Comments on: Allow yourself to make mistakes. Very, very publicly.

By: Jonathan Turner

Jonathan Turner — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:14:00 +0000

Try your philosophy in say a medical setting or perhaps a military one. On second thoughts, maybe your gun could do with a clean?

By: 303 Insanely Interesting Links From 2007 -- Jarkko Laine - Insanely interested

303 Insanely Interesting Links From 2007 -- Jarkko Laine - Insanely interested — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:37:48 +0000

[...] Allow yourself to make mistakes. Very, very publicly., Chief Happiness Officer [...]

By: Alexander

Alexander — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 05:48:17 +0000

And here’s a funny update.

Yesterday, I was working on my Danish newsletter which goes out to 1500 people and while I was writing a very early draft version, I accidentally hit Send instead of Save.

Aaaaargh! That was failing VERY publicly.

All I could do was finish the newsletter quickly and then send out the finished version with an explanation and an apology :o)

By: Charlie

Charlie — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:49:42 +0000

I may not be thrilled to make mistakes, but I do accept it every time it comes my way. It has offered me a lot of lessons and made me a better person.

By: Howie

Howie — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:59:15 +0000

True. We shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes. I believe that mistakes are our way of learning. We should learn to accept them in a good way by learning our lessons.

By: » Make Mistakes… In Public!? Self improvement blog focused on better living in today's technology-centric workplace, Modern Worker

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:08:15 +0000

[...] Kjerulf aka Chief Happiness Officer recommends we make mistakes in public. Is he crazy? No! Alex brings up the point (a great one) that we need to allow ourselves to make [...]

By: Simon Wilson

Simon Wilson — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:40:59 +0000

Well having jumped horses and windsurfed in the past I can say that you only ever learn to do something properly from making mistakes. My early windsurfing endeavours sound a bit like your wakeboarding, it was on a old quarry lake and for 2 hours I sat stranded at the far end of the lake. But I was too focused to paddle back and kept trying, kept falling off, but I sailed that board back to where I wanted to be!

By: Ask M

Ask M — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:04:35 +0000

I had a client on the phone on one occasion and we were looking through his accounts. I suddenly realised I’d made a mistake.

“Tim, I’m an idiot”, I said, and explained what I’d done, and promised to put his accounts right, and apologised.

“Don’t worry” said the client. “I’d never get angry with someone who makes a mistake and owns up to it”.

Everyone’s only human – we’re all going to make a bodge at some point. As Darrick says, it’s far better to admit you’ve boobed and put it right, than to shoot a load of spin at the client – I’d have much more respect for politicians if they admitted it when they made mistakes.

By: Jean Browman--Cheerful Monk

Jean Browman--Cheerful Monk — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:18:22 +0000

Great story, thanks.

It reminds me of Strunk and White’s classic, Elements of Style. Apparently Strunk once told his students, “If you can’t pronounce a word, say it loud!” White was in the class and said he always regarded it as good advice: “Why compound ignorance with inaudibility. Why run and hide?”

Why, indeed.

I loved Peter’s quote, too.

My latest post at cheerfulmonk is entitled, “We Don’t Have to Be Perfect.” Even if you don’t read the words, you might like the picture.

By: Mike Wagner

Mike Wagner — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:25:41 +0000

Alex, very happy to see you check out Christine’s blog and music. You are absolutely dead-on when you say, “lemmetellya, the lady can write”.

Your observation about public failure reminds me of a day where I found a colleague walking his bike through a residential neighborhood. I stopped the car and asked why.

He said he had just wiped out and had hurt his leg. I offered him a lift and we threw his bike in the trunk of the car.

Afterwards as we visited about the event he asked me if I had seen his accident. I said, “no”.

He then told me his first instinct after falling was to get up as fast as he could and look around to see if anyone had happened to notice.

We both felt there was a lesson in this about failure and the instinct to recoil from any public awareness regarding our mistakes.

Thanks for enlarging the conversation about failure!

Keep creating,
Mike