Leda Writes for Fintech Futures: mistakes and how to avoid avoiding them

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, 11:FS Chief of Staff creates #LedaWrites. This week she turns her attention to why mistakes are wonderful things.

Most of my pieces start from a place of anger, frustration or hurt. That is no secret. But I actually make a conscious and concerted effort to end, somehow, in a place that is, if not positive, then at least actionable.

If you moan and bitch about something, you do something about it.

I make mistakes. And that includes monumental f**k-ups, slight errors of judgment, or things that transpired in spite of my plans and efforts.

I embrace mistakes.

That’s how I do most of my accelerated learning, mighty leaping and unbridled dreaming.

By accident.

In my personal and professional life, it’s when I found myself with my back to the wall, sad, tired and entirely invested in the wrong course of action that I did my best footwork. You f**k up, or get blind sided by life, you have two choices. Stop. Or do different.

So I did different.

Again and again and again and again.

I make mistakes, I don’t know better, it’s a thing. It’s a superpower.

I am 41 and I have made more mistakes than not. I expect that to remain the case.

My mistakes is when I did a lot of my learning, my growing and that’s where every single one – and I mean every single one – of my successes came from. Not the plan. Not the confidence or positivity.

But the hurty, dark place of knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have made a mistake. Or the slightly disorienting place where you realise that while you’ve been toiling over here, the good stuff happened by itself over there. So you have a choice to become entrenched on walk on over to where the magic happens.

At 41, I am counting on those mistakes these days.

Amazing discovery comes out of them. Amazing humanity comes out of them.

But above all else, some serious humility comes out of them.

Because, having f***ed up more than not, I have learned two things: I don’t know better.

Listening to others, asking for help, checking myself, working hard to earn the right to continue working hard are the only way to avoid, mitigate or correct the inevitable errors of judgment or omissions. At work, if not at home.

And the second thing I have learned is that, mistakes, provided you don’t become entrenched by ego, blinded by sadness or paralysed by a feeling of inadequacy, if you actually accept mistakes as part of life, then mistakes are a gift. A disorienting, tiring, painful, often humiliating gift. But a gift nonetheless.

So whatever you do, don’t avoid them. And only ever regret them if that’s where you stopped.

As I said, I make mistakes. You go right ahead and make yours.

Read the whole story at Fintech Futures.