Profiting from Mistakes

by Ken Matesz

“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.”

Richard Bach

“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”

John C. Maxwell

What is a mistake?

The word “mistake” is actually a modified form of the word “take.” You’ve heard of a misconception, a misunderstanding, a mischaracterization, misbehavior, mistrust, and so on. “Mistake” is a word just like that.

The prefix “mis” serves to negate the word that follows.  To mistrust means you do not trust and to misunderstand means you do not understand.

To mis-take means that you did not succeed at the “take.” “Take,” in this sense, is like the kind of “take” a movie director makes. He might say the first shooting of a scene is the first take of the scene. So the “take” is the performance or the act. To mis-take means you were unsuccessful at the act.

That is a roundabout way of saying just what everyone knows: A mistake is when you fail to do something the way you intended.

It is certain that, if you are doing things, you will occasionally make mistakes.

I recently read about plane crashes. Plane crashes themselves are very serious mistakes. But, I learned that, usually, the crash was preceded by about seven minor mistakes, none of which, by themselves, would cause a crash. But when they all happen together, in succession, a crash is virtually inevitable. And this happens with professional pilots who have flown the same type of aircraft for thousands of hours and have flown to or from the area of the crash many, many times.

There’s a bumper sticker that says, “Shit happens.” That may be true; but mistakes are made. That is the message of the facts about plane crashes.

Admit, Profit, Correct

As John C. Maxwell said, there are three important things to do with mistakes once they are made. First you have to admit that you did it. You cannot achieve the other two without first being big enough to admit you have made a mistake. Being big enough means you have the ability and discipline to know you can handle what you have created – the mistake.

When it comes to building or making things, you really do need to learn to profit from your mistakes. Profiting from the mistake means making use of it to improve your proficiency, your efficiency and your competency. To profit from a mistake in this way, you need to do just what they do when studying plane crashes. You need to look back at the events and decisions you made leading up to the mistake to see what little mistakes led to the big one.

Here’s a simple example: Suppose you were taken on as a helper to someone building a house. You’ve been asked to rip a piece of wood on a table saw you have never used before. You were given measurements. You set the guide on the table saw according to the scale fastened to the saw and proceed to cut. Afterward, you check the width of the board you ripped and it’s 1/8” wider than it should be. Your cut is now inaccurate by 1/8”. Unacceptable.

Now, you could just complain about the saw and blame it for your mistake. But the fact is that it is you who needs to cut the wood accurately. If you don’t admit you made a mistake, you will do this again. You could waste a lot of material and time.

Once you admit it, you can profit the rest of the project by looking back at the decisions leading to the big mistake – the miscut. Your decision was to trust the scale on the table saw. That was the first little mistake leading to the big mistake.

Recutting one piece of wood is not a major task; but by doing the simple study of why you made that mistake, you can avoid that event the rest of your career. The next time you operate an unfamiliar saw, you can try a scrap piece of wood first, or ignore the table and use the blade as a guide, or you can check and move the scale, or, or, or. . . . . Just do something different!

You will remember that blade guides can be wrong and there are ways to discover that without ruining material.
Miscutting a piece of wood is a relatively inconsequential mistake if it happens just a few times in a project. But there can be much more significant mistakes that can be very costly.

Once I made the mistake of leaving the protective cardboard off a piece of granite as I started working on other things. I consciously decided I didn’t need to cover it because I was not working in that area anyway. Three additional little mistakes later and I had a small divot in the granite. I know what all four of the little mistakes were that led to a chip out of the granite – and it will never happen again. (At least, it will never happen by those same mistakes again!).

I corrected my mistake by hiring a specialist to fix the granite so I could keep my work on schedule. The customer never knew there had been damage. It became a successful project for which I was well paid. The mistake reduced my monetary profit on the job, but I realized a great profit that is only measured by my integrity and future craftsmanship. All my future jobs were improved immeasurably by my examination of that mistake.

Treat your mistakes with the respect they deserve. Admit them, profit from them, and correct them.

You will be well rewarded for this effort.

Ken