I remember teaching my first child how to drive. I would tell him all the basics – stay focused, keep two hands on the steering wheel, do not multi-task and keep your eyes on the road. I did this while having my window open, my arm out the window, changing the channel on the radio and steering the car using my wrist. All I was missing was the dangling cigarette in the corner of my mouth while eating a sandwich. As I realized what I was doing, I told my son, ‘do as I say, and not as I do’.
I may be exaggerating a bit, but I know this was not the first time I was being a hypocrite. This moment, and its visual, has stuck with me. Since that day, and especially as my children were becoming adults and can see all my faults, I wanted to make sure my moments of ‘hypocrisy’ were fewer and fewer in all that I did.
The other day I was having an email conversation with a new ‘colleague’. Our working relationship was fairly new, and we were still getting to know each other, virtually. The email this person sent was on a deliverable that I owed him. He then quickly followed up with a second email to ensure that I understood the intent of the first email, and that the email was not supposed to have ‘teeth’.
I started laughing right away and sent him my blog on Content vs Style, and went on to say that I read the content of the email and not the style – and by the way, he was 100% right in the content.
Unknown to me, one benefit I have achieved from writing my ‘thought-for-the-week’ blog, is that they have also helped me reduce my moments of hypocrisy and have kept me accountable to myself.
thought for the week 