We’ve all had customers who became our friends. This sometimes is the happy happenstance of building authentic relationships based on honesty and trust. You connect with these people, and you are just as glad to run into them at the Pig as you are to have them sitting in your office as a paying client.
When my wife and I were thinking about doing some work on our house, I immediately thought of one person in particular who had become a friend of mine after first being a client. I’ve always been impressed by her expertise.
So I called her to set up a time for her to meet my wife, Susan, and talk with us about what we wanted to accomplish. After exchanging niceties and telling her why I was calling, she asked me if I remembered the terrible speech she once gave in one of my communications classes.
I told her I honestly didn’t know what she was talking about.
She had taken my public speaking class several years ago. As part of that program she gave a talk that she said was a complete “bomb.” I could hear the humiliation in her voice as she recalled how poorly she thought she did during that speech.
It was painful to hear her talk about that event, even though she admits that it was ultimately helpful to her to have experienced it. Yet, all these years later, her feelings about it remain raw. She’s still embarrassed.
I told her I remember her being in one of those classes, but I absolutely do not remember her giving such an awful talk.
Here’s what I do remember: She came across as a good, honest person. She struck me as a highly creative professional who is good at what she does. That’s why, years later, she immediately came to mind when we started thinking about our house project.
I believe this illustrates a great point: A person is not defined by any one significant event—good or bad.
When something big or upsetting happens to us, that thing is not necessarily inked in someone else’s mind. A lot of us think that when we experience a negative event like a poor presentation; being fired from a job; getting demoted, divorced, arrested or whatever, that that is the one, defining thing that people remember about us. In reality, it doesn’t work that way. We are the sum of many parts.
We all, at some time or another, have experienced something that we are embarrassed about or angry about or would simply like to forget. Most likely, the people who know us and value us as friends, family members, co-workers, neighbors, etc. have already forgotten about it—if it even registered in the first place.
So today, I challenge you to let go of one thing in your life that causes negative feelings for you. Trust me, as dramatic as that thing might seem to you, it’s likely just a blip to the rest of the world—if anyone else remembers it at all.
Let go. Forgive yourself. Learn from your mistakes. Move forward. Take whatever was making you feel bad and use it to help you do what you do better.