F Ups Can Be Awesome!

When I sat down to write the series this month, I wanted to create something fun and light. Spring is here (ish) and if the weather wasn’t going to cooperate the least I could do was amp up the brightness and playfulness inside.

Each month when I build the series I think of it as my mini work of art. It’s an opportunity to be creative, so I trust what comes out is what needs to be said in the moment, from my heart.

When I wrote this series, I thought, “Ooooh, this seems a little braggy, Stutland.” And it instantly made me feel uncomfortable. I’m from the Midwest. We don’t brag. “I can’t be so braggy and ask others to be braggy, too.”  I began to investigate why this made me feel so uncomfortable. What’s wrong with a little bragadociousness?

I quickly came up with this…

What if I get all bragalicious, claiming, “My genius is at work, my brilliance rocks the house,” and then I do something really stupid? Or fail? Or fall on my face? Or look like a fool? THAT is hardly GENIUS!

But upon digging a little deeper into why I REALLY created the series, “The Real Me is REVEALED, I STEP OUT OF MY OWN WAY!” I am actually more interested in seeing how we can incorporate the falling on ze face, the mistakes, the so called failures, INTO the WHOLE that IS your GENIUS at WORK. These bumps, these foibles, these so-called imperfections are part of what MAKES YOUR BRILLIANCE SHINE. Could it be that your biggest mistakes are actually ACTS OF GENIUS?!

(KEEP READING TO SEE THE F UPS THAT WORKED IN MY FAVOR!)

So often we get so uncomfortable when we F up. We want to bury our heads in the sand and die. But what if these F ups were considered not even perfect but totally awesome! Like they were supposed to happen. (In fact denying them or wishing they didn’t happen is like wishing your eyes were a different color.)

And of course, there is the fact that there is a tremendous opportunity for learning more about your self and the world through these F ups.

So this month IS about braggin a lil bit and becoming YOUR BIGGEST FAN, guffaws and all! I want to see if we can incorporate our mistakes as well as our victories into the exact thing that makes us DYNAMO!! It is MORE OFTEN THAN NOT that the BREAKTHROUGHS in our lives happens when we F up BIG TIME. So I say ACCIDENT, BRING IT ON!

If your pickin’ up what I’m putting down, leave a comment! Tell me what “mistake” YOU made that ended UP being AMAZING!!

Xox
Erin

PS www.damnyouautocorrect.com is my FAVORITE fuck up website. It’s LOL folks.

The first BIG accident is ME!:)

My Mom might freak out that I tell you, but let’s just say I wasn’t planned. Yup, preggers, accidentally! I don’t think they were quite ready for a second baby yet, but man o man, I’m pretty sure it is one of my parents’ FAVORITE , most GENIUS ACCIDENTS of all TIME, if I do say so myself:)

The other of my MANY BIG F’ups:

Last year I was under the gun to make a short film in less than 48 hours. I was in Chicago about to fly back to NY and didn’t have a proper camera. So I decided to use my iPhone camera. I had no idea what the narrative would be, but I figured I would just shoot my entire journey back to NY and figure something out in the editing. I totally F’ed up when I tried taking the camera through security at O’Hare Airport. I actually thought I was going to get arrested. However, low and behold my BIG F UP created the PERFECT narrative for this HOLIDAY short.