Today I had the pleasure of combining two of my favorite loves during one of our beginners’ workshops, Dove Dark Chocolate and the SMARTBoard .  How, you ask, did I manage to combine those two items in a training? Mom and I had just finished our lunches of fresh ripe juicy peaches and Clif Bars and were heading back into the ROE training room when I spotted a basket of individually wrapped chocolates.  Dove Dark Chocolates to be exact.  Well, yum!  I had to pick one up to finish off my healthy lunch.  I mean come on, Dark Chocolate is full of healthy flavonoids and antioxidants.  I couldn’t NOT have one.  It would have been detrimental to my health.

After unwrapping and enjoying my after lunch treat, I noticed the message that was inscribed on the copper foil wrapper.  It said “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”  Well…I love that.  There is nothing I hate worse than failing.  But to have that outlook regarding failure sheds a whole new light on the topic. 

During the afternoon hands-on portion of our training, a participant asked if it was possible to hold down the shift key on the SMARTBoard and drag the corner of a circle to keep the shape in proportion.  Well, to be honest, I had never tried that, so I wasn’t for sure if it would work or not.  I pulled up the keyboard and gave it a shot all while Mom said, “Shan, that isn’t going to work because you have two points of contact.”  Of course, there is that failure thing again…I immediately made my “zip it” noise and indicated that I wanted to TRY it. 

Thank goodness my mom is VERY patient.  She sighed a short sigh, smiled, and politely said, “Go ahead.”  Well of course it DIDN’T work.  Not only is my mom patient, she is one smart and tech savvy lady.  That must be why I wanted her to be my partner in this corporation in the first place.

As soon as I demonstrated the “failure” of the shift key/circle drag, I reached over, grabbed my Dove wrapper and read it to the participants.  They all smiled politely and then I proceeded to re-answer the question.  “No sir, you are actually not able to press the shift key and drag the corner of the circle simultaneously while at the SMARTBoard.  The reason this will not work is because you are trying to command the SMARTBoard to do two different things with two different points of contact and the SMARTBoard only recognizes one point of contact.” 🙂 

You see, I was able to “begin again more intelligently” with my response to his question.

So thank you Dove, for the great piece of advice wrapped around a great piece of chocolate.