“The greatest of faults, is to be conscious of none.” -Thomas Carlyle

Everyday is filled with opportunities to have a positive impact on someone’s life. However, life can become so busy, so fast paced, and so pressured, we often miss these opportunities. We rarely take the time to slow down, to think about our behaviors, and to see if we are acting in alignment with the person we hope to be. In my efforts to become more self-aware, I’ve found the three steps below to be helpful.

STOP: Take a 5-minute break and find a place where you will be uninterrupted.

REPLAY: Replay an interaction you had that day. What words did you use? What signals did your body language send? Were your words and actions aligned with the person you want to be?

REDO: Make it right. If you messed up (which can often be the case!), fix it. Have another conversation. Be transparent. Apologize. And show up in an intentional way.

I saw this best modeled by my dad on a visit to one of our distribution yards. Dad had a conversation with one of our associates about how the site was performing and how his family was doing. I’d seen him have this same conversation a million times.

As we left, I could tell he was deep in thought. I asked what he was thinking about and he responded, “I really missed an opportunity back there. That operator is one of four people at this new site. What if I had told him that because of his commitment, hard work, and performance, we as a company have been able to enter a new market, gain market share, and service a new pool of clients. That we’ve been able to add millions to our revenue numbers because of him. That he is having a profound impact on this entire company. What kind of impact would that have had on him?”

Dad quickly picked up his phone and called the associate to “redo” his conversation. After sharing with the associate what we had just discussed, the associate broke down in tears saying, “I’ve been operating equipment over 25 years for multiple companies and today was the first time I’ve ever met one of the presidents. For you to then call and tell me that I’m making a difference in this company means the world to me. I will remember this call for the rest of my life. Thank you.”

Opportunities such as this one present themselves everyday, but will go untouched if we do not make a conscious choice to stop, replay, and redo.