What a concept: learning from your mistakes. This is something that everyone understands and for me it is how I get through life. John Wooden once said, “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.”
Mom said “don’t touch that stove” and I learnt what hot meant!
Dad said “be home by midnight” and I learnt what “you don’t want to know what the consequences are if you are late” meant!
What I am talking about is different than just learning from your mistakes. LEVERAGING your mistakes is what happens when your mistake turns into an opportunity. You see we all make mistakes but very few actually see the opportunity in them. Often when mistakes happen we can’t wait for it to be over and move on into a place of comfort. Let me encourage you when you find yourself making a mistake STOP – take a deep breath and embrace it, then ask yourself “what opportunity lives here?”
Just think about where the world would be if we did not have these “mistakes.”
Champagne
17th century monk, Dom Perignon, tried growing grapes that needed two seasons to ferment. The wine’s carbon dioxide bubbles horrified him, until he was later toasted for his efforts.
Super Glue
Dr Harry Coover was trying to isolate a clear plastic when he exposed it to moisture, which caused it to bond firmly together.
The Pacemaker
Wilson Greatbatch was working on a gadget that recorded irregular heartbeats when he mistakenly inserted the wrong resistor. It lead to world’s first pacemaker.
Vulcanized Rubber
When Charles Goodyear spilled India rubber and sulphur on a hot stove in 1843, he discovered flexible rubber. (What was he doing to spill sulphur and India rubber?)
Penicillin
Alexander Fleming left a culture out while he went on a holiday. It became contaminated by a fungus, which stopped the bacteria. He had discovered the first antibiotic, penicillin.
Dry Cleaning
Clumsy Baptiste Jolly of Paris spilled camphene onto his wife’s dress. Instead of ruining it, the dress was cleaned
Somewhere along the way these mistakes turned into opportunities.
That is what we must do in our own lives but also in the lives of those who we are coaching. Often because we are not in the middle of the disappointment or stress we see more clearly what opportunities are just ripe for revelation?
The thing that I love about leveraging mistakes is that it is a learned skill. First awareness and then questions.
Awareness that mistakes are the soil for growth and questions that are the seeds for opportunity.
Questions like: how could I share my experience with someone else?
Get out there and leverage you mistakes,