If you have not seen the HBO documentary titled ‘The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley’, you need to watch it (https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-inventor-out-for-blood-in-silicon-valley). The story is about Elizabeth Holmes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes) and her rise and fall in Silicon Valley due to her ‘deception’. I watched the show a number of years ago and it has stayed with me.
One of the interviews in the documentary is with one of her Stanford Professors, Dr. Phyllis Gardner, MD, Professor of Medicine. She is interviewed in a couple of segments but towards the end of the documentary, Dr, Gardner talks about the ownership of issues / problems. She goes on to say, [as if she were speaking to Elizabeth]:
- Don’t blame anybody else
- You have full control
- The bucks stops there (as in with you as CEO)
- People make mistakes, but you must always admit it
Dr. Gardner goes on to say that one of her husband’s favorite line is:
‘Excuses are like a..holes, everyone has one’
I now think of this line when I use the word excuse or but.
Definition: Excuses – attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); seek to defend or justify.
thought for the week 
2 thoughts on “excuses”