when you learn and take action*
on the lesson it teaches you.
*A mistake is an action that didn’t work out. It is not an intention. Therefore, to truly counteract, compensate and correct the mistake that happened in your life (and the part of your brain that made it), you need to not just learn a lesson, but actually take action on it.
According to Jason Calacanis: “The time and money lost in making a mistake— and then recognizing it quickly, doing damage control, correcting your direction and learning from it so you don’t do it again—will still be less than a decision, being stuck in committee and frittering away revenue from the missed opportunity that staying stuck there causes.”
Calacanis should know. According to Wired magazine: “He was the king - and kingmaker - of New York's Silicon Alley, a new media cheerleader turned media mogul. Then the bubble burst. But, baby, he's back.” Calacanis knows about mistakes, but knows even more about learning from them and taking corrective action and turning them into opportunity. From 1996 – 2001 he started and grew the Silicon Alley Reporter from a 16 page photocopied newsletter into a 300 page magazine that spawned a West coast sister publication, Digital Coast Reporter, before the boom went bust. In 2001 he morphed his publication into Venture Reporter which he sold to Wicks Business Publications (it eventually ended up in Dow Jones & Company). He says he went from anybody to somebody to nobody in five years. But rather than hiding his head as many other dot com entrepreneurs he turned his vision and in-your-face aggression to blogging and founded Weblogs and went from conception to a $25million buy out by AOL in 18 months.
© 2006 Mark Goulston
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