Episode 169: Are you assuming good (or bad) intent?
How do you react to feedback? In today's quick tip episode, Fiona talks about what would happen if we flipped our mindset and tried accepting it with good intent. Tune in and let's shift how we take in feedback!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Fiona shares how quickly we go in with the bad intent after receiving feedback
How to shift the mindset from bad to good intent
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Do you love your business? You should. Right? Well, sometimes we just don't. It's my hope that this, The My Daily Business Coach Podcast, helps you regain a little of that lost love by providing tips and tactics, tools, insights, inspiration, all the good stuff to help you actually enjoy running your business. In addition to actionable tips and tactics that you'll be able to execute immediately, you'll also hear from creative, small business owners around the world, who've been able to sidestep the hustle and build a business that merges their passion with their purpose and provides a profit. I'm your host Fiona Killackey, founder of My Daily Business Coach. Let's get going.
Hello and welcome to episode 169 of the My Daily Business Coach Podcast. So we are well and truly into January. If you're listening to this in real time, we have a couple of weeks left and then we're into the second month of the year. So I hope 2022 is going really, really well for you so far. I hope that it is a big change from the last two years. That even if things are not exactly where you want them to be, it is just a little less. I'm actually pre-recording this because I do take January off. So I'm hoping that as I record this, we are not in some crazy situation where 90% of the world is back in lockdown. Let's hope that as I'm saying this, it's not gonna offend people who are like, "Oh my God! Do you know what's going on? "
But yes, part of my plan every year is to take a good four, five weeks off at the end of the year or at the start of the new year. I really enjoy the summer. So I hope that wherever you're listening to this, you are enjoying your surroundings and the people around you and your business. So let's get stuck into today's tip episode, but just before I do, I just wanna pay my respects to the traditional custodians and owners of this beautiful land in which I'm able to enjoy a summer holiday. The wandering people of the Kulin nation and I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated. And we all have our role to play, to ensure that equality happens for everybody. The other thing I wanna do is acknowledge any other indigenous peoples that may be listening to this and their elders past, present and emerging. All right, let's get on with today's quick tip episode.
So today I wanted to kind of pose a question to you, which I obviously do quite a bit, but I guess, would this be a tip tool or tactic? I would say it's a tip. So if you're new to these episodes, every Tuesday, Australian time, I release a tip tool or tactic episode, a quick tip, it's usually 10 minutes and something you can implement immediately. So today's question is really, do you assume good or bad intent? Now, before I get stuck into this, I just wanna kind of have a disclaimer that I am not ,for a minute if we talk about, you know, you should assume good intent and I'll get into what that means. I'm not saying that for situations where it's just not cool. So, you know, if somebody's saying something that's racist, homophobic, ableist, sexist, ageist, I'm not thinking, oh, well, you should just assume that they meant something else or they had a better intention because I'm sure sometimes they do.
But other times we do need to stand up against that and say, it's not cool, not right. Not putting up with it. So as I go into today's tip episode, I really wanna make it clear that I'm not for a minute suggesting that if somebody says something that's racist or microaggressions or, you know, sexist, ableist, all of the stuff, then of course we should stand up and not just assume, "Oh, I'm sure they didn't really mean that." That's not at all where I'm going with today, but I wanted to kind of make that clear from the get go. So today what I mean is when we're in business and somebody sends us an email or a message on Instagram or a competitor says, so, or maybe even just, you know, staff says something to us, sometimes what we can do is go quickly in with the bad intent.
Oh, they meant this. I bet they said that because of this or, oh, she thinks this that's why she's done that. Or why did they comment that they're just trying to, you know, show me up against other people or we can have all these kinds of negative connotations that come along with somebody's comment or email or whatever medium that it comes in. And what I wanted to kind of pose is what would happen if we flipped the script and considered it as if we imagined or assumed that they had good intent behind that. So I know in my own business, I remember a while ago, I got an email from somebody they had booked in for business coaching and they had worded the email in such a way that I took it and actually so did my VA, but we both took it as a really rude kind of aggressive email to us.
What had happened, They booked in, we had not replied to them within 24 hours. Website says we reply within 24 hours like business days and it was the weekend. And so of course we didn't reply. I don't expect the people that work for me to work on the weekends. They have their own lives as well. So we replied probably, they might have emailed on Friday. I think we replied on Monday or Tuesday. So yes, not perfect, but I don't work on Fridays. And I don't expect people to be covering everything on the weekend. We are not that type of business. That's like an emergency. And if my clients have some emergency, they know how to contact me through my phone or, you know, otherwise anyway, that doesn't really happen. But the person had written quite a stern email and sort of said something along the lines of, "Oh, you're really showing me how to over promise and under deliver."
