own it

Last week Konan asked me to email him something and I forgot. I could've given a bunch of reasons why I didn't do it but quite honestly, who cares. He didn't need to know the reason it wasn't emailed, he  wanted to know if it was done.

Today, I went to a store to pick up something that has been ordered for over a week now and it wasn't ready. My initial thought was to make mean faces, start throwing stuff, scream while spinning violently and crashing into things but then I thought, what good would it do. I decided to patiently wait and the girl working came to me and apologized for it not being ready. Her explanation was "sir, I am so sorry you are having to wait, I was supposed to do it and I didn't. It was totally my fault. I will get it done right away".

I am glad I didn't overreact. I was prepared to wait but after her explanation and the way she owned it, I would've waited even longer.

My point: excuses are a lame attempt to make you look better than you are. Excuses are something you want everyone to accept from you but you don't want to hear them from someone else. If you said you were going to do something and you didn't, just own it. If you said you wouldn't and you did, own it.

I respect people more if they just own it instead of trying to make it look like they have a really great reason they didn't follow up.

I know there are times I let people down. I know there are times I drop the ball, wet the bed or whatever other phrase you want to use for not doing something. The one thing I will try to do is own it. If I did or didn't do it - own it.