When I’d finally prepared the final version of the manuscript for my first book, Things I Learned from My Grandmother About Leadership and Life, I breathed a big sigh of relief and hit send to fire it off to the publisher.  A couple of months later when I received the galley proofs, I read over them – carefully, I thought – made a few changes and quickly returned them.  Assuming that I’d read them carefully and had made all the changes necessary, the publisher dutifully printed and bound them and they were ready for readers.As my grandmother would say, “Hindsight is 20-20, but you don’t have eyes in the back of your head.”  I had failed to follow one of her most cherished pieces of advice, “never rush into anything.”  My publisher’s mistake was to trust that I would follow the advice in my own book.  In that regard, we both blew it big time.When I got my author’s copies, I flipped one open and began reading, and almost had a coronary.  There in the first chapter, as big as brass and twice as bold, were two or three typos.  They didn’t cause anyone reading them to misunderstand what I was trying to say, but it was extremely embarrassing.  I then did what I should done with the galley proof; I went through the book line-by-line looking for little errors.  I found several more scattered throughout, often buried in a long paragraph where they were easy to miss if you didn’t read carefully.  Fortunately, there were no errors of fact, dates were correct, and names were spelled correctly, but the occasional typo, buried innocently in eight or ten paragraphs throughout the book sort of dampened the elation I had been feeling about seeing my first book in print.The book has gotten a few good reviews, and only my nephew Michael (himself a writer) has pointed out the typos, but the experience still stings.  As I was writing the follow-on volume, it hovered over me like a cloud.  I agonized over the first draft, spent weeks revising, and read the galley proof like it was a rich uncle’s last will and testament.  I’d like to be able to say the misstep of the first book taught a lesson that I will never forget, and that it is a mistake that will not be repeated.  It did help – I found only one little glitch in the second book, again a mistake shared equally between me and the publisher.  But, one mistake does not a failure make, so I press on.That first book, missteps and all, was a teaching moment.  I am now less judgmental when I encounter mistakes in the writings of others.  I am also more acutely aware of the need to put some distance between the act of creating a work, and reviewing it for publication.  I am now not so anxious to get things into print that I rush this important step in the process.  I now do what I should have done the first time out – Write, Rewrite, let it simmer, and then Rewrite again.