I just want to start off by saying THANK YOU!

The fact that you care (I mean, hopefully, that’s the case) enough to open this, and not simply delete it along with the rest of the junk that saturates our inboxes daily, really does mean a lot to me.

This week has been one of the hardest weeks in the history of my professional career.

As a direct result of ME FAILING to identify an unlikely, but still possible risk with one of my companies reporting processes, a staff member, who just happens to be human, made an error that resulted in what I have to think to be the “biggest crisis in the history of the meal prep industry”.

No, we did not kill anyone, nor did anyone sick, thank God.

If you can, picture a spreadsheet with hundreds of names on it numbered 1-999.  Somehow the name for “1” , shifted down to the information for #2, and so on, resulting in literally, hundreds of Florida clients receiving the orders of someone else.

The direct result varied from clients receiving 15+ more meals than what they ordered and paid for, to clients being shorted 3-15 meals of what they not only paid for, but were relying on us to provide them to help them stay on track with their goals, respectively.

The people we gave too much food to obviously were not a concern, and to make myself feel better, I’m looking at that kind of as a $21,000 donation to the home team! 🙂 I even was tagged and came across a couple people’s posts on social media, where they posted about getting a ton of extra meals and were paying it forward and offering to give them out to friends! Honestly, that was pretty cool and put a smile on my face when I didn’t have a whole lot to smile about!

The couple hundred people who were shorted meals, on the other hand, that’s a different story.  It physically made me sick knowing I had dropped the ball and failed to deliver on my personal obligations.  So I decided to do something that I wasn’t even certain was physically or logistically possible…
For 72 hours straight I worked coordinating, strategizing, and implementing a plan of attack, to where we re-made thousands of dollars of product, and subsequently re-delivered it throughout the entire state of Florida, on a day mind you, where we don’t ever do deliveries, or have staff available to do them!

I have spent at least 25 hours this week reaching out to clients by making personal phone calls, sending emails, and replying to Facebook and Instagram messages. I even had a guy who thought he needed to inform me he received 8 meals too many via my LinkedIn account! Thanks again my man, your honesty is appreciated, enjoy! Lol
I’m proud to say that my team somehow turned water into wine, and pulled off what in my eyes is a huge win, by successfully re-delivering every single order that was completely jacked up, and over compensated the individuals impacted by providing them some additional complimentary items.

The response we have received from our clients regarding the handling of this situation has been truly humbling, and I appreciate everyone who took the time to thank us for fixing these errors.  It’s awkward and uncomfortable for me to be thanked so passionately for simply doing the right thing, but it means the world to me nonetheless!
Of course, there are a few people who’s trust we have lost, and despite us trying our best to make it right, for any number of reasons that I understand and agree with, feel as if we are no longer a good fit for their needs.  It hurts my feelings profoundly to know I failed those individuals, but I’ve listened and documented every word and concern they’ve expressed, and will use it to grow. So thank you for that.

Needless to say, this week has been hard…so such is the case in life sometimes…
I don’t want or expect anyone to have sympathy, as I brought this on myself. That’s the reality.  I don’t need anyone to take into consideration the fact that maybe their email regarding their 3 missing breakfast items wasn’t responded to within minutes because we were operating in crisis mode, because none of that matters, and is simply an excuse.  It may have the advantage of being true, but it’s an excuse all the same.
I decided to send this message to the tens of thousands of people on my email list, and NOT just the clients of my company who may or may not have even been affected.

It is my intention to work proactively to raise awareness within society of the critical importance of accepting personal responsibility for your life!

Right now everything that’s happening to you is happening because of you. I cannot stress that enough.  We are all so quick to soak up all the credit when we do something good, so we better be just as fast about owning our mistakes and accepting responsibility if things go the other way…And they will, as I’ve clearly demonstrated through my actions this week, or lack of in this case.  Save the energy you would otherwise use up making excuses, blaming everything except the actual problem, (which is usually ourselves) and invest it into coming up with a solution to said problem!

Finally, and seriously, if you made it this far I can’t even describe here how grateful I am…Thank you again so much!!!

As hard as this may be to believe, I am so thankful for this learning experience.  Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to move forward, and this lesson has been and will continue to be invaluable!  This is often the case with failures and tragedy…

But it’s not until we can permanently adjust our perspectives and thought process that we will be ready to accept these experiences for what they truly are…
A gift from the universe…

Thank you again.  Please feel free to email me direct if there’s something I can do for you.