Why this matters:
We're conditioned to see mistakes as pure failure. But often, they're just unexpected detours to success.
Marketing expert Jay Baer accidentally sent an email to his list with the subject line [TEST] Please disregard. His "oops" resulted in his highest open rate ever because it was human and broke the pattern. The billion-dollar company Slack was born from the ashes of a failed video game, the internal chat tool they built to coordinate their failing project was the real innovation.
Mistakes can reveal what people actually want, show you a better path, or simply make you more relatable. They are not just errors; they are data.
How to find the value in your "oops":
Look for the lesson: Did your mistake reveal a flaw in a process that you can now fix for everyone?
Find the connection: Did it force you to have a conversation that actually strengthened a relationship?
Acknowledge the learning: What do you know now that you didn't know before? That knowledge has value.
The goal isn't to celebrate errors, but to get curious about them. Every mistake has a gift of information embedded inside if you're willing to look.
