Recently, I ran into somebody who gave me feedback about a mistake I made.
The details don’t matter as much as my reaction – initial defensiveness.
I recovered from that initial defensiveness eventually. But the guilt or shame of being caught in a moment that I didn’t think was representative of me stuck around. And I wasn’t able to find a way to reach them and respond properly.
I could have done way better in my response. And it would have been nice to get an opportunity to say that directly.
None of which happened.
Maybe it’s a reminder that we do make mistakes. And we need to be better at taking the feedback when that’s the case.
But we also have to be okay with the fact that not everybody’s going to know us at depth.
Some will only know us as a stranger who made a mistake.
A Learning a Day 