Lessons from the Dance Floor: Part 1

I've been meaning to write a post (or series of posts) on lessons from the dance floor. I should probably go to sleep, since I have a meeting at 11am in Bellevue, but it's been far too long since I've posted anything.

I've recently taken up dancing - swing style. I started last quarter with Swing Kids at UW and learned East Coast, Charleston, and Lindy. I dove into the swing scene and went dancing as often as I could, wanting to learn everything thing I could about dancing and styles and music and etiquette. This quarter, however, I've only been marginally involved (missed at least six weeks of lessons) and only went out "social dancing" three times throughout the entire quarter (rather than thrice a week). One of those times was tonight.

Why was this quarter so different? Well, for starters, my classes were much more involved (six straight weeks of midterms, weekly homework assignments to turn in and quizzes to take in multiple classes). I also got burned by some leads who had rotten attitudes, which made me feel like an inadequate follow, which made me not want to dance - with them and then eventually at all. So I took a six or seven week haitus from the dance scene. During that time I had urges to go dance, but was satisfied with licking my wounds rather than risking feeling stupid while doing something I thought I loved.

I finally went tonight (technically yesterday) to Century Ballroom's 21-and-over night. It was the best night of dancing I've ever had! There were many things that contributed to this, but I think one of the big things was the leads were more experienced and knew better how to signal their follows to do what they'd intended. I didn't get any sense of snobbery and when I messed up, the leads laughed it off and had an awesome attitude that helped me feel a lot more at ease and much less self-conscious. (Self-consciousness is a whole other topic in and of itself, which I hope to write on in the future.)

How does this have anything to do with my future career? Plenty! In life, and especially in the workplace, there will be leads (authorities, bosses, etc.) who might be good at what they do, but might not be very good at helping others follow them - just like the snobby leads who look good on their own but aren't humble enough to bring moves down to my beginner level. (I'm not trying to say that out of bitterness. I'm just trying to be honest.)

There will also be leads who will be phenomenal at training and mentoring and having patience and the ability to laugh things off (when they really didn't matter in the first place) and graciously, patiently help you improve. From my experience in dancing, I have learned that just because someone scars you, it shouldn't stop you from pursuing your dreams and goals. Just because one person is a bad lead, it doesn't make all leads horrible snobs. It's intensely important to pick oneself up off the ground and persevere. It's worth pressing on once you get to the leads who make both of you look good. Everyone's a leader to someone and we can learn from the mistakes of our leaders ('cause all leaders make mistakes, whether they're "good" or "bad) so as to better guide, train, and mentor people following us.

This is, of course, much easier said than done, but I think realizing these truths is the first step to living them out. I'm trying to apply this to both of my jobs - paid for childcare (where I'm a leader to the kids) and unpaid for interning at Pilgrim (where I'm following the CFO). It's tough... but it's growing me a lot, too - professionally and personally.

That's all for tonight. I will probably elaborate on many points within this post, but it's 3am and I have to be out of the house in 7.5 hours. Bon soir!

Jessica K. Nguyen
Junior - Accounting
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington, Seattle
accountingforAfrica.blogspot.com