Years ago, I worked at a law firm that wasn’t a good fit for me. While I was there, I introduced a financial advisor to the firm’s most successful partner, who had a thriving tax certiorari practice. The partner hired him, and I also referred one of my defined benefit plan clients to the advisor. It was a relationship that benefited everyone.
After I left the firm, I later learned the advisor had asked the partner why I was gone. The partner—who, ironically, lives in the same village I do—described me as a “loose cannon.” Based on that one conversation, the advisor instructed his staff to stop working with me.
He never called me.
He never asked for my side of the story.
He simply accepted one person’s version of events and acted on it.
Life has a funny way of playing out. Not long afterward, the advisor lost the very defined benefit client I had referred to him when one of his advisors left for another brokerage firm and took the relationship along.
I’m not telling this story because I’m bitter. That was a long time ago. I’m telling it because it taught me one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in both life and business.
There are always two sides to a story.
I’ve learned that the hard way.
It’s why I stay out of disputes that don’t involve me. If two memorabilia dealers are feuding, I have no interest in picking a side. I tell my son the same thing. You rarely know the whole story, and once you insert yourself into someone else’s conflict, you’ve made it your conflict too.
I’ve seen friendships ruined, business relationships destroyed, and reputations damaged because people were too quick to believe the first version they heard. Sometimes the truth is somewhere in the middle. Sometimes it’s completely different from what you’ve been told.
One of the best pieces of business advice I can give is this: don’t become a judge in a case where you haven’t heard all the evidence.
Stay out of other people’s battles unless you have a compelling reason to be involved. You’ll save yourself a lot of unnecessary grief.
That’s a lesson I wish I had learned earlier.