Annie Croner is the founder and CEO of Whole Assistant, an online platform & community, formed to provide a positive place where assistants can go to transform their lives and level up their careers.
In this spotlight episode of Annie’s show, The Whole Assistant Podcast, she talks about how to move forward after a big mistake.
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ABOUT ANNIE
Annie Croner is an executive assistant coach, trainer, and strategic thinker. She loves to help her clients unlock their badassery, and revolutionize their careers.
Over her 20 year career as an executive assistant, Annie worked for boutique companies across multiple industries including accounting, marketing, nonprofit, and private wealth management. Working in a variety of settings has led to a diverse understanding of the assistant role and the many challenges that often come with it.
Annie is passionate about helping those in support roles show up more strategically and garner the respect of their executives, colleagues, and key stakeholders without sacrificing their mental health and well-being.
Annie lives in Denver, Colorado where she enjoys green smoothies, her family, and an occasional evening of Latin dancing. To learn more about Annie, please visit WholeAssistant.com.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Jeremy Burrows 0:00
Hey, friends, it’s Jeremy Burrows, host of The Leader Assistant Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Today, I’m excited to highlight an episode from my friend Annie Croner’s podcast called Whole Assistant. And I really think you should check out her show at wholeassistant.com or look it up on your favorite podcast platform. Again, Annie Croner podcast called Whole Assistant today, I am spotlighting one of Annie’s episodes from the whole assistant podcast, and I’m excited to spotlight several episodes over the coming months. So I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you check out whole assistant.com to learn more about Annie and her great podcast.
Annie Croner 1:06
just gonna go ahead and get started with our topic for today, which is how to move forward after making a big mistake. And this was an ask, any anything post from LinkedIn, I actually received a DM on LinkedIn from Nicole in Indianapolis, so shout out to you, Nicole. And she says, I’m just going to read what she had written me. Good morning. Do any of your podcasts discuss the topic on how to move forward after a big mistake? If not, I recommend you create an episode. I’m currently in the midst of discovering a make mistake that has gone on for a few months without anyone noticing my errors. Now we are trying to remedy the situation. I feel so embarrassed and ashamed of my mistakes. I’m not sure what consequences will come from this. I know I’m not alone, and many people make mistakes, but it feels very lonely. I really enjoy your podcast, and just wanted to take a moment to recommend a topic which I love. So if you guys want to recommend a topic, you can also DM me on LinkedIn, or you can check the notes below. I have a link to my ask any anything questionnaire, where you can go ahead and ask your question, and there’s information in there with regards to how you want to be credited for the episode, but I’m just going to take a minute to address Nicole’s concerns, because this often comes up a lot, and it often comes up a lot in my coaching practice. So first and foremost, I just want to share that if you have made a big mistake, you are not alone. Most of us have made big mistakes in the past, and most of us may be in the middle of a big mistake also. So first of all, I think it’s important that you allow yourself the time to process your mistake. And by this, I do not mean indulge in wallowing. We don’t want to wallow. We want to be totally aware of what’s going on in our brain. And I think it’s good to view mistake, the mistake, as a potential area for growth, like we have new data now that shows the mistake. And sometimes a mistake just happens because we’re human and we err. And then sometimes a mistake happens because there’s a system error, there’s something wrong or broken in our system, or there’s something that we aren’t fully understanding in terms of what’s required of us. Okay? So I think it’s good to parse out those two things, and I also think it’s really good to take a look at the data of the situation and to rectify it.
