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Every Mistake is a Chance to Learn

Chris Lowry

Oct 01, 2024

I made a mistake.

It happens more often than I like.

But internet lawyers jump on bandwagons with pitchforks to highlight the little error and ignore the message.

It’s easy to overlook a point when you’d rather find a reason to dismiss it.

Which is why there are so many internet experts with Facebook degrees who ignore the facts.

It doesn’t help when the facts seem to contradict each other.

Which can happen when you live in a bubble and surround yourself with people who look like you, act like you and think like you.

Another contradiction, I know.

The internet experts on being happy say do build a life that makes you happy, and eliminate most of the things that don’t.

What if surrounding yourself with people who look, act and think like you is what makes you happy?

I make a lot of mistakes.

I try to learn from them.

I try not to repeat them.

But sometimes I do, hoping for a different outcome.

Sometimes it works.

The thing about making a lot of mistakes is who I surround myself with.

People who don’t consider “getting it wrong” a catastrophe.

Who think, “getting it wrong” is just a way to learn how to get it right.

I’ve talked about baseball a lot.

How the kids who make it to the Show, make mistakes seven or eight at their times at bat.

That a guy who has a three out of ten average is headed to the hall of fame.

Michael Scott said it best with a Wayne Gretzky quote.

“You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Or MJ, the best basketball player of all time, missed more shots than he made.

Outside of sports, it’s easy to see it play out in hundreds of businesses.

They just don’t care.

Neither should you.

Not when you mess up.

Because if you learn something, it’s not an error.

When I lived in Florida, I decided to embrace my inner hippy and bike to work for a little while.

Florida drivers convinced me that was a mistake.

Sure, I was trying to save the environment and save a few bucks on gas, and get exercise.

Doesn’t that sound like all good things?

Other people did not want to share the road.

I made a mistake because my way of thinking was not there way of thinking.

I got bumped by cars, bruised, honked at, shot the bird, called bad words and what finally convinced me I was wrong and they were right, I was knocked off the road by a guy in a truck texting.

I’m glad it was a sideswipe and not a rear end fender bender.

One just put me tumbling in the grass.

The other would have bent my rear in a new direction.

It’s easy to blame the driver.

I do. All the time in traffic now.

But it was my mistake.

I tried to bend the world around me to my will, and tried to show people through my action how they could make the world a better place.

The problem is, a lot of people don’t want a better place.

They want the world, as it is, or as they remember it.

They want instant solutions to easy problems.

Which we don’t have.

But I want them too.

I think things like, “Want to lose weight? Then just eat less and walk more.”

That’s easier said than done.

I think, “Want to save more money? Don’t spend it.”

“Want to start your own business? Just do it. Make a Tik Tok channel and Youtube channel for free marketing and then focus on growth and product development.”

But those aren’t easy things to do.

Especially if you focus on the mistakes.

Especially if the world around you focuses on the mistakes you make.

The hardest part is learning to ignore all the voices yelling at you to fail, at you for failing, and focusing instead on how to keep succeeding.

I might do a September wrap up tomorrow.

Until then;

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