Today's humble pie experience

Every now and then you're forced to eat a little bit of "humble pie". It's not pleasant and sometimes it can really sting, but I have learned to reflect on it and look at how I can improve myself from such experiences.

Do you have any valuable humble pie experiences of your own?

Video Transcription

So today I just wanted to share a little insight or a little experience I had on LinkedIn.

And today I commented it on a post and I didn't really pick up on the fact, but there was a lot of comments made and one of them in particular, came back and had a go at me.

And I'm okay with that aspect, but I guess, I was disappointed in how my message came across, how my comment was taken.

And although it's painful and it stung to read, I wanted to understand it first hand.

I didn't want to just write another comment or whatever. I wanted to contact that person, and I actually have a lot of respect for that individual, and I value his opinion.

So I messaged him directly and asked about what was it that made him unhappy about it and his comments, I asked for it and I wanted to understand, and it did sting to read it. It's hurtful, not because of what he said, but because it's totally opposite of what I actually stand for, what I believe in and what I'm trying to do.

But I had to see it, I had to read it, I had to understand. And I think that's a really valuable lesson for all of us.

So my take out of it is that I realize, I actually walk a fine line. I am passionate and committed to improving the resin flooring industry.

And it's well documented. If you look at my profile and things that I've done, it is about how do we step our resin flooring industry up to mainstream. How do we improve our benchmarks, our systems, our standards, best practices, whatever you want to call it.

How do we keep improving to get our level up to where it deserves to be?

And so that's the fine line, is that when I talk about best practices, it's not because I'm perfect or I think I know it all. Quite the opposite. I've made the dumbest mistakes. So I've learned from myself, my own dumb experiences and my own mistakes, and I'm the type of person that learns from others.

And I've spoken to thousands of actual contractors and learned from their mistakes. I've spoken to hundreds of suppliers and these days I speak more and more to suppliers, competing suppliers for that matter, and I learn from their mistakes.

And collectively, I understand that our industry wants to evolve. Our industry does want to step up and improve and I am trying to push that point more and more, but I clearly did not communicate that very well in my comment.

And I have to learn. I have to get better at that. So I guess, that's the experience that I wanted to share today, is learning to communicate what you're passionate about clearly, without coming across as a know-it-all, or that you're perfect and everybody else is not, or whatever that I'm good and you're not type mentality, because that's just totally the opposite of what I stand for and where I'm at.

So I'm Resin Jack. I'm eating humble pie today and I thought it was important to share this particular lesson. So as always, take care and keep smiling.