fed at that conference. I consider the IAVM conference one for the analytical side of my brain. This conference is for the organizational, operational, event logistics geek that lives within me. You know, one cannot live on ice cream sundaes alone, you also need your vitamins and that is what I'm getting this week.

The conference officially started today with a golf tournament (eh, not my thing) and a slew of meetings. Unfortunately, getting here from NWA (as is the same with getting almost anywhere from NWA) took the better part of my day, so I didn't get here quite early enough to sit in on meetings, but I'll kick things off into high gear with a very full day tomorrow. In fact, not to let down the "join every club and volunteer for every activity" person inside of me, I'll be speaking at the First Timers Breakfast. I have a 3 minute "2nd Year Testimonial" to grace the audience with and I'm quite chuffed. I'm hoping that during my 3 minutes, I can help ignite the spark that I'm here to feed.

After all, it was during the breakfast last year that I started to fall in love with my job instead of just having a crush on it.

(this is the first in a series of blog posts written while attending IAVM Venue Connect 2011 - let's see if I can keep this up all week)

follow me on Twitter @WoolyHands and keep up with my conference tweets with a #venueconnect search

To Take a Moment

I just need to take a moment...

... a moment to slow down, to breathe, to enjoy life as it comes, to watch a sunset, to listen to a thunderstorm. I just need to take a moment for myself.

Life has come fast and heavy since my last post. After returning home from the conference, work happened, snow storms happened, and an earthquake happened. Yes, you heard correctly and earth quake. I think it was the earth quake that actually set everything into place this week. For the past 6 weeks, I feel like I've been grasping at areas of my life that need rearranging. I've been jumping from project to project at work, not really able to complete any of them and the same could be said for my home life.

Around 11PM on Sunday evening, as I sat sleepily in bed watching the thunderstorm, what I thought was a loud clap of thunder startled me wide awake and I watched as the tall, spindly trees out my window swayed back and forth. What I know now to have been an earthquake somewhere near central Arkansas, was the one thing that seemed to jolt everything into place. For the past few days, projects at work are being completed, my desk is less cluttered, and piles of stuff at home are getting put away. It might sound extreme that I attribute all of it to the earthquake, but what else could it have been?

As I look forward to spring, I see many, many projects that I want to complete. I am not going to be able to get to them if I do not slow down to take a moment to breathe and to fall asleep to the sounds of a thunderstorm instead of the sounds of tv.

Moments are healing.

Take a few for yourself.

In the strangest of places

Sometimes you find things in the strangest of places. I've been in Manhattan since last Thursday at the APAP conference (Association of Performing Arts Presenters). This is my first time to attend this conference and I am attending as part of their Emerging Leadership Institute. It is here... in this HUGE haystack of a city that I have found the strangest of needles.

Allow me a moment... or a few moments... to explain.

Going into this I knew I would have a blast in NYC. I knew I would learn a lot. I knew my brain would be full and my feet would be tired. I knew all of that. Those things are the obvious outcomes of almost any well planned conference. I felt that way at the IAAM (now IAVM) conference for venue management this past summer. I left that conference inspired, ready to work hard and just ready for the next big day.

However, going into this I didn't know that I would be sitting in the most uncomfortable chair for three hours on a Monday morning completely reevaluating where I am in my career. If you've followed my blog for some time, or at least have the honor of being my ear when I need one, then you know I've gone back and forth about where I'm headed in life. Do I want to work for myself full time doing something creative (selling yarn, teaching classes, etc)? Do I want to jump right into the management of a venue no matter what that venue is (theater, arena, sports complex, convention center, small club, etc)? Do I miss working in Programming and directly with the artists and artist management? Do I want to move to the agent and management end of the performing arts? What in the heck does this 30 year old want to do and where in the heck do I need to live to do this?

But there I was. Sitting in that very uncomfortable chair in the basement... erm, concourse level of the Hilton New York facing the largest revelation I've had since college. I am exactly where I need to be. I'm in a position that will allow me to take the lead on projects that will propel the theater I work into the next big thing. I'm working for someone who values my professional development and presents these amazing opportunities to me. I'm working with people who want to see my succeed and who share the knowledge that will help me get to where I want to be. For the first time in quite a while, I realized that I know, without a doubt, that I am in the right industry. I know that in 30 years, if I'm still working in a theater, I will love what I'm doing.

It really is an amazing thing to come to that point in your career. This isn't the same thing as an "I LOVE MY JOB" moment - although, I've had about 1200 of those this week. This isn't the same thing as a "look what I get to do at work and you don't" thing - although, I've also had many of those this week. This is a deeper, reaffirming, from the very bottom of my toes "MY GOD - this is EXACTLY what I need to be doing and EXACTLY what I need to keep focusing my efforts on" kind of thing.

If that doesn't have a familiar ring with you then I don't know what to say. I'm betting that only people who have had that feeling before know what I'm talking about. It's a feeling that leaves you babbling about everything filling your brain to your coworkers. I just wanted to turn to everyone I talked to today and proclaimed "I'm in such a good mood... I'm so happy... everything is fan-freakin-tastic!". The adrenaline is killing me and yet, everything is so clear.

My job is not just going to be what I do for a living, it's going to be something I live to do. How exciting is it to work in the performing arts industry? Why waste an entire lifetime not realizing that?

I hope you're not hoping I've have some important life/career goal to conclude this post with. I don't have that. It isn't a goal that has me excited, but the realization that I am doing the right thing and that I will be great at it and I don't have to question if I'm happy with all of this.

Because I am happy and if we bump into each other tomorrow, I'm probably going to tell you all about it in person.

Sorry to be so bland...

I just reread my previous post. Sorry it's bland. I've lost my snarky writing style and I promise you this...

I swear, upon all that is holy and sacred in the blogging world, that I will make sure to find my humor and snark before writing another blog post.

Perhaps I'll find it in NYC next week.

It's here!

My sister and me after 3 days of getting ready to open our Flea Market booth

No, not 2011... although it is most certainly and without a doubt here... but I'm talking about the Junque Rethunque booth at the Fayetteville Trading Post.

My sister and I spent the better part of the past 3 days getting things hauled around, pulled out of storage, unpacked, cleaned up, priced and staged and we're quite pleased with the end result. Even though the booth is full, I already have a small collection of things to go into the space when some things leave the booth. This is going to be a fun ride!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Holiday season - no matter what you did. The Sweet Boy and I stuck around here and visited family members that live in the area. I can't believe we go back to work on Monday... honestly cannot believe it. 2 weeks has flown by and I'm already looking forward to the next long break.

I'll be headed to NYC on Thursday for business (sounds posh, no?) and will be there for 6 days. I've been wanting to go on this trip since starting this job 7 years ago. Good things come to those who wait, I hope. I probably won't blog until I get back so I hope everyone gets a good start to the new year and talk at you later in January.