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Mistakes and fuck ups happen, spend less time focusing on them and what you do next.

Slightly different style of post here today, why? Because for the first time since April when I launched the Technician’s MBA I missed a post. This isn’t an apology post, I’m not going to break out the ukulele.

For the past 6 weeks or so I have had to rely on TL;DRs for content, just because of workload and my creative focus having to go into these projects. I have TL;DRs ready to go, I just forgot to finish, link, and schedule it.

Not to sound too LinkedInfluencer about this with a “Here’s what it taught me”, but for those who sweat mistakes happening; you really shouldn’t and here’s why.

Mistakes often happen when you are doing something you are unfamiliar with and trying to grow. Mistakes and Accidents are a part of the learning process.

Mistakes happen, get over yourself.

If you think that you are special and you will never make a mistake, get over yourself. If you think it is the worst mistake ever to have happened ever –even if you’re the person from Crowdstrike who pushed buggy code to production – it may feel like the biggest mistake in the world ever, but someone will have messed up more; and someone will mess up worse in the future.

It may feel mortifying and embarrassing, but in this age of social media unless you are an influencer or you have done something monumentally terrible, nobody cares; everyone is too focused on their own life to care about a mistake in yours. Chances are your mistake doesn’t fall into that.

If you’re afraid of mistakes, you won’t take risks, and you won’t grow.

There’s a saying in my family, which tells you we don’t work in EMS or anything directly dealing with people, “Nobody’s going to die”. Chances are, although it might feel like the biggest thing in the world, it’s not. Yes, it’s important to you, which makes it important; but chances are if it goes wrong, nobody is going to die. You might be embarrassed, but we learn, we adapt, we grow.

The point is simple; if you go through life afraid of making mistakes or failing, you won’t do something. Silly example, I have baked with my Mum for as long as I can remember; she is scared of making bread. Loves cinnamon rolls, would love to try making them; scared of killing the yeast, so doesn’t do it. Now I said “nobody is going to die”, and not to get the Yeast Lives Matter crowd on me, but its still true. If you kill the yeast, ah well make another batch and don’t replicate what you did next time.

Learn from mistakes, and move on.

When I mentor people, occasionally they ask; “How do you know this?”, and I have a simple answer.

I’ve been doing this longer, which means I’ve fucked up more than you have. The thing is I have learned from it, and know the ways in which I can reduce the risk of fucking up again.

Life, business, everything is a series of learning opportunities. The key thing is that you learn from them. If you don’t learn from them, or keep repeating the same mistakes then that’s where we encounter problems; but making mistakes is part of life, those who claim otherwise or shout because they expect perfection are arseholes.

If you penalise mistakes, stop it.

If you are the person who screams, shouts, and penalises mistakes; do me a favour, STOP IT! You are the problem, you are the reason your team is slow, you are a bad manager/leader/mentor. Mistakes suck, yeah. Mistakes take time to resolve, yeah. Mistakes are because you are trying new things, if mistakes get repeated, OK that’s an issue; but still you fix the problem that the person isn’t learning from their mistakes.

Linkin Park was right.

In the end, it doesn’t even matter. Make mistakes, but learn from them.

• If you are in an environment that punishes first time mistakes, leave that environment.

• If you are the person who punishes first time mistakes, I want to shake you and tell you how much a c*nt you are; stop it.

• If you keep making the same mistakes over and over; stop, pause, learn, adapt – don’t keep touching the stove thinking it’s not going to be hot!

So yeah, I missed a post yesterday. It was annoying, as it broke my perfection streak in my own head… If you are expecting perfection from me and this substack; OK, sorry, not going to happen. Life happens, stuff happens, I will always do my best to post every Wednesday, and since April I have missed once so it’s not a frequent thing; but if I don’t then I apologise in advance, something came up.

This Substack is important to me, and I want it to grow and succeed and thrive. Other things are important too though, and sometimes they need to take priority.

Grand. Thanks for your time.