26 Aug 2008

If life gives you lemons make lemonade


A negative can be turned into a positive, it's all in the way you handle it. A story to illustrate.

This evening the kids managed to knock over a can of varnish onto my decking. After "grumpy daddy" managed to compose himself I decided rather than simply mop up and dumping the paint I'd paint the garden bench, the original plan for the varnish. Tomorrow, with more time I'll power wash the decking clean.

The bench had been waiting a month to get varnished and the decking much longer. I'll also be a lot more careful about tools and paint unsupervised in the future.

The Lesson

In business we have similar "spills" with our customer. If we handle them well not only can you turn the negative into a positive but the joint effort of over coming the problem strengthens the relationship for the next challenge you will inevitable encounter.

In the words of Og Mandino:
"Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time."

In the words of my daughter:

"hug daddy?"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post:) Thanks for the lil reminder to stay positive and optimistic.

Unknown said...

You have to smile or you'd cry.