There is no such thing as an embarrassing moment.
A good college friend of mine is fanatical about her swim workouts. Three times a week, Katie begins her day with a 2-mile swim.
And when she's finished her workout, she'll occasionally see other swimmers on the pool deck waiting to begin their own workouts.
One morning Katie found herself chatting with a fairly big-boned woman as she entered the pool via the swim ladder. She could have exited the pool with a glance and a nod. But this particular morning she decided to strike up a conversation.
It was at this point that Katie looked frantically for the nearest rock...to crawl under.
This humorous exchange at the community pool reminded me of a 1991 video of Oprah Winfrey that I recently came across. (feel free to watch the first three minutes here )
Oprah is very clear about one thing:
There is no such thing as an embarrassing moment.
She relays a pivotal story from her early as a news anchor...she is reading through a list of names of foreign countries from the tele-prompter.
When Oprah gets to Canada, she calls it "Kuh-nada." And she then does something interesting:
"...I thought to myself, that wasn't 'Kuh-nada', that was Canada."
So on air, I said, "that wasn't Kuh-nada, that was Canada, please excuse me." And she started laughing.
It became the first real moment I ever had.
Yet the news director later said to me, well if you do that...
Oprah disagreed, For her, it was the beginning of realizing that...
In 1986, when the Oprah Winfrey show went on air to a national audience, people would tell her..."oh, you are so comfortable in front of the camera, you can be yourself."
Oprah chalks that comfort up to one thing: mistakes.
I would not have been able to be as comfortable with myself had I not made mistakes on the air and been allowed to make mistakes on the air.
Her early years in broadcasting endowed her with a very powerful mantra:
It doesn't matter.
Suppose she tripped, or fell on her face, or broke a heel or had a run in her stockings.
Well, there's no such thing as an embarrassing moment because she knows that there is not a moment that she could experience on the air that somebody else hasn't already experienced.
So when it happens you say, "oh my slip fell off, and it's no big deal."
And for your next presentation, when the Zoom screen freezes, or you take a bite of your sandwich when you thought your camera was turned off, or you call a person in the audience by the wrong name...take a breath and remember. It's no big deal.
Because, there is no such thing as an embarrassing moment.
Behavioral Health Provider / Clinical Assistant Professor
2 天前Great post Lane, hope all is well!
Retired
2 天前Interesting, I have made bloody of mistakes!
Vice Chairman Zwiesel Fortessa Group, President Emeritus Fortessa Tableware Solutions
2 天前Lane - Great post and thought-provoking as always! I respectfully propose a minor modification to your thesis. I would posit that no mistake should be so embarrassing that we should not admit the mistake, even if only to ourselves or to a spiritual director. To your overall point: mistakes make great teachers. Any authority we have to speak on any topic arises at least in part from the scars we bear from previous mistakes as much as from any actual success. Along those lines, experiencing embarrassment makes for some good scars that teach us important lessons. Pride that prevents us from acknowledging the embarrassment prevents us from learning. I hope you will accept this as a "friendly amendment", even if Robert's Rules don't apply in this concept! All best, Scott