![]() When I returned, the students immediately asked if I was OK. I wanted to keep walking (all the way home), but I knew I had to go back inside. Your humility is what will make you relatable.Īfter my embarrassing spill in the classroom, I walked out into the hallway to compose myself. Everyone wants a leader who shows their human side. You’d be surprised by how compassionate and nonjudgmental your audience is. When you make a clumsy mistake in a very public space (trip on stage, spill your drink at the office party, fall off your chair at the conference table), don’t make it a big deal and no one else will, because it’s never as bad as you think it is. I have yet to have a better ice breaker in my 20+ years of teaching in a business school. The coughing was one of those out of control, tearful “It went down the wrong tube” type of coughs, where you feel there’s no end in sight. I played it cool and continued drinking the water, but quickly had to stop when I choked, and water started dribbling down both sides of my mouth and onto my silk blouse. The bottle hit my mouth sooner than expected. The problem was I had misjudged the distance between the water bottle and my lips. My very first class, in a chill way, I grabbed the water bottle I had strategically placed within arm’s reach. I noticed that great speakers were cool, calm, and collected, so much so that they’d naturally pause in the middle of a sentence to take a sip of water, making the entire room wait in anticipation. Hoping to develop my own professional presence, I had studied captivating speakers’ cadence, tone, and body language. When I taught my first class in a business school, I was 25 years old. To provide you with some solace, here are four extra embarrassing moments from my career, and how I got through them. Everyone makes mistakes, and we can use those moments to step back, inject levity into our lives, and practice remaining calm in a crisis. I’ve learned not to let a slip up derail my day, or send me into a self-critical spiral. Over the years, however, I’ve come to realize that no matter how prepared I am for something, mistakes are just a part of life. To the contrary, I feel overwhelmed by the moment, unable to correct myself or think of a witty comment to cloak my discomfort. I’m not someone who can play it cool when unwanted attention is directed at my mistakes. These are just a handful of embarrassing career highlights that I was sure I would never recover from. I’ve overslept and nearly missed an interview, tripped up the steps while walking on stage to give a presentation, blurted out “I love you” on a Zoom, misspoke and offered to have someone’s baby, enthusiastically told my students they needed to use the really helpful “suppository” instead of the “repository,” and helped a guest speaker check in at their hotel for a “one-night stand” instead of a “one-night stay.” In the context of work, I’ve had more slip-ups than I can count. ![]() My world is a lot more disorganized and chaotic than it appears. In those moments, I wonder what makes them think I’m composed. People often ask how I do it all with such composure. I’m a full professor who has spent more than 20 years publishing research, teaching, consulting, collaborating with nonprofits, running my own nonprofit, and mentoring young professionals while holding another full-time job - raising two children. Distract yourself. If you aren’t ready to talk to a friend yet, do something that forces you to occupy your mind.Don’t just listen to what your friends say but also pay attention to their body language and facial expressions, which will likely be full of empathy. If you can’t bear to let it go, and your mind is spinning, talk about it to trusted friends. Relive the moment with a friend but avoid negative ruminations.Give it some time and when it feels right, don’t hold back your laughter. Some of our most embarrassing moments are actually really funny and relatable to others (if we’re willing to look at them that way). ![]() If you need to apologize, correct yourself, or clean something up after an embarrassing moment, get to it so you have closure. Acknowledge what really happened and own the situation or mistake.Usually we make embarrassing moments much bigger than they are in our heads. Remind yourself that things could have been so much worse. Treat yourself with grace and compassion. ![]() If your slip-up is causing you to panic and worry, try to slow down your heart rate by taking deep breaths. Here are a few ways to move past an embarrassing moment at work: You did something that drew unwanted attention, and it’s perfectly reasonable that you’d want to hide for a while. It’s not productive to invalidate your feelings or use your mistakes as an indication of your worth. The worst thing to do afterwards is tear yourself down. You’re going to feel embarrassed at some point in your career.
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