Focusing on What’s Important

At the end of year, it’s normal to recall recent accomplishments and situations, before moving on and assessing what’s around the next corner.

Highlights of the past twelve months are numerous for most businesses and in our personal lives.

A few months ago, an omission on a printed piece produced for a client was an unexpected and unfortunate oversight. The mistake necessitated an apology to several people, offered quickly and with sincerity. The need was to owe up to it and then mentally move on, with the commitment to slow down and be precise to attain perfection. Beleaguering the bad accomplishes nothing.

The opposite occurred when Lawton Gallagher was instrumental in designing and implementing a recent inaugural event for a client. The result exceeded expectations and served as a successful public awareness effort that impressed stakeholders and attendees. At that point it was time to stop, acknowledge the success of the effort (not always easy to accept congratulations), and set a new course to find ways to improve upon it moving forward.

My take-away lessons from both experiences is the reminder to take some in stride, learn from the certain gaffs that punctuate owning a business, and do better next time. Equally important is to know when to stop and soak up the well-deserved praise that comes your way!

Logging these incidents and outcomes for reference – both positive and negative – helps keep a healthy perspective, not only in business … but in life.