The Wrong Lessons
Recently I had an interaction with an author of a book from one of the courses I was taking for my doctorate at Pepperdine. While reading the book, I ran across a couple of typos that made it difficult to understand what the author was trying to communicate. I don’t usually say anything when I come across typos when it’s a missed period or misspelled word, but in this case the typos actually made the content difficult to understand or comprehend. Given the impact, I thought I’d try to let the author know so that he could take the appropriate action as I didn’t have any direct contact information with the publisher.
Here is my email from the form I had to fill out on his website. (You’ll notice I tried to use a bit of light-hearted approach, kind of poking fun at myself, knowing that writing a book is a labor of love and perhaps a different approach would have worked better. That is my mistake in this interaction and I’m happy and willing to own it.):
Here is his response, and yes, this is the entire email; no reference to my name nor a signature or “regards” at the end:
My first response was…well never mind what my first response was. Let’s just say it was a good thing I didn’t write it down.
As I stepped back from the email, I started to have some serious epiphany magic start going on, and I knew I had to capture the wrong lessons that I learned from this “guru’s” response and (what I would argue was) highly ill-timed advice. So my next several blog posts will talk about those wrong lessons and some important takeaways I relearned as a result of this interaction with this consulting guru.
Here’s a little lesson preview:
- Typos Matter & The Difference of One Degree
- Advice: Easy to Give, Hard to Live By
- Responsibility or Pass the Buck
- Feedback is a Gift
- How to Make a Small Problem Get Bigger
- Leaders Versus Consultants
Thoughts on Life & Leadership 
Lookin’ for ward to you’re insites. (You are a gifted & insightful writer/thinker.)