Made a mistake? Say sorry.

I hate to make mistakes.  But I am not perfect (I know, surprising news). But in some ways, it is what you do after you’ve goofed that is the true learning experience.

I remember totally blowing it with a sponsor and accidentally leaving her off a thank-you ad.  I was mortified. I couldn’t sleep and had this knot in my stomach.  How could that have happened?  Naturally I immediately apologized and rectified the situation, as much as I could and ran a second ad that thanked her company.  But the damage was done and for weeks, I was constantly berating myself for making the mistake in the first place. 

Saying you are sorry straight away and doing something to rectifiy or compensate someone goes a long way to making the mistake go away.  It is when, as the customer, that your concerns are ignored, or worse,  dismissed or ridiculed, that the problem escalates.  All any of us want is to have our feelings heard and validated, and even if you don’t agree, my advise is to listen, say sorry and take some action.

Now you can go overboard.  I always remember a story that one of our members would share about her days as a flight attendant, when she mistook a lacy sleeve to belong to a woman, and without really looking quickly asked “her” if she’d like a paper? 

You can imagine her horror when, on looking up, she discovered it was a rather famous skater.  She then proceeded at every turn to apologize, and kept up a stream of apologies for the whole flight.  Did this rectify the situation?  No.  In fact, she made it worse.  So her conclusion was that you say sorry, and move on. 

Making a mistake is a humbling experience, especially if there is an audience to witness what has happened.   No one likes to look foolish but people’s view of you can dramatically change depending on how you react.  When you work with integrity and respect, you can in fact turn a mistake into a redeeming situation, where observers note and admire how you handled a difficult situation.  Or you can totally blow it, hope it will just go away and in the end, make it worse.

Much of my reputation at Company of Women is tied up in the high quality speakers I bring in.  So you can imagine my horror when with a full house, we had a speaker who well… let’s just say she shouldn’t give up her day job, and perhaps seek counselling. 

I was horrified as the evening progressed and I also couldn’t get her to stop talking.  I had to physically go on stage and take the microphone from her.

Now we had a large number of women in the audience for whom this was their first experience with Company of Women.  So what did I do?  I sent out an email first thing the next morning, apologizing and assuring people that “normal service will resume” and offered a discount for a future event. That email earned me lots of brownie points and instead of losing participants, I went up in their estimation.

Mistakes happen.  Often when we have too much on our plate, get distracted or are just plain tired.  It is what you learn from them and what you do afterwards that can turn a bad situation into a positive one. And beating yourself up about it, leaves you stuck.  So learn, let go and move on.

I am being lazy and hazy this summer

I have just come back from two weeks of vacation.  It was such a welcome break. No phones. No emails. No people.  

Just my husband and I exploring Italy and all it had to offer, which was lots.

I had intentionally decided not to access email, although these days, despite the heavy roaming charges, that is easy to do.  

But that makes it too easy to slip back into work mode and have your mind consumed with business issues, instead of just relaxing and enjoying all that the vacation affords you.

I remember doing that on a previous holiday and suddenly finding myself sucked back into the business vortex and worrying about stuff that could and would wait.

My challenge now is I am back, and as I jokingly said to a friend, I don’t want to be back.  I am not ready to jump into the fray again. One of the joys of being a business owner, is I don’t have to.  I can determine my working hours and shape how my day runs, well, as much as anyone can.

So I am on summer hours. Yes, I will check my emails – but once a day – not continuously. Yes, I will do some writing and yes, I will start to formulate my program plans - in my head - but that’s it. 

No heavy business meetings, no time-consuming discussions that go nowhere.  I plan to be strategic with my time, and only do what I need to do,  to coast for July or what I love to do.

It is a shame we can’t do this year round.  Think what fun it would be – just doing what you want to do, and when you want to do it.  Who knows, maybe you can – I just have never tried.  But it sure is tempting…

I know that when I open the door to September, it will come flooding in.

What about you?  How is your summer shaping up?

Just voting myself off your island

One thousand, three hundred and fifty eight.   

That’s the number of emails I found lurking in my in-box when I got back from vacation.

While the new CASL requirement is a bit of an administrative nightmare in terms of capturing people’s permission and opt-in to your mailing lists, I have enjoyed responding, or more to the point, not responding (in other words choosing not to opt-in) to the numerous mailing lists that I appear to be on.

Many of them I would never, ever, have signed up for in the first place and you do wonder where exactly a website devoted to having better ankles or one around chocolate fountains got my email address?  I guess these spam tactics will be greatly reduced by the new legislation.

The timing is great too, because the size of my inbox clearly indicates my urgent need to unsubscribe, and I have been, with great energy and enthusiasm. It is very empowering to take charge of your inbox.

And to friends and members to whom I have also unsubscribed – nothing personal.  While I am always interested in what you are up to,  I just don’t have the time to read all the newsletters.  I wish you well, but I am in decluttering mode.

Everyone seems to have been in panic-mode to clean up their database, and that is a good thing. But actually you do have a two-year window in which to meet the new legal requirements.  So that’s what I am going to do… take my time and do it properly.

We're expecting...

