It's all on me. I'm the boss. Right?

When you think it’s all on you, you get reminded by your team that they have your back.

Have you ever worked so hard for something and then almost didn’t enjoy the fruits of your labor because you couldn’t get past your own insecurities? Yep, that was me a few weeks ago.

I’m a type A, type 1 on the enneagram, ESTJ personality. I get $#!t done. For someone like me, it is hard to take on a project and not put everything I have into it. Sadly, that also means I put a ton of pressure on myself to get it done right. It’s all on me. I’m the boss. Right?

A few weeks ago, we had a crazy week. We were in the final stages of getting ready for the GCATD conference, of which Sharp Leadership Development was the Chapter Sponsor. That meant we would have a ton of visibility at the conference and this was the main thing that we had invested our money into as a chapter sponsor for. Sounds great, right?

What I haven’t told you is that we had never done a conference as a company before. Nor had any of us been to the GCATD conference. There were so many unknowns. This, my friends, stressed me out.

We had to start from scratch as a small but mighty team of program manager turned entrepreneur (that’s me), a freelance marketing consultant (Keri), a rockstar UC student learning how to market because she can (Caroline), and the man of the hour and front man for our organization (Glenn).

We had no banners, no signs, no brochures, nothing… for an expo booth or an event like this. We also didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a graphic designer to do it for us. What we did have was branding material from when our graphics consultant (Dezign Hive) created our new logo and branding last year. We also had Keri’s experience from a previous life of doing expos like this. Oh, and I have two years as a graphic design major in college (I changed my major).

So, with a limited budget, very little know how, and great support, I began to design the pieces for the conference. Keri would say I was ‘marketing without a license…’ I like to think of it as ‘gracefully winging it.’

Miraculously, everything came together, and we were on time! We had everything ready. We even had matching logo shirts (I know that seems silly, but it made me happy …. okay?). Glenn loved it all, Keri was so impressed that she sent pictures of our booth to Kim at Dezign Hive (our graphic designer). We were ready.

But the week leading up to last Friday’s event left me stressed, anxious, and even edgy? The hard work was done. Why was I even more stressed than before we had done all of this work? Simple. I was worried it wouldn’t be worth it. I was worried we would flop. I was worried it wasn’t enough. My personality traits that serve me so well in the thick of it were turning on me when we were nearing the finish line.

So, what did it take to snap me out of it? It’s simple, really. I had to get out of my own head. It wasn’t until we got to the venue and Glenn, Keri and I started to set up that my nerves began to ease. Then Caroline arrived and even Erica from one of our amazing clients showed up to help.

My team was there to support the effort. It was not all on me even though that is how I felt for the past week. We had an amazing event and made a ton of connections. It could not have gone better. And that was not because of me. It was because of our team.

You have a team for a reason. A healthy, functioning team is much stronger than any one individual. Not just for the results they can produce but for the support they can give each other. I am so thankful for our small, but mighty team.