Between the Interviews - Making Mistakes

Mistakes. We all make them. They almost always suck. We try not to, but they happen. The key is how we handle them. It’s tough to admit when we’ve made a mistake, but the impact on our reputation is difficult to outrun. The way we address mistakes tells our internal and external circles both about who we are as people and also what we expect from them. 

As a millennial woman from middle America, I struggle sometimes walking the line between being a self-reporter wanting to show that I’m taking accountability for my own missteps and unintentionally amplifying mistakes by shrinking behind them. In personal and professional life, I’ve found myself, often without even realizing it, inserting “my apologies” out of attempted curtesy and engrained “politeness” when an apology isn’t really warranted. I’ve been actively practicing catching myself before I say or type those things to consider if I’m truly sorry for actually making a mistake to be corrected or if I’m finding myself attempting to play the part of a polite and palatable woman. 

Can anyone else relate? 

What I’m reading: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight tells the story about the idea conception and start of Nike. If you’re into stories about how companies got their start, the motivation behind the inception, and hurdles faced along the way, I highly recommend this book. 

I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but here’s where I’m putting my dollar: Shopping local is a great way to support your community. Today, I specifically shout out both Quills Coffee and Chik’n & Mi in Louisville, KY for being great local businesses that I’ve recently been to. 

Early and bonus shows as well as curated discussions and merch are available on Patreon.

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Transcript

Hey folks, this is the Between the Interviews show, where I'll provide some context, background reflections and recommendations associated with the Capitalism for Good philosophy. While the interviews are obviously focused on highlighting businesses and their leaders through talking about their experiences and philosophies, the Between the Interviews shows will be mostly me connecting the dots, providing some additional insight, spotlighting the things that I'm listening to, reading and watching in order to learn more, as well as some of the why behind where I am choosing to put my dollar. These Between the Interviews shows will be sprinkled in Between the Interviews, and will be posted on the main feed, but will also be posted weekly on the Patreon in video form. So if that's your jam, head there, there's a link in the description.

Alright, today I'm talking all about mistakes. We all make them. It almost always sucks. And we hopefully try not to. And when we do, we hopefully try to learn lessons from them. But it is a fact of life that we will make mistakes. Multiple. Often. 

And whether it is intentional mistakes like you forget someone's name, you forget to do something, you do something actually wrong, you meant to follow directions one way and in fact something else happened. And sometimes there are these things that can be viewed as mistakes, like bad investment opportunity, maybe you follow a pathway or you think that you've got a really great product that tested really well, but then just for whatever reason didn't sell, it could be all of these things. You open a brick and mortar store and then it gets hit by the massive amounts of flooding that have recently just happened in Kentucky. And then you have this big setback and this big financial burden that you didn't quite account for or something like that. Sometimes those are viewed as mistakes, but that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm really getting at here because those are more of like bad gambles in my mind or bad luck for maybe a lack of a better way to say and understand that.

I'm talking about true mistakes. So I've talked a little bit in the past about the entire Capitalism for Good project, what I'm working on, what I'm trying to get out of it, and all of those kinds of things. And I just want to start off to say that the knowledge and the insight that I gain through interviewing other business leaders is so helpful to me as a person.

I feel like I'm growing and learning. And while this entire project and what has come of it and where I've pivoted in my career is not really all that different than where I've been for the past 15 plus years. It is something that is very new and novel in the approach. So being 100% solo on my own, no backing kind of thing for being new into the creative, podcasting, social media world, that is brand new to me. And so much is like, I... anyone who knows me personally knows that I've never...I have been lackluster on the best days of social media. I just... it has never been something that I've really gotten into, but I understand the tool from a business perspective. And also is I am opening some of these learning opportunities, whereas I'm learning so much from these business leaders along the way. I... my ultimate goal is just to share with other people so that other people could learn right along with me. There's no really real reason why I should limit that to just my own knowledge. I also think it's important to shine a spotlight on the people that I'm talking about. I've chosen them for a reason, and I think that their voices deserve to be heard, their stories deserve to be heard, their experiences deserve to be shared, and I think that there's a lot of valuable lessons that can be learned in that.