Annie Croner 3:33
And I also just want to share that there are a few benefits to making mistakes. Actually, there really are, especially if you can show accountability, and you take radical action, and you take full ownership of your mistake, but what often happens is we get defensive, we turn we tend to blame instead of to own our mistake. We tend to deflect and to discredit someone who may have been giving us the information that ultimately led to the mistake. But that is not how we can turn our mistake into a benefit, into an actual trust building exercise. And I’m a firm believer that when mistakes are handled appropriately, they can build trust instead of break it down. So I’m just going to share a story of a massive mistake that I made in my past, not my last role that I was working in, but two roles ago, prior to starting my own business several years ago. At this point, I was supporting this gal who worked in the family office space, and she told me that there were no boundaries. She told me that there was no line that I could cross. She gave me carte blanche to everything. She gave me credit card numbers and social security numbers, and I had all the information at my fingertips. And one day, I was preparing a wire transfer to make an investment, and I created an E signature, and I attached the E signature to the document, and the E signature was her e signature by the. Way, and I just sent it off, and you guys, oh my goodness, if my stomach did not drop, I knew in that moment that I had made a massive mistake, and that she probably would have rather have given a verbal confirm of the wire transfer than to have me attach my her e signature to the document. So I immediately hopped online. I hopped on my email. I wrote her an email, apologizing profusely. She called me up, and she was very stern, and she said, Annie, never do that again. And like, Absolutely, it will never happen again, my bad. And the whole time I know that she told me that there were no boundaries I could cross, but at the same time, I knew that one had been crossed, right? And honestly, guys, this could have been a fireable offense. Had I tried to hide it, had I tried to cover it up? Had I tried to downplay it? Had I not taken that radical responsibility, but because I took that radical responsibility and I was fully accountable for my actions and I owned the mistake that actually served to foster trust. She actually knew, moving forward, that I was not going to do anything that would compromise her safety, that would compromise my own safety, in terms of finances and all of that. I also I was out on a ledge too, because If money had gone missing from the account, and I was in the practice of adhering her e signature to it that could potentially blow back on me. So in terms of protecting yourself, do that always, and also in terms of building that trust with your executive make sure that you are taking radical accountability for your mistakes. Because when we do that and when we are totally solutions oriented, it can serve to foster trust, okay? And that’s my next kind of tip for you guys, is to always be solutions oriented. This is where you are right now. We take the data, we leave the drama and we leave the wallowing, and we leave the indulging in our mistake, and we leave the self flagellation aside, and we look at the data, and from there, we come up with a list of solutions in order to rectify the situation, whether it’s a break in communication, whether it is a break in a system, whether it’s just a one off error, and then we look at how we can ensure that that error never happens again. I don’t think that people mind mistakes. I think what people mind are the same mistake a million different times. So that is something to bring your awareness to and to always be solutions oriented. And if you are stuck in spinning out on your mistake, then you’re actually giving your solutions less brain power. And we don’t want to do that. We want to be totally solutions oriented. We want to be giving all of our time and energy into coming up with solutions to present to our executives and to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. And that’s how we build trust. That’s how we build trust, even amidst the mistake. Another strategy that I want to share with you guys is that it’s really important that you only own what is yours. So if the mistake had other players in the mix, then in your brain, I really only want you to own what is yours to own. Yes, you could have communicated better. Yes, you could have done something differently, of course, of course, always. But generally, when it comes to the really large errors, there are multiple people involved, and so only own what is yours to own. And I’m not saying to point fingers and to cast blame, because that’s not going to be helpful there again. We want to take radical accountability for our actions, but what happens is that we take responsibility for what everybody’s done, wrong, right, instead of just owning what is yours to own. I would also encourage us to look at what is yours to own, instead of being responsible for all of it, to look to what is yours to own, and to really take really good ownership of that piece, and then to let the rest go. And then last but not least, it’s important that you have your own back. And by this, I mean I really want you to have your own back in the way you would a good friend. And I really want you to talk to yourself in the way you would a good friend in your similar situation, we are often the hardest on ourselves. We are more than willing, more than able and more than capable and of giving other people the benefit of the doubt, but we never tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. So having your own back looks like rectifying the situation, solving for future instances that may come up, and really knowing that regardless of the outcome of any situation, that you aren’t going to beat yourself up, that you’re going to talk kindly to yourself. I also think that as a rule, we tend to be hard on ourselves because we don’t want others to be hard on us, and we tend to self flagellate because we feel like if we’re really hard on ourselves, that that’s a way to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. But that’s not actually true. What ends up happening when we’re really hard on ourselves is that it takes up so much headspace that we end up making mistakes in other areas. So I just. Want to bring some awareness to that where the brain focuses. That’s where it goes. Even if it’s focused on not doing something, the chances of you doing the thing that it’s not focused on doing is a lot higher. So we really want to build resilience, and we really want that downtime from our mistake to become less and less and less. The more we go, the more we move through life, and the more mistakes that we make, because mistakes are inevitable really, because every human errors is just inevitable that sooner or later, you’re going to make a mistake. So how you show up for that mistake is what really, really matters. Make sure you have your own back. Make sure you recognize some benefits of taking radical ownership of your mistake and allow yourself the time is place to place, the time and space to process without indulging or wallowing. And that’s really all I have to say on the on the subjects. So Nicole, I really hope that this episode has been helpful for you. I know that this is very relevant. I actually walked a client through this very same thing this morning. So I hope that this episode really resonates with all of us. I think a lot of us are recovering perfectionists, myself included. So we expect to get things right all the time. Instead of putting ourselves out there, creating a benchmark and building up from there, we expect ourselves to have all the answers, all up front, all the time. And a lot of us are really decent at making sure that no details are missed and mistakes don’t happen, but it is human to err, and it’s also a good idea to make sure that the same mistake doesn’t happen twice, and the only way that we do that is by really looking at the data and solving for The data of the situation. Okay, guys, that is what I have for you guys today, be intentional, be whole. That is all for now.
