When I was a little girl, probably around four years old, one of my favorite things to play with was a set of ceramic salt and pepper shakers. One was a boy duck and one was a girl duck…a drake and a hen? What’s a female duck called? Anyway, that’s not important. I loved playing with them. They belonged to my great grandmother who lived with us when I was little.

One day when I was playing with the ducks, something went terribly wrong and one of them was decapitated. I was so upset and scared. I was told time and time again to be careful not to break them and here I’d gone and broken one. I’m sure these weren’t very valuable salt and pepper shakers now, but then, they were as precious as gold to me. And I was terrified that my grandmother would be mad at me for breaking one. I remember I wasn’t even really supposed to be playing with them. I’m sure that was to protect me from cutting myself on a sharp edge - I know that now because I’m a mom.

So in my little four year old mind, I hid the broken duck so nobody would know what happened. I covered up my crime. And it was eating away at me.

Of course because grown ups seem to know everything when you’re four, someone discovered that the duck had been broken.

From here, the details are fuzzy, but that was almost 25 years ago.

What I do remember was that my mother told me that I had to tell Nanny what happened. I remember I was crying when I went in to her room to deliver the bad news. I told her what happened. Spilled my guts to her.

She’s gone now, but Nanny, do you know what an important lesson you taught me that day?

She wiped my tears and told me that no matter what, it’s always best to just tell the truth. She wasn’t angry or even upset with me. That was the most important part of the lesson. I told her the truth and she gave me some bubble gum. She rewarded me for telling the truth.

In my adult life, I just don’t lie. I don’t fudge the truth. When I mess up I fess up.

What does this have to do with my virtual assistance business, or any business? Everything!

If I make a mistake - er…when I make a mistake with my clients’ work (which rarely happens by the way, but nobody’s perfect) I don’t try to create a story to cover it up. I believe that you must be honest. Your clients will think much more of you for it.

My own associates are very quick to tell me if a project I’ve asked them to do would be done better by someone else. I appreciate that so much. Rather than trying to muddle through it and eat up hours of my time, they are honest and up front so I can find the right person to do the job.

When you make a mistake will the world end? In most cases, no. It might feel like it at the time. But what feels worse than getting caught in a lie? What does that do to your integrity as a business owner?

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