Because I'm so new to that world, I feel like some of the mistakes that I make along the way, in the same way that anyone who is new to something, those mistakes feel loud and amplified in such a profound way, because there are just less opportunities, there are less instances to compare them. So, for example, if you are a basketball player, and you are shooting free throws, say you shoot six free throws in a game, and you missed two of them, that is a pretty substantial fail rate, that's a pretty substantial dent in your success of shooting free throws, compared to if you put in, I don't even know how many free throws, a professional basketball player would make in their career, let's just guess 10,000. We curious for someone to fact check me, what the average free throw number, especially like practice, oh my God, it's probably like 100,000, and say you missed 5% of those, that number is still large, but you've also made 95% of them, and that's a tremendously large number in comparison.

So, it's just so much more amplified, if you're just looking in a snapshot, or if you're just starting out, you've never played basketball a day in your life, and the first time you go to shoot, you're gonna probably miss more free throws than you will, 30 years down the road, 40 years down the road, when you've practiced and you've put in hundreds of thousands of free throws in your life. I'm digressing big time here, but in general, I'm inviting everyone to come along with me, as I learn from 100 business leaders, and as I personally take from their insights to use, when I'm helping other businesses through my company. But what I'm also doing is inviting you to come along and see and hear about my mistakes.

I think it is so important to admit when we make mistakes, to address them, and to fix them in a very real way. Doesn't mean we need to dwell on it. I struggle with this often as a millennial, middle American woman in business. One of the things that I talk too often about with my counterparts, people like me, my coworkers, and the people around me, is just that part of personalities and the way women fit into it, and how there is something in me that has been conditioned, I believe, through my experiences, to when I make a mistake, to overly apologize for it, to be extra soft in my approach, to be extra eager in my need to fix it, in that acknowledgement, whereas there are likely other demographics from other backgrounds that might not have that same perspective as I have. I do think that it's important, and maybe even more important, what we learn from these mistakes along the way and how we deal with them, because like I said, fact of life, they're going to happen along the way. What this also means is that I'm putting my money where my mouth is in kind of a different kind of way.

Not only am I looking to help other companies build strong, stable foundations, but I'm doing it in real time for myself as well. Which is kind of interesting. I'm really just inviting people in to see what I'm doing. But I also think that it's not always rainbows and butterflies and it's not all, you know, going great. It's not always easy. It's not always clean. It's not always clear what's happening, but that's like the reality of building something. So I hope that that is relatable in general. Okay, so let me tell you, it is humbling, especially to be on both sides of it in this current moment, to be able to be the one seeing, catching, making, fixing, and addressing mistakes.

One-woman-shop all of the same way. If I make a mistake and it's the first time I've done that, the first of five times that I've done it or the first of 10 times that I've done it, it feels so much louder than if I've done something 14 gajillion times and then made one mistake. That's like one grain of sand in the beaches of the world. However, one out of 10 is like, I screwed up 10% of the time. I screwed up 20% of the time. It just feels loud and it feels amplified. And part of that tenacity and part of that personality trait for anyone in startups is to be able to mentally get yourself over that hurdle to be able to say, like, all right, how are we going to keep going? How are we going to overcome this? How are we going to move on from it?

How are we going to address it? How are we going to turn that into potentially a positive on the other side of this? So really, it is just an unmatched experience to make a mistake, to catch that mistake, to know that that mistake was you. There's no hiding behind it. There's no potential pointing the finger or blaming someone else, or maybe it doesn't really matter who it is. It could be any of us. Mistakes get made. Moving on. It's like a glaring arrow pointing at me. Everyone knows that it was me. Maybe they didn't even realize there was a mistake, but in my brain, I know I'm the one who saw it. I'm the one who's putting my heart and soul into this. And then I also am the one that has to fix it.

So mistakes feel louder in this one woman echo chamber of a startup. I get it. So come along with me while you learn about the things that I've made mistakes on recently. Some of them were really small. Like I was recently setting up a meeting with the president of a company that I was really excited to talk to. He was in a different time zone.

So as I am setting up this meeting, I am triple checking that I'm getting the time zone correct. That is the thing that I'm nervous about. What time did he say? Is it Central Time? Is it Easter Time? What time are our calendars? What's going on? I'm double checking everything. I'm using a different platform than I had used before when I did not double check multiple times. And I should have was the date. And I set the meeting for a Sunday afternoon when he had asked for it to be Monday afternoon. Same time. I did get the time right. Got the date wrong. It is something that is so easily fixable to be able to just move that to the...catch it. Move it to the right day. Say that you're correcting it for the right day.

