Use mistakes to build a ladder to the stars

A colleague recently admitted to me that she had made a small mistake in dealing with an important customer. I just smiled and shrugged: "Welcome to the my world!"

I have done many things right in life and I have made hundreds and thousands of mistakes. We all do. Somehow, though, it is curious how we tend to remember our mistakes longer than our successes. The fact is that we often learn more from our mistakes than from our successes, and so our mistakes tend to become our most important investments in many cases.

A lot of the time we fear make a mistake so much that we don't even bother trying. And so the ships of our dreams are sunk before we've even left the harbour. Not by the storms of life and the icebergs of unforeseen disaster, but by the slow yet certain decay of shipworm, mildew and woodrot.

In my case, I have always said that my mistakes have been like rungs in a ladder. Afterwards, by standing on each of them, I was able to climb just a little bit higher. And so, by nailing my mistakes between the paralleled beams of our lives we can climb right up to the stars in time.

There is just one very important provision - the ladder of our mistakes must always be used for climbing up - not down!

Yesterday we were speaking about the mistakes we have made in business. Being in the field of future technology, it goes without saying that we also sometimes make mistakes. New discoveries are never made without breaking a few test tubes, burning out some fuses, or perhaps setting your coat on fire. And occasionally it creates embarrassment with a customer. However, there are customers who realize this and work through growth phases as a team.

We have a list of these customers and have found that invariably they become counted among our friends. When a customer has become a friend, he becomes a partner. And partners are loyal beyond the ordinary. This is what separates ordinary suppliers from the extraordinary - the ability to turn customers into partners. Making some mistakes along the way is just the price of a purchasing new friendships.

"A man's errors are the portals of his discovery." - James Joyce (novelist)

Mistakes should ideally be kept as small as possible - Some mistakes can be rungs in the ladder to the stars. But others can be a trapdoor to a dungeon of doom.