Standard operating procedure in your day to day? Do you get into habits that on the surface save face and sound good, attempt to make you always come out on top, smelling like a rose, and landing on your feet?

Spin, insincerity, propaganda. Everyone does it, and it's an art form for some right? I am waiting for the day of a college four year degree in "spin". Oh yeah, political science major...it already exists to manipulate, power broker, to weave, bob, snake your way to the top. That is not the America the country started out with or maybe the founding fathers preserved in time as noble, altruistic, not self serving did get their hands dirty or cross the line. Billy Joel reminds us "You are only human, you are suppose to make mistakes".

     The point of this post is do you take the attitude that you are always right, that you do not make mistakes, that you are not responsible when things go haywire and mess up royally? It can be like the youngster who starts lying early on and after awhile, the lies become his reality, he convinces himself that what he is saying is gospel. That is not salesmanship. 

     I made a comment in a blog that made me thing about a car dealership where I needed an oil change, and the tires on my 1978 Pinto (woo hoo) balanced. When I picked the car up as a lowly broadcaster, finishing up my college degree in the same profession, I noticed the tires were really hopping. Way way more than when the chariot was dropped off. I asked the service manager who I knew from being a mechanic for my dad who had eight trailer trucks about the road test I took afterwards. He immediately started in on that was the best the mechanic could do, that they could not have added anymore or less weight and maybe the rims were bent, etc.

The assumption was something is wrong with the car, it is the customer's fault if the service was not performed right. Or that the dealership does not make mistakes, does the best they can and this was the best they could do.

I had got done on my knees to scope out the tires...all four. The wheel weights had been removed on the wheels...and I checked both sides just in case they had added them to the inner half of the wheel to give the dealership the benefit of the doubt. There were no wheel weights so all the potholes from Maine spring driving meant the wheels plainfully needed weights in the right places as determined by a spin balance. Someone forgot to put the wheel weights back on. Period. When I stopped Al in this canned speech to make me think that is the best it could be and the dealership bent over backwards to go beyond the call of duty on this wheel balancing, he looked so surprised, like a Maine deer in the headlights. His expression changed, jaw dropped when I said simply "Al. I checked. There are NO wheel weights on the wheels at all." But instead of lets look the car over, or even considering maybe the dealership in a hurry had made a mistake, an iron wall of "we did the best we could, it could not be our fault and maybe something is just plain wrong with the car and not fixable" was the posture taken. Standard operating survival mode or quickest way to get this crabby customer, all customers who come back unhappy out the door and on their way to another dealership. It made me think about real estate and every occupation.

     Is it a habit for lots of people in their business and professional life to just not be wrong, responsible, able to correct a situation they botched up? Ever? And do folks just not consider first that maybe the guy in the mirror each morning makes mistakes and ownership of them would save alot of time, make the person being snowed not feel insulted because the wool is being pulled over their eyes? Aren't mistakes if acknowledged the way we learn, the lessons that humble but in the long run improve, help our career success and reputation? Or by avoiding them all together as ever existing, don't we hurt ourselves and our kids watching the bad habit? Is the country just frowning on being wrong, or making mistakes in the first place in the struggle for perfection, a perfect score, a gold medal, a home run? Rotarians recite weekly "Is It The Truth...Is It Fair To All Concerned.." And maybe getting back into the habit of applying this gold rule template in business and our personal life, our family day to day has been lacking as a nation? Is it considered not right and deceit but the cowardly way to handle your day to day affairs?

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers- Maine, The Way Life Should Be. Get Here Quick As You Can.