Niko Papademetriou

It's way too late, right?

If I were to change that now, it would look like we were baiting and switching or it would look terrible.

And I said, I agree.

It will look terrible, but it's the truth.

It's my fault.

And I'm going to talk to this person about it.

I'm going to talk to the team about it.

And so I did.

And to their credit, they understood they weren't happy.

You don't have to be happy when you understand things, but they completely understood why it was so important that we brought this different framework into the contract that we were working on.

And it was way late in the game and it added weeks to the negotiation.

But guess what?

We aligned on something that worked for both parties.

And we shook hands and we both signed on a contract together.

And we have a great relationship with that brand today and have for many years.

And that thing that seems so incredibly difficult in the moment because of just a sheer oversight mistake was rectified in the grand scheme of things very quickly and with very little overall pain, all because of honesty and transparency.

And bringing that full circle back to my 12-year-old,

If I'm a thoughtless jerk because, hey, I'm human and I make mistakes, I'm going to say, hey, man, sorry about that.

I totally messed up on that.

I apologize.