You Hold the Key

My friend, and media coach, Shawne Duperon is an expert at helping people refine their message, manage their fear, and get more publicity. Shawne says “People do business with people they like. People buy from people they like. People talk about people and services they like. People post and tag people they like on Facebook. People re-tweet people they like. Reporters cover stories over and over again with people they like. Word-of-mouth epidemics build momentum when you leverage your marketing strategies and SEO with social media, video and media coverage.”
There is a quote that says people won’t remember the exact words that you said, but they will remember how you left them feeling. That is so important in terms of working with the media, communicating with others, and in the process of forgiveness. Blaming yourself or others after a mistake, hanging onto it for years, or avoiding opportunities for fear of making the same mistake will not help your business grow and certainly won’t help you build meaningful connections. Forgiveness is key… to forgive yourself, and others.

For most of my adult life I was a perfectionist, now I say that I am a recovering perfectionist. Becoming comfortable with vulnerability and taking risks, making mistakes, taking responsibility, and moving forward was probably one of my biggest learning curves, however, the ripple effects of results was well worth the work.

One of my clients, a leader in a big organization summed it up so well…. “When you have a hard time acknowledging mistakes, those around you will struggle as well. As a leader, we need to create an environment whereby our team members can acknowledge their mistake, learn and grow from it and move forward. Otherwise, the risk is that leaders don’t hear of the mistake until it has become a crisis.” I thought this was wise advice.

One of the most important aspects of being open to making, and learning from, mistakes is learning to forgive yourself and any others that may have contributed to the learning opportunity.