Follow that up with, I tried to meet with him on the actual day. We couldn't get Zoom to work. It said that we are both in the same room and yet we couldn't see each other, couldn't hear any thing. I'm troubleshooting. I'm working with Zoom and me e-mailing him. We're going back and forth. It is a headache. I'm wasting this man's time. He is the head of a company. I'm very nervous about it. He's also one of the first people that I am interviewing. He has a connection to my hometown.

Like, I am so excited about that. I'm also really excited for you to actually hear this conversation after it really happened. But it's one of those things that just in the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge deal. But yet, because it was one of the first ones that I had done, it felt so loud. And this like mistake on top of mistake, technical difficulty, compounding factors, all of these things, it feels so loud and so big. And in the grand scheme of things, it is a small fixable mistake. But it felt like it was my own, and not just it felt like. It is my own reputation that's on the line. It's difficult not to feel embarrassed about it.

So, luckily, this man is very gracious and very patient, and did not view it as this loud mistake that I feel it as. But I do think that it's important to address it, to ask for some grace, to be humble about it. But also, don't make it louder than it needs to be. There's kind of a fine line between that. It's something that I've talked to often when I am working with people in the nonprofit sector. So many times, especially as women, especially as millennials, especially in middle America, we have this tendency to shrink backwards, to feel like we need to not take up too much room, to not take up too much space, because that might be a turn off.

That might be something that will push people away. And what I'm constantly telling people is like, if someone's offering to help you, don't talk them out of helping you. If they're coming to you and saying, hey, how can I help your organization? Don't say, well, just whatever you can do, $5 is fine, but only if you want to, or we would, we really need someone to be the president of our board next year, but really anything that you can give us. And I understand that you're busy and I understand that, and you're handing them over all of these excuses. When they actually came to you and said, I'm interested in helping you, what, what do you need?

And so it, it being able to eliminate the, okay, let me give you all of the ways to be frustrated with me, let me give you all of the ways to say no, let me give you all of that. It's a very Midwestern way to go about it. Instead of that, just say, these are the things and then let that person make that decision about what fits in their life at the time and what they have capacity and what they have space for. And they'll ask you if there are more questions. They'll tell you what their boundaries are. It is interesting to be able to change that mindset that some of us were built with or nature versus nurture built from. Change that mindset into you're actually valuing people more by allowing them to make a decision for themselves to say, here are all of the ways in which we need help as a non-profit organization. We need volunteers. We need certain leaders. We need a part-time assistant. We need money. We need grant writers. We need funding. We need all of these different things. We need advice. We need business structure. We need employees, whatever it is, to say that out loud and then value the other person enough to be able to make a decision on their own where they fit in best. Don't automatically talk them out of it.

In a way, that kind of like drops them down. That's two different mindsets. And I use that example because that feels very personal to me in the way that I have in times thought of things in the past and what I hear often from others around me as well. 

Again, not like it's a mistake to say, well only if you have time or I hope it's not too much or you don't even have to come to all of the meetings or all of those things. That's not a mistake. That's your personality. And there's nothing wrong with your personality. Your personality is not a mistake. However, is there value from it?

I think it's just the way that you approach it, the way that you address those kinds of things is important. And I think that there are ways to show and to highlight a personality trait, and there are ways to highlight and to fit into social norms, that maybe being a little more blunt about what you're asking for in certain parts of the country, in certain parts of the world, are quite a turnoff, whereas other parts of the country, it's really valued. So again, it's kind of gray, but just being able to be a little more thoughtful and intentional when those responses are given and when if we'll tie back to mistakes, when those mistakes are made, put those into context from the perspective of the other person.

I'm not saying spend an hour talking about and thinking about it. Like I am here talking about this for however long this episode will go on. But just consider what's the impact and what's the right way to respond to it at this moment.

Maybe there are times that that kind of soft approach is the best sell. So back to mistakes and me learning from mistakes. As we are leaders who are holding employees to a high bar, at least let's just say me as a manager, as a supervisor, I have almost exclusively held all of my teammates and my employees that my director reports to a pretty high bar.

