The Human Factor

I wish to go ahead and announce to the world that coaches, even the best ones, are not perfect. We make mistakes in our own life, whether it's accidentally running a red light (officer, I swear that was an accident!), leaving our blackberries in a movie theater or forgetting to call our best friend on her birthday. Today, I made the largest gaffe in recent personal history...

After rolling out of bed at a leisurely hour and calling my coach for our 10 am session, I got to work on my coaching site, pausing a few hours later to catch up on emails. As I was emailing my mother-in-law about flying into NY tomorrow, I double-checked the travel itinerary to verify my flight number. While scanning the page, my eyes came to rest on the date and then promptly bugged out of my head once I realized it said, “12/29” and not “12/30”. My eyes then darted over to the flight time and I nearly screamed when I saw the flight had departed nearly two hours prior.

A flurry of choice expletives later, I thought to myself, What now? I missed the flight but getting upset won’t help the situation. What are my options?

I do believe that taking a few minutes to calm down and begin thinking rationally helped me immensely: I was still annoyed at my own random absentmindedness but at least I was formulating a plan for getting up to New York rather than banging my head against a wall.

In the end, I called the airline, explained the issue and was able to go standby on a later flight. Rushing to the airport was a less than fun experience but I did make it up to New York and now have an extra day to spend with family and friends. Additionally, I spent some time on the plane ride thinking of what I learned from the experience: a deep breath and friendly voice can go a long way when dealing with airline people and even the best-laid plans can end up on the wrong page of our daily planner.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? How did you handle it? Additionally, what other life lessons could you derive from this (or a similar) predicament?