Embrace The Mistake

What is the difference between a problem and a mistake?  Problems are for solving.  Mistakes…  Well, mistakes are what make the world go around.  Without mistakes the world would not be what it is today.  The invention of gun powder was a mistake by a Chinese Alchemist who was searching for an elixir for immortality. The discovery of penicillin was a mistake.  Andrew Fleming noticed a Petri dish containing Staphylococcus that had been mistakenly left open, was contaminated by blue-green mold from an open window.  Some mistakes are so big that they change world.  Scientific theory has it that some 4.5 billion years ago a Mars size planet collided with a still lifeless Earth creating our Moon and setting the stage for the eventual rise of intelligent  life on the face of the planet.  Our mistakes are what make us who we are.  Without them what would shape our lives?  Isn’t evolution based on trial and error?  If we never veered off course we would never make the mistakes that would evolve our world.  Yes, some mistakes are fatal, but the long-term outcome makes the collective stronger. 

So the next time you find a mistake in your work or in the work of a colleague, pull back – don’t react.  Instead embrace the mistake and learn from it.  Don’t let the mistake define you.  No, let the way you handle and cope with outcome define you.  A wise man once said, “It is not our mistakes that define who we are; it is how we recover from those mistakes.”  Personally some of my biggest mistakes have turned out to be my greatest moments as I overcame the challenges associated with resulting fallout.  Mistakes will happen and problems will be solved, but as long as we learn and evolve we will continue to move forward.