Last week I shared a newsletter about two mountains: Everest and Gangkhar Puensum. You can read it here.
Like a numpty, I messed up the opening line. I think most people worked out what I was hoping to say. I had some lovely, fun comments from kind readers apologising for their pedantism (I had to look that up) and suggesting with winky emojis 😉 I should check twice and press send once.
But then there were a few, let’s say… ‘snarky’ comments.
‘Not very brilliant Heppell.’
‘This doesn’t make sense!’
And my favourite - sent in caps:
‘YOU MEAN ‘LEAST’!!!’
I’ve been running a personal development company for 25 years, and in that time I’ve made a few gaffes. My mate Patrick Kielty shared with TEAM17 his wonderful mantra on the subject of making mistakes, ‘No one cares’.
- Miss a comma, ‘No one cares’.
- Forgot to put the bins out, ‘No one cares’.
- Mess up a presentation, ‘No one cares’.
- Messing up the first sentence in a newsletter to 10,000 people, ‘No one cares’.
Well, a few did!
So, I flipped it, messaged back thanking them for caring and reminded them there’s an unsubscribe button at the base of every newsletter. The replies were wonderful.
- ‘Thanks for your message. Nice to know you are a real person.’
- ‘Noooo, I love your messages’.
- And from the shouty one: ‘NO PROBLEM MATE’ (still screaming 😂)
You could be thinking, ‘Well, you care enough to write this’. True. But the message remains. And maybe it should be:
Made a mistake? It’s OK. No one cares enough that you should feel bad.
As always, I’d love to know your thoughts below. Be Brilliant!
Michael
Comments