I hold myself to a high bar and hold them to a high bar. And sometimes in those scenarios, it's easy to focus on the mistakes that are made and the things that get under our skin, but there can always be more to the story. So when an employee makes a mistake like that, to me, it's important to think about the context around it. Again, we don't need to spend, if it is a minor mistake, we don't need to spend a ton of time around there, hours and hours thinking about it. That's not really an efficient use of time, but there is value in adjusting the lens that we look at this mistake through. Just being aware, keeping an open mind, keeping this in the back of our brains here. So is it a one-off mistake that's out of character for that employee and unlikely to happen again? Did they take responsibility and fix it? What was the after effect? Is it something that they just self-reported to, hey, this mistake happened, this is what I did about it, need me to do anything else, just need you to be aware in case you hear it? My philosophy as an employee has always been, I want my supervisor to hear about mistakes from me first, rather than from a client or a customer or anyone else. I think that it's 12 million times worse if they hear about it from anyone else.

It brings the temperature super high up for them to have to be like, why am I hearing about this mistake from so and so? What I would rather do is go straight to them and say, you might hear about this, this is what happened, this is what I did about it. Let me know if we need to do anything else, or if you disagree, I'll reverse course on this again, but just need you to be aware of this. Obviously, it's gonna be a track record. This is another part of like, is it a one-off mistake or is this a pattern of things? But again, I would rather have that report and have that transparency to be able to be like, you need to hear it from me, I need to own up to it, and also I want you to know about all the things that I'm doing to prevent this in the future. And we can hold me too accountable, because at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter where the ego falls in all of this. What matters is that mistake doesn't happen again, because at the end of the day, less mistakes mean higher satisfaction for other people, including myself. I'm much happier when I make less mistakes.

So back to kind of evaluating the context behind it. Is it a pattern of similar mistakes that can be addressed? Can it be addressed by things like training, taking a break, workload management? Maybe there's a break in the process. Do we need to adjust our tools and technology? Or perhaps that person is not in a position that is in line with their strengths and their interest. Can we move things around so that they are? Sometimes, what's best is that you decide to part ways because that just isn't a good fit. That's not always a bad thing. It's all about the way that you handle it. It's all about the way that you address it. Sometimes, you've got someone that's really great and really talented, but they really talented in an adjacent position. That's really where their strengths lie. It's really where they get keyed up. That's really where they are a much better fit. And maybe you need to move some things around to get that to happen. And then you can pull someone else in to do the job that they were doing that's in line with their strengths. It's going to be better for everyone if you've got the most, if you've got the right fit in that position.

It's also important as leaders for us to be cognizant of how we act when we make mistakes. So yeah, we're talking about when an employee or a direct report makes mistakes. To make sure that we're evaluating it in a lens that is thoughtful and intentional. But also, how do we address things? Just like my scheduling mistake in the way that I handled it, impacts my reputation according to that person that I interviewed. That is the way he views me, that is what he knows about me, and that is what he's going to speak about when he speaks to other people. Now, can I back that up with creating a stellar interview, a great environment when we do meet, making sure that he sees my professionalism, whatever those things are that are important to him? Do I put on a good face when I do get in front of him, so that that means that mistake, it doesn't feel as loud as it feels within my brain, so that when someone asks him, hey, what did you do this evening? He says, hey, just had an interview. The answer is, or the second part of that sentence is, I just had an interview and it went really great. We talked about all these cool things. First is, I just had this interview. She was a hot mess when it came to scheduling. I don't want that to be the reputation. I want it to be the how and the why and the experience. 

So that is my focus. I'm owning up to the mistake that I made. We're addressing it, we're gonna fix it. That's never gonna happen again if I have any pull in it. But also, moving forward, what I want the takeaway to be loudest from that interaction is what is the experience? Does he feel like he is heard and his experience was valued and that his organization is being promoted and highlighted for the good things that they're doing? And will other people be able to learn from the things that he and his company have done? That's what I hope will be loudest. That's our ultimate goal.

In the end, how we handle these mistakes and mistakes, both internally and externally, impact our reputation according to our employees, and also the outward customers, clients, the people that we face, the people that are looking at. These things matter. Reviews on job boards, reviews on product websites. I am a big user of Reddit whenever I am doing some research. It is great to find some anonymous feedback to just type in a company name or a person's name and review. And you'll have some tea that will pop up there.

