Practice What You Preach

Recently there was a blog post calling out a PR person’s blunder of sending out an email to the masses without blind copying or restricting replying options. In reality, it was a small error that was put on a stage and made into a catastrophe. Ultimately, the blogger publicly apologized and vowed to not highlight such small issues and call others out in the future. But, the situation brings good points to light. Within a matter of a couple hours, not only had this woman’s error made its way around to her clients and prospects, it was being talked about on the Internet for all to see.

We all make mistakes. It’s human nature. It’s what we do about those mistakes that seperates us. More than the error itself, she was being called out for disappearing for hours, not returning messages and dealing with the problem. We coach our clients in crisis management, but are we taking our own advice? Why would the guidance we offer to clients not apply to us as well? While I don’t know her circumstances, I do know that it made me look at myself a little closer. Are my expectations for others higher than what I expect of myself?

I can’t count the number of times I have wished I could turn back the hands of time and redo a situation. But you can’t. The best each of us can do is to apply to our own situations the techniques that we work so hard at every day to guide our clients with. We want them to use these techniques for a reason- they work. And when you do make a mistake, and you will, face it head on, deal with it and move on. You can beat yourself up for something for the rest of your life, but it won’t change it. Learn from it and grow. I think it not only improves our own worth, it helps us give real-life advice to our clients. They will value the truth in our guidance knowing we aren’t just preaching, we are living what we are saying.