Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

If you drive a standard transmission, you likely remember the bucking bronco starts and stops of that first lesson. I simply froze. My leg instinctively slammed the brake pedal to the floor and locked it there. My brain refused to follow any signals I gave it to move.

That’s likely why I still remember words of my teacher and friend, Don Field… “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake,” he said. Then he added … “once you locate the clutch’s friction point you’ll be able to operate the gears properly.”

At that point, I rocked the car off the curb, and maneuvered into traffic with relative ease. Ok, it may not have looked smooth to an expert, but until I rocked off that curb, I had no idea of the car’s internal structure, which focused on one vibration point within the clutch.

Only after I felt the friction point just beneath the vibration under my foot, operation of the clutch followed quite naturally. Clutch in…shift into first … hold at friction point … ease off brake … allow three tire rotations … ease clutch out …  accelerate clutch in … and, shift into second. Then repeat the process with the clutch for third gear. It worked.

After years of driving cars with automatic transmissions, I finally learned to operate a standard shift, and in the process I learned how to convert mistakes into opportunities.

Have you noticed that mistakes offer us chances to begin again, and to understand far deeper ways. Many business leaders take courage from Abe Lincoln’s mistakes ... which must have overwhelmed even an optimist. In 1836 his business failed and he lost his re-nomination to Congress. In 1858 he lost a race for US senate. Failure after failure led to final victory, and an admission of mistakes that laid stepping stones to lasting success.

My standard shift fiasco, and Abe Lincoln's botched business deals– in an odd way – show that one’s response to errors determines how far ahead you will move beyond the thing that holds you back at first. Have you noticed that?

An admission of mistakes makes a person as real as the skin horse from Margery William’s Velveteen Rabbit. Human foppery presents a challenge … or even a contest of sorts … that intelligent people leap to overcome. Admitted errors, add the kind of hope that caused Lincoln to write …” I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come,”  just as hidden mistakes lead to Enron and worse.

Along the way I’ve found that the only mistakes that cripple and trip us, are the blunders from which nothing is learned. Hopefully these decrease as we age. What do you think?