Humble Pie

A friend and her sister asked me to help print some postcards for their pet sitting business. While I don't do this kind of work for a living, they were friends and I wanted to help them out. The sister sent me what she had created and asked me to make four cards fit on a sheet. I took a look and thought, "This is too wordy and the font is very old fashioned and amateurish-looking. I'll just fix it up."

Nearly two hours (!) later, after I had added graphics, edited, and re-positioned, I had what I thought was an eye-catching, professional card. I thought my friends would really like it. Oh, was I in for a surprise--it wasn't at all what they wanted. The font they had used wasn't in my computer, so my computer's substitution really did look bad. When I got that straightened out and made some more adjustments they requested, I finally gave them WHAT THEY WANTED, not what I (in my vast wisdom and experience--hehe!) THOUGHT THEY NEEDED.

This was a humbling experience for me and I learned a good lesson from it. One of the things Dr. Schofield taught (see http://www.alwaysanally.com/) was that if we want to influence someone, we must "begin where they are" and it's "not about us, it's about them." Also as he would remind me, "all experience is good experience."

I have eaten my humble pie.