We all likely know of someone who has had an “oops” baby sprung on her.  You know the story - she’s raised her kids, they’re teenagers and instead of being in menopause, as she thought, she’s pregnant again.

Now that must be a shock to the system and a huge adjustment, because you are SO out of babies, and have enough challenges with your adolescents, who are likely totally embarrassed by the whole thing.

Wondering where I am going with this?  Don’t worry, I don’t have “exciting” news to share,  since I am in my sixties, that would be a miracle, never mind a shock!

I started on this train of thought, because next month we will be bringing home a cute puppy and it is has been 16 years since I have gone through the puppy stage.  Memories however are flashing back, and I am beginning to think I am nuts to be doing this again.  Sleepless nights, house-training, chewed shoes… bit like having a baby again, which is where I came in.

But I have chosen this.  Our last dog died last year.  He was sixteen and quite the personality.  His name was Henry and there was something regal about him.  But he was a terrible thief.  If you went to his crate to inspect it, right at the back you’d find all sorts – cutlery, books, food containers – empty of course.  

When he was young he would eat anything – he even ate money ($20 bills), socks, my marriage certificate which gave the girls cause to ask if that meant their Dad and I were now divorced.  No, but it sure was a hassle trying to get another copy out of the UK and explaining why.

And as for when we had guests, he felt he was entitled to tuck in too.  He had quite the sweet tooth, and being a big dog, (an English Setter) could reach the dining table and in a flash, inhale a complete dessert.  As for chocolate, it is supposed to be poisonous to dogs, but not for our guy.  So Easter was a real challenge, as he would find the hidden eggs before anyone else, and eat them, complete with foil wrapper.

Yes, as I write this, I am asking myself if I am ready to get into the fray again.  Everyone had been nagging me about getting another dog, but I was holding out.  To be honest, after 28 years of having a dog, I was enjoying my freedom of not having to be back by a certain time to let the dog out.

So what changed my mind?  We live on a farm, and a farm without a dog seems incomplete. I am secretly hoping that the dog will make me change my work habits, and force me to get outdoors, exercise and just play.  Judging by the excitement in our household, he will also bring additional joy.  Yes, I know… there’s hard work too and give me a few months, and we will see whether I’ve changed my tune.  But right now, I see the dog as my personal anti-aging strategy and I am looking forward to the changes he will bring into our lives.

The lost sale

There is clearly a fine art to selling your book, and with the publishing of our Enough book in the horizon, I am watching with keen interest as to how other authors go about it.

Recently I received an email from an author, who had written a previous book which included tests so you can find out more about yourself.

I’d taken the tests online, so this email was personalized in that it mentioned “my style” and advised I could learn more about myself in her latest book.

As a teaser she included a link to a short section of the book which revealed more about my type.  Pretty clever I thought to go the lengths of personalizing the email. I know, it’s automated but it still seemed like a clever move.

Problem was when I clicked the link for page 85, it took me directly to a sales pitch about the book.  Further on in the email is another link, which takes you to the same sales pitch to purchase the book, at a reduced rate by a certain time.

Knowing how easy it can be to have the wrong link hooked up, (guilty as charged) – I contacted her office, only to be informed that “no, that was intentional.”  They wanted to create more curiosity about the book.

Well as far as I am concerned, this sales gimmick backfired.  I found myself irritated that they would falsely promote something that they had no intention of providing.

Maybe I am naïve, but if you say you are providing something, you provide it.

Would I have ordered the book prior to this experience?  Maybe.  Will I buy it now? No.  Why should I trust anything that is said.  To me, their false advertising has tripped them up.    It was too clever by far.

What do you think?

A message from the heart

What’s your life message?

I had to pick just one for my photo shoot with photographer Laurie Goodman who is coming up with a book of inspirational messages and photos of women.  Neat project.

Right away I came up with three!

One was about giving back – which was an integral part of my growing up.  My father, who dropped out of school at 14 to help support his family, was a successful businessman but he never forgot his humble beginnings.  He would always talk about having a sense of balance, meaning you had to level the scales, and if you had more, you had to give and share it with others.

It was his mantra and it probably wasn’t until he died, that I learned more fully just how much he’d helped other people.  He was a dragon, long before the “den” opened. He liked to invest and believe in people.  So my quote “All that you give into the lives of others, comes back into your own” was one option.

Then there’s the whole piece of letting go; of how we can’t control everything that happens to us in life, but we can control how we react.  Here I was thinking about my health challenges over the years, but no, that wasn’t it.

So what did I come up with?  It has a familiar ring to it – be bold, be brave, belong.  After talking it all over with Laurie – that’s the one we picked.  I like it because it refers to the future.  Mine and everyone else’s.

 I will always give back, and I have learned a lot of life lessons from the breast cancer, but being bold, brave and part of something bigger than myself is positive.  It means there are times when we have to put on our “big girl pants” and just do it.  It speaks to me and I hope it speaks to you too.

My wish is that it will encourage other women to follow their dreams.  I even wore my dream-catcher earings for the shoot.  No one else would notice, but I wanted to visually convey my message.

So have courage my friends and step boldly into your future.  Thank you Laurie for the fun experience and for the opportunity to dig deep and think about what is important to me. I encourage you all to do the same.