And I kind of was offended by that and was like, "Wow. Okay." And I sort of put my boundaries up and was like, you know what? I don't need to work with somebody like this. If that's what they're gonna be like before we've even started, I don't need it. You know, we don't take on every client that we talk to. Some people are just not the right fit. I get a gut feel and we don't go forward with it. And that's something I've had to learn over time. I definitely took on some people that I had that gut feeling and just ignored it. Anyway, I saw that and thought that was super rude. You know, all these things, my beautiful VA at the time also said, "Oh, I didn't wanna say anything, but I actually also think that's a really rude email to get. " However, when I explained it, I contacted the person, gave them a full refund and said, thank you.”
But no, thank you. You know, we don't put up with that kind of treatment and we won't stand for it. I'm not gonna let you talk to my assistant like that either. So best of luck with your business. We're not the right people for you. And the person wrote back and said, I think you completely misinterpreted what I said and kind of, you know, backtracked and said, I really wanna work with you. And, you know, I've been told blah, blah, blah, blah, and you know, great referrals. And so it didn't change our situation. We had refunded the money. I had made that decision and stuck to it. However, it did make me think, did I just assume bad intent from the start or if I had read that and assumed good intent, what might the situation have been? And I, I don't know for sure if it had, if it actually would've been any better, but I know that sometimes I have definitely fallen prey into assuming negative intent by somebody.
And then when I get the full context, I'm like, oh, okay, that's actually not what they meant. And so it's been something that I've really been trying to practice for the last three years. I think I first kind of really considered this from a Mel Robbins, Instagram live or something she was doing. And if you're not following Mel Robbins, she has some great information, great books as well. So I remember listening to that and, and really thinking that is something that I need to practice more of. And so, like I said, for the last three years, when I have received something that I think is negative, firstly, I have tried to distance myself from it time wise. So I have literally, you know, thought “I'm not gonna reply to that email until tomorrow”, or “I'm not gonna reply to that text message until tomorrow.” Or “I'm gonna just give myself a little bit of breathing room” because I do know about myself that if I reply quickly, sometimes the emotion can be there instead of the rational mind.
So that's one thing. But the other thing is to really sit back and think if I was to assume good intent with this, what would that mean for the way that I'm reading this? Maybe somebody is, you know, rushing, maybe somebody is really busy right now. Maybe somebody is just not thinking and kind of just speaking out of turn. But, and again, reiterating as I did at the start that this is not something that you should assume good intent. If somebody's saying something that is genuinely offensive or just plain ignorant, and particularly when it comes to racism, sexism issues around gender and just ignorant, really, I'm not for a minute saying that. But what I am saying is when it comes to the smaller things in business where somebody sends an email or they, they comment, and they kind of question something, what might happen if we were to assume good intent rather than negative intent, what could that do for the relationship?
What could it do for us as the business owner receiving that information? You know, maybe it makes us more curious rather than angry or worked up or, you know, even where I know sometimes when I've received something, it's made me question myself or second guess. And so what would it do if I actually looked at it from a different lens, if I looked at it from a more positive lens, if I looked at it with the point of view that this person had good intent and you know, that that can come into all parts of our life, not just business, you know, if someone cuts you off in traffic or doesn't indicate or, and so we can, oh, there's such blah, blah, blah. But really maybe, maybe they're rushing. Maybe something has happened in their life. And they have just got a phone call to get to the hospital, or they have a phone call that, you know, somebody really needs them right now.
And what would happen if we shifted our mindset and kind of flipped the script from being annoyed, that they did X, Y, Z, to wondering and getting curious about what's going on for them today, that that had to happen, that they felt the need to do that. So that is it for today's quick tip episode, really asking yourself when it comes to nothing around like sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, nothing like that. But when it comes to other things that happen to us, are we assuming good or bad intent? And how I might, we flip the script and kind of state curious as to why something has come to us like that and what could it teach us? So that is it for the episode as always, the show notes will be available over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/169 as this is episode 169. Thank you so much for listening.
If you found this useful and think a friend would feel free to share it. And if you have two seconds, please leave a review. It just really, really helps us get found by other small business owners and people around the globe. And maybe this is exactly what they need to hear right now. Thanks for joining me. I'll see you next time. Bye.
