Excuses are for losers. That is what my dear old dad used to say, and I am more convinced that it is as accurate today as it was 45 years ago when he was alive.
In the cpurse of my practice as a Massachusetts real estate attorney, there have been many occasions where I gave incorrect, or incomplete, advice. I alwasy try to give the correct answer, but no one bats !,000, and sometimes I was wrong. In the early stages of my career, I tried to rationalize, or explain, my erros rather than accepting them for what they were, good faith erros.
Lately, my approach has been much different and to be perfectly honest with you, I no longer fear making mistakes because oft times, fixing a mistake can garner a better overall result for me than if the mistake had not oiccurred. Let me give you an exapmle. Suppose a closing is achedulued for 2:00 PM in a realtor's office, and I show up at 2:30 PM. I could complain about the traffic, or the Lender being late, or any number of reasons why I had inconvenienced people. Or I could apologize, accept the consequences, and tell all involved that I am prepared to give the Buyer a monetary closing cost payment to mitigate the time that I wasted for others. Very rarely does the Buyer accept the money. The important thing is that I acknowledged that people have busy schedules, and they cannot sit around and waiit for me to show up at a closing. I take responsibility for my actions; perople generally move on.
This is the way I conduct business these days, and it is a lot less complicatesd than it was before. Mistales happen; it is the way we respond that sets us apart from the crowd.
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