There I was, in the impressive ballroom of the Del Mar Luxury Hotel, just north of San Diego, CA. He was producing a high-tech awards show for the 50 fastest growing tech companies in the region. It was around 10:00 am and the doors were scheduled to open at noon.

I was exhausted. The day before I was in Los Angeles producing the same show and before that in Orange County. I was running out of smoke at this point. I kept hearing Goose, Maverick’s navigator for his F14 fighter jet, say, “Mav, I’ve got to get back to the ship, we’re running out of smoke.”

We stayed up until 3:00 am setting up the theater and everything was ready for the show. So I thought. I was sitting at a table in the tech elevator at the back of the room (an IV bag of pure caffeine running down my arm) going over the final tracks with the production team when the maître d’ approached my “throne” and told me that the curtain around our tech elevator looked bad and that he would fix it right away.

A volcano erupted inside of me. I saw red. I could feel the blood rushing to my temples. My teeth were grinding like when I played football right before the snap.

A little background: This was the 10th year in a row that I produced the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego events. This was my 30th show. Due to the recession, my budget for shows had been drastically reduced. I managed a minimal team and did the work of two or three people to ensure the production ran smoothly.

Why was he so angry? Because in that moment, I knew he was right. He hadn’t paid enough attention to detail. There was a big hole in our curtain and he looked bad and unprofessional. I wasn’t really mad at the maitre d’, I was mad at myself for not realizing such an amateurish mistake and now some guy in a penguin suit was calling me to the canvas for it. The voice of my audio engineer telling me he would fix it right away seemed like a million miles away.

I looked at the maitre d with fire coming out of my eyes and said, “Don’t worry, we know and we’ll fix it.” He turned to walk away and gave me one last look with a little disgust on his face. I looked at him again and said, “What’s your problem?” He responded by saying “Nothing, what is your problem?” He turned to walk away and looked at me again. This time, all 6’5″, 240 lbs. of me got up to face him and that’s when it happened.

As I stood up ready to punch my chest, I saw my client sitting in the front of the room and until that moment, she was unaware of the confrontation building in the back of the room. In a nanosecond, I swallowed my pride, suppressed my anger, and sat back in my chair (it was no longer my throne). I started thinking of ways I could relate. How could I make this person’s day miserable? At the same time, he was deeply disturbed by what had just happened and by losing him for the first time in 20 years.

Just two weeks earlier, I completed my certification program to direct, facilitate, and mentor programs on high performance leadership and emotional intelligence. I realized that I was having a great KEY MOMENT and I was doing the interaction with the teacher of meaning all sorts of things (paradigms). I was in a TIME OF CHOICE; act outside SURVIVAL Prayed SELF-CONTROL? In other words: take the right path and turn this situation into a win for everyone. Take the low path though, which would have a negative impact on the program and most likely create more KEY MOMENTS.

Suddenly I felt better. The error was detected and corrected. In fact, the room looked perfect. I had just learned new tools and skills to change this situation. I felt empowered. The red in my eyes faded.

I walked over to the teacher, who was talking to a group of his colleagues, probably telling them what an idiot he was, and patted him on the shoulder. He turned and stepped back slightly. I extended my right hand to him and, with a big smile on my face, said, “I’d like to thank you for pointing out that our tech elevator didn’t look perfect. I know we’re both committed to the same creation.” this event 100% perfect for our common customer.” She looked like she was going to go into shock, but I continued, “I would really appreciate it if you would take a look at the tech elevator and let me know if we fixed the problem to your satisfaction.”

A little more backstory: Del Mar was a new hotel and this was the first event in the ballroom. Attendees at the event included CEOs and senior executives from the fastest growing high-tech companies in the San Diego area. The stakes were high for the hotel.

At that moment, something miraculous happened. His frown turned into a big smile. She walked with me to inspect the curtains. He said, “Thank you so much for taking care of this, it looks perfect.” He then he shook my hand and then he pulled out the show schedule and started asking me about the show schedule. I saw that they were planning to preset the salads, which is a big no-no for me (a different post). I asked if it was possible to prepare the salads after the opening remarks. He thought for a moment and responded by saying, “I think we can make that happen.”

I then asked him if he created any goals for the event. He said, “Yes! I want three companies to book their next event at our hotel.” I told him that one of my goals was to be hired by one of the winners to produce his next show.

As the teacher walked away, my audio engineer looked at me with a shocked look on his face and said, “What just happened? How did you do that?” Of course, I handed him my new business card and invited him to call me to set up a training agreement.

From that moment on, the teacher and I were a team. He consulted me about the food display. I wanted to know if we should open the gates early or wait to allow more networks. I said, “Let’s go for a walk and see how people are doing.” We walk together to inspect the reception and choose to hold the doors. During the event, we constantly communicated/collaborated on the timing of the event and made changes on the fly, all of which led to a flawless schedule.

Here’s the best part. The program was perfect. Everyone loved the event. As soon as the show was over, a major tech company called Qualcomm approached me and said they wanted to hire me to produce their awards show the following month. The maitre d shared with me that four companies inquired about hosting their next event in Del Mar. We did. Together, we executed a perfect program and we both achieved the goals we set for ourselves.

If I hadn’t applied what I learned just two weeks earlier, the result would have been very different. I made the decision to follow the path of self-mastery, turned the situation around with incredible results, and forever raised my emotional intelligence IQ by a significant margin.