Our Editor-in-Chic shares a story about overcoming challenges and “dancing in the rain.”
Last night, at our annual Red, Pink and Blue event, we had a truly incredible experience that I’ll never forget. Not because we had a beautiful night, hundreds of attendees, or tons of awesome sponsors. It was because things went wrong. Horribly wrong, actually.
This is a picture of right before it happened. I was in the middle of my presentation at the event. Had just recognized our charities’ survivors, thanked our sponsors, was seconds away from starting the fashion show, and then … our generators blew. Out went the lights, the music, my mic. Everything. With everyone looking at me. There wasn’t anything we could do, so I said in the loudest voice I could “We just recognized some incredible survivors who overcame adversity with rockstar resilience. Let’s be inspired by that and make the most of this! YOU, our audience will now be our music and energy for the models to work this runway! Let’s do this!”
And wow did they work it! We had hoots, hollers, claps, and standing ovations to cheer the models down the runway. About halfway through, someone found a way to hardwire electric to the DJ’s music and the mic so we had sound to finish the show.
But I was almost in tears at that point. Not because I was mad that the generators failed, but how everyone was rallying in support — not focusing on what had gone wrong, or that it wasn’t what they initially expected. Instead, they were making the best of the situation, living in the spontaneity, and having fun with it.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes… “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s learning to dance in the rain.”