Sorry, do I know you?

When you last ran into Brad Pitt at a party, were you surprised he didn’t recognize you? I know, it upset me too.

Brad, as it turns out, may have a legitimate reason.

Now while it’s a more extreme condition to not remember people’s faces, it’s much more likely you’ll forget other minutiae.

As I was guiding my weekly accountability group to identify a few people they wanted to proactively reconnect with. One person came off mute and expressed their shame and frustration over their lack of communication with one of their best clients. For the life of them, they couldn’t figure out the name of the kid their client had a year ago.

When the exact same story came up again from a different person on a different group call, I could sense the universe was sending me this week’s topic.

I’m awful at remembering the details - reason #37 I build tools to help.

Have you ever failed to remember the details you “should” know? Don’t let it hold you back. Here are four things to try:

• I’ll state the obvious to get it out of the way - yes, there’s always social media. “Wow, Nancy is all grown up!”

• You might just have to admit that you are, in fact, a mortal like the rest of us, with imperfect memory.

• Then there’s the indirect approach to eke it out. Can you ask a mutual contact? One proposal was buying a monogrammed gift, and asking your client to confirm the exact spelling.

• If it’s that important, and all other options have been exhausted, there’s nothing wrong with just being honest and fessing up. I believe build will care more you care to know rather than being crabby that you don’t know.

And this time, write it down :-)

I believe in you,

-Zvi

BTW - one person rated last week’s post “Hot Garbage” - how do you feel about this weeks?