So at the end of the day, acting as an example of how you want mistakes to be addressed can be an important part of company culture. If you are living in a way as a leader to address your mistakes and pivot and move on and adjust accordingly, then your employees are more likely to follow in that footstep. If you make a mistake, pretend like it didn't happen, blame it on someone else, create this negative culture, that's going to tell your employees that that's what you value, and that's how they're going to act, or they're going to choose, that's not for me, I'm in a GTFO. Sometimes, it's not even these outright mistakes that we're talking about, but it's just decisions that lead to the desired outcome. It's a roadblock. It is an external circumstance that the leaders need to steer their crew around. Maybe it's a miscommunication that just could have been made clear. Sometimes, it's just evaluating, hey, that didn't work as well as I thought it would. Where are there ways to improve? Where are those opportunities for 1% better? How do we increase our free throw success right here? At the end of the day, mistakes happen to all of us.

We don't all operate in 100% all of the time. Sometimes, things are not going to go as planned. At the end of the day, what matters is how are we dealing with it and how does that impact our reputation moving forward? How do you react when things happen to you? Okay, talk about making mistakes. If you are watching this on video, you'll see that I have changed clothes.

That's because I recorded the entire episode and then realized that I didn't do my two favorite things to end on, which are my reading slash watching, listening to, learning about, whatever. And my recommendation. So, my, one of my reading this time, I think I alluded to it in the past during a different episode, but it's a book called Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, and it is about the start of Nike. Obviously, if this podcast is not obvious enough, I really love listening to business leaders talk about how they went from idea, concept, history, experience to actually the start up, and then where that can go and evolve from there into kind of the success story that I would say Nike is. And this book called Shoe Dog is really that. It is the story from the beginning, how it all got started, and lessons learned along the way. So, that is what I'm currently reading. Highly recommend that. 

And then my, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but here is where I am putting my money in. It is a local coffee, local shops, local snacks, drinks, all kinds of whatever there is. There's so much to be found in your neighborhood. And I love the idea of the talent being local, the curated experience being local, and being able to really lift those folks up. And I also love that it's truly different and unique in every city that you go to. So for example, yesterday, just went to an outdoor event, a track meet, it was called Relays for Inclusion. I was volunteering at it with an organization I volunteer with called Kentucky IEP Advocate. And we, It was, I thought it might be kind of cold outside, so I stopped and grabbed us some hot drinks on the way. I stopped at a local coffee shop called Quills here in Louisville, Kentucky, highly recommend. And also, I love the community-based aspect of it, that I was able to drop off flyers related to the community-based organization that I was volunteering with later that day, and put that in a community board so that other community members can come find it. I'm giving my money to the community, paying the salaries or the paychecks of the folks that are working behind the counter, and being able to make sure that I'm reinvesting money back into our local community. So highly recommend that it can be your local business, it can be your coffee shop, it can be whatever it is available to you that you feel really good about, giving your money to. 

I'll also shout out another small business from Louisville, Kentucky that I was just recently a patron of, which was Chik'n Me, also here in Louisville. We went there before my sister and I went to a live podcast show, but we went to Chik'n Me before then and got some really good food. My sister and I both eat gluten-free, so it was nice to have a ton of options there, and just feel really good about giving back to a unique local business and our community. Find your ones that are local to you, check them out, spread the word, all of the above.

Before we go, I've mentioned that this project is supported through Patreon. There's a link to Patreon down in the show notes, and if you want to jump up a level from the free version, you can do so by becoming a direct supporter of the project through that platform. Once you sign up, you'll get a link to a different feed on Apple or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use that will take you to exclusive shows and bonuses as a thank you for your direct support.

Also, this project is new and still working out how to make it better and making sure that it's resonating with the folks that are listening, so I really appreciate any and all feedback. I truly do want to hear from you. So, if you follow and message me on Instagram, it's at Capitalism for Good Podcast, or email me and message me with your thoughts.

Check the links in the show notes for different ways that you can also contact me. There's a really good chance that I'll send you a discount code for Patreon as a thank you. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. All right, that's enough. Let's go leave this place better than we found it.