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By: Ben DeGeorge
I screwed up. Big time. I missed out on an incredible opportunity, all because I made a no-brainer error. It is hard for me to admit this, especially to a large audience of readers through this newsletter.
Admittedly, I am very hard on myself at all times. Yes, my hair is graying a little at the ripe age of 21. But, no worries -- They have treatment for that! Plus, gray hair is sexy, right?
I was supposed to meet someone on Sunday at the Rochester public library to pick up a bunch of used books. These books would then have been sent to Ghana, Africa as part of a Sister City Program I am involved in. Earlier in the month a friend contacted me to let me know that there was going to be this book sale at the library. We agreed that we would meet at the book sale and take the extra books that the library was going to discard for our project. Somehow, I forgot about it. Perhaps my inner Ben thought only a few books would be ready to be collected and so he misplaced the event in his brain.
It turns out that there were thousands of books at the end of the sale ready to be grabbed! But this did not matter, because I was not there to grab them! The books ended up in the trash a few hours later.
We could have filled our whole Ghana bound container with the books at this library and put a cap on a project that has hounded us for months. This would have also saved thousands of books from the dump.
I lost the opportunity to finish up this project, but more importantly I lost credibility with the person who set up the meeting.
I took action after all the dust had settled to fix this situation as best as I could, but it was still not enough. I lost a lot of valuable ground. I certainly won’t make that kind of mistake again!
How many times have you messed up in a situation like this?
Be truthful here. You have messed up a lot!
They say, you either win or you learn. What they don’t say is how much you learn... that is entirely determined by your desire to improve!
You have probably heard the word “Kaizen” used before. It means living a lifestyle of constant advancement in all areas of your life including; Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Material Wealth, Education and Abilities. People who adhere to this philosophy take a look at the situation like the one I outlined above and define all of the things that they learned and determine not to repeat them again. They do not become depressed by the mistake, they become motivated.
That is exactly why I have told you this story. I am embarrassed by it and do not want to ever repeat anything like it again. Most people are afraid to share their failures with others. Those who do great things overcome their fear of admitting failures and are able to move on faster. The minute you objectively define and share a failure and its lessons with others, you are on your road to never repeating it again.
You should do this with any mistake that you make. Tell people about it, write about it and talk about its solution. You will never repeat it again.
Mistakes are better educational opportunities than enrolling in a college class or reading a text book.
Admittedly, I am very hard on myself at all times. Yes, my hair is graying a little at the ripe age of 21. But, no worries -- They have treatment for that! Plus, gray hair is sexy, right?
I was supposed to meet someone on Sunday at the Rochester public library to pick up a bunch of used books. These books would then have been sent to Ghana, Africa as part of a Sister City Program I am involved in. Earlier in the month a friend contacted me to let me know that there was going to be this book sale at the library. We agreed that we would meet at the book sale and take the extra books that the library was going to discard for our project. Somehow, I forgot about it. Perhaps my inner Ben thought only a few books would be ready to be collected and so he misplaced the event in his brain.
It turns out that there were thousands of books at the end of the sale ready to be grabbed! But this did not matter, because I was not there to grab them! The books ended up in the trash a few hours later.
We could have filled our whole Ghana bound container with the books at this library and put a cap on a project that has hounded us for months. This would have also saved thousands of books from the dump.
I lost the opportunity to finish up this project, but more importantly I lost credibility with the person who set up the meeting.
I took action after all the dust had settled to fix this situation as best as I could, but it was still not enough. I lost a lot of valuable ground. I certainly won’t make that kind of mistake again!
How many times have you messed up in a situation like this?
Be truthful here. You have messed up a lot!
They say, you either win or you learn. What they don’t say is how much you learn... that is entirely determined by your desire to improve!
You have probably heard the word “Kaizen” used before. It means living a lifestyle of constant advancement in all areas of your life including; Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Material Wealth, Education and Abilities. People who adhere to this philosophy take a look at the situation like the one I outlined above and define all of the things that they learned and determine not to repeat them again. They do not become depressed by the mistake, they become motivated.
That is exactly why I have told you this story. I am embarrassed by it and do not want to ever repeat anything like it again. Most people are afraid to share their failures with others. Those who do great things overcome their fear of admitting failures and are able to move on faster. The minute you objectively define and share a failure and its lessons with others, you are on your road to never repeating it again.
You should do this with any mistake that you make. Tell people about it, write about it and talk about its solution. You will never repeat it again.
Mistakes are better educational opportunities than enrolling in a college class or reading a text book.
