I make mistakes all the time. Yes, all the time. Sometimes I even make the same mistake more than once. (WHAT?!) It’s true, I know you find it hard to believe, but between busy life and running two small businesses I stumble. I stumble, then I pick myself off and brush off the dust and pebbles and I keep walking. It’s all I CAN do. I absolutely love my life and the gifts that I have been blessed with, so I figure the mistakes I make and little snags that I come across are for a reason greater than anything I can understand. It’s all part of the deal, right?
Recently I made a pretty big mistake. It’s a mistake that could cost me a $5000 winning of a wish from Intuit’s Small Business Contest. ”Small Businesses Growing Strong” and “Love Our Local Business” are some slogans you might have seen of theirs. It’s a great way for them to spread the word about Intuit and showcase some of the amazing solutions they offer businesses. It’s also a great way for some well deserved businesses to take a shot at winning a wish that could help them in their small business. I think that is pretty awesome and I’m all for it. I even entered a wish of my own!
Where then, did I make my mistake… Well, I had never heard of Intuit’s Small Business Wish Contest and although I read the rules VERY carefully I ignored one of their suggestions. Probably the most important suggestion they could have given me. I should have known it was important. First of all, it was only one of 5 suggestions and second it was number one on their list. (Uh- could I have flubbed any bigger on that?!) Their suggestion was that you tell the audience what your wish is, from your heart. Use the passion and emotion that drives your business and translate that through your wish. Since I am a highly emotional and passionate person in my daily life, but a bit more “straight-to-the-point” when I have my business hat on, I quickly wrote my synopsis on why I NEED my wish to come true and I was blunt and honestly pretty “unfeeling” about the whole thing. I hit publish and it went live. Live without the ability to make changes. I started pumping out the link and quickly got about 50 votes and thought, “You know what, I can do this!”
Then I started reading some of the other people/ business wishes and I very quickly realized that my mistake was a grave one. In this contest, it’s like the “wish” that you wrote was your book cover and yes- you would be judged by the cover. See, I have this problem where I think that everyone who reads anything I write actually KNOWS me and “get’s me”. In a world where facebook, twitter and blogs prevail, that is mostly true, you can get to know someone pretty well. This didn’t fit the ticket though- in order to get the thousands of votes I need- my wish needed to be from the heart so that people would WANT to support the person behind the wish. Even if they had never met her. You see, this was such a good “ouch” moment for me because I realize that this is everyday life. We read books by their cover and sometimes just stop there. If it doesn’t suit us right or seem to be exactly the right fit for what we are looking for in that moment, we just keep on going.
What if we stopped for just a little longer to look past the tattered cover or in my case oh-so-poorly-written-wish you would see something else. You would see that I’m just a woman who owns a small business to raise and support my family alongside my better half. Together we take twists, turns and bumpy roads to see where God wants us to be and along the way we fail, we fall down and we make some mistakes. It’s so simple. My wish wish that is. I seemed to think when I wrote my wish that the simplicity of it would translate through to the obvious on why it would be so amazing to have my wish granted. Well, with only a few days left and watching my stats on the votes I have realized that strangers aren’t seeing what I thought they would. The votes are coming solely from the amazing friends and family that see my cries for help in helping my wish come true. I am truly thankful for everyone of the votes I have received. I don’t even know if my voters read my wish. If they did they might not have voted for me. (There are some other pretty heart wrenching wishes to be fulfilled.)
For some reason though, I just can’t shake this thought that maybe, just maybe, I could actually win my wish. You see, I am simply a Woman, Mom, Wife, Daughter, Friend, and Photographer that owns a business doing everything I love. It’s very hard work and and I love every bit of it. I am living my dream and I am thankful.
If you might be inclined to know what my wish is, feel free to pop over here to read it, vote and share this with your friends if you would like (I sure wouldn’t mind!). You can even vote once a day! You see, I think that even when we make mistakes it doesn’t have to ruin the chance of something amazingly wonderful happen along the way. So, today I pick myself up and carry forth. I might not win this little wish of mine, but I’m just not quite ready to give up on it yet either.
Thanks friends… now go make a move on YOUR wish!
{Of course a blog post wouldn’t be complete without some portraits, so I wanted to share these Beloved portraits. Please enjoy.}
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truly, Beth