I am a little weepy today. Minutes ago I dropped my twins off at our preschool for the last time. As you know, I only have my twins, so everything we do is a first and a last. These moments are steadfast and precious, even though they get lost in the minutiae of chaos like this morning when my daughter broke into full on tears about the importance of double-knotting her shoes (slip-ons for life, is what I say – sitting here in my flip flops). Should I have let it go and just tied my daughter’s shoes this last day of preschool? Probably, but that moment is gone now and I will negotiate the next moment when it comes. I am a mom-work-in-progress after all – who isn’t? Maybe the owner of Meetings Northwest and my mentor, Traci.
I am not saying Traci is perfect. I am just saying Traci knows how to prioritize; she seems to have this life thing figured out the majority of the time. And mostly because I don’t think she takes life too seriously. Traci has an innate trust that things will work out as long as she surrounds herself with the right people. She is the first to remind me she helped raise her siblings and that in four years she will have an empty nest. Yep, all three of her children will be out there facing the world head on (which is something I cannot even fathom as I am staring down the face of kindergarten – but in a blink of an eye – we will be there too). Here are a few lessons I’ve learned working at Meetings Northwest that I want to pass on to my children:
Life is good – let’s work with it. As I am worrying about the fact that someone vomited in preschool, Traci is laughing about how her oldest son subscribes to the philosophy that if you eat dirt now and then, your immune system will be stronger. In our company, our families come first. If your kid is sick, take care of them. Your kid has a field trip you want to go on, go. Your husband’s schedule changes, let’s work around it. Having another baby? Step back for as long as you need and we look forward to having you back or heck, bring them to work with you – we have a playroom! Moving? How can we expand our services to that area (enter our new venture into Destination Management). We all still meet our deadlines (except maybe our blog deadlines) and we keep our clients happy while doing so because we are happy.
Traci also told me early on that working at home with kids gives you attention deficit disorder because you are constantly responding to multiple people and situations. It used to make me laugh, back when my babies were napping all of the time and even when we had a good solid nap in the middle of the day, but now I look at my screen, my desk, and the state of my house and I am afraid I may have mom/work-induced ADD as well. But maybe ADD works in managing meetings and managing a family or maybe that is just what I tell myself.
Make that ADD work for you. If you have seen Traci manage a meeting or conference, you have probably noticed how she can handle pretty much anything in the moment and do it with a smile. AV not working? In five minutes flat, she will have the presentation running and mic synced. Not enough chairs? I swear she dives into our handy meeting bag that is more like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag and pulls out chairs somehow. She always has it covered. This is how she is at parenting as well. Her calm, happy demeanor never ceases to amaze me.
Sometimes it just has to be good enough. I worked a festival with Traci last year here in Missoula. We had all of the details worked out. Diagram in hand, I was standing back visualizing the banner placement when she looked at me as she was standing on a ladder waiting to string-up a banner for one of our sponsors and said, “Kasey, it doesn’t have to be perfect. We have enough “right” that it will be great! Now we just have to hang this banner!” IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!
I think in every profession you have to know your “good enough” point, or else you would never make any money or get anything done. That doesn’t mean you don’t work really hard on the project and strive for the best, it just means you look at the work continuum and figure out where you are no longer improving the project enough to make it worth the extra time spent.
We all fail. Traci never makes you feel bad about mistakes. First of all, she hires people she trusts, second she knows we can all learn from our mistakes, and honestly, she usually finds the humor in our mistakes far before the rest of us. For our last meeting I created a program that had been proofed by six different people and it wasn’t until after the conference started and I was adjusting the online program that I noticed the first paragraph in the letter from the director had 2081 instead of 2018. My stomach dropped at this error. Then Traci smiled and said, let me tell you a story about an event we had several years back when we forgot the “L” in public. My next breath came out as a whole hearted belly laugh. Mistakes happen. Own them, try and correct them, learn from them, and later, learn to laugh at them, even if they are out there in public for everyone to see. Luckily the mistake was caught and we were able to correct it on most platforms!
As a company, we have tried things that have failed, but we learned from them. We tried weddings for a while. We didn’t necessarily fail. The few weddings we did were great, but it just didn’t fit us. As we looked at our business structure, we just decided as a company weddings weren’t our gig, so we stepped away. It forced us to re-focus on our goals, which was really great actually.
Smile. This is something Traci says to me before every event I am at. I think she is worried about my terrible poker face. I am not going to lie, depending on the situation and familiarity with the group my opinions are generally an open book. I am not big into facades. That being said, when working an event, I am in my wheelhouse of working with people – and love the interaction and usually can’t stop smiling until I am dead in bed at the end of the day! I have had several meeting participants question whether I ever am not smiling (um I will defer to my family on that one.) But Traci is right, smiling can make a tough job look easy and that sticks in your clients’ mind. It reminds me of one of my daughter’s favorite books by Patty Lovell, Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon, which says: “Smile big and the world will smile right alongside you!”
So as my twins embark on many years in the education system and start forming their global beings, not only do I want to remember these four lessons myself, I want to pass them along to my twins. Life is fleeting and can be far too serious sometimes (I mean double-knotting shoes is stressful stuff). Creating these priorities and knowing our limits is so important. Honestly, every single day challenges my priorities – I am, what my Dad used to say about himself, “a work in progress” after all.
About the author:
Kasey B. Wright is a small town, small business kind of girl with nature in her heart. She grew-up working long hours at her parents general store in amazing Joseph, Oregon – Google it, oh wait, here’s a link – visit! Really- Arts, Camping, Resort on Wallowa Lake, Mountains, 52 high lakes, Gorgeous! Enough with the free advertisement, but truly it is amazing – Google it! Now days, if not twiddling away on her iMac, painting, or mentally re-designing pretty much everything, she is outside with her family enjoying all of the adventures that lay beyond her front door (which in Missoula are abundant and basically start within a five-minute radius of her house). Her family, a husband of whom she met as a freshman in college (architect – I know two designers and yes, nothing ever gets done), our dog (neurotic first child wire-haired pointing griffon), cat (shelter cat – maybe the most adjusted member of our family), and twins (girl+boy) in chronological order, keep the adventure alive! Oh yah, fish too (rarely claimed).
