NSI & DOOD Radio discusses

Overcome mistakes and errors or poor judgement

 

Errors or poor Judgement

 

Errors or poor judgment are an issue for all people.  I am talking about mistakes that can severely alter your path and your ability to create success.  Sometimes errors or poor judgment can turn your public image from positive into a negative one, not to mention what it can do to you emotionally.  Major mistakes often affect your life and the lives of others.  We have all heard people speaking about mistakes as learning lessons.   I believe that it is true, and we can learn from our mistakes.  However, the experience can be a painful lesson and one which is not easily forgotten.  Errors or poor judgment have a way of hanging around in the back of your mind for the rest of your life.  It is not a laughing matter because it can damage your self-confidence and feeling of self-worth.   The ability to rise from this kind of  disaster or crisis created when mistakes are made is what separates winners from losers.  If you are able to get back on your feet and take the first step to get back on track, recovery will come easily.  You will absorb the emotional disruption and hurt you experience after a mistake.   If you move forward with a positive attitude and create a new success, at that point,  you will be comfortable with yourself and grow stronger after reviewing your errors.  We are humans and errors are part of life.

  Mistakes can be devastating

While many errors in judgment are minor and easily forgotten, the ones you remember are undoubtedly devastating.  I am not talking about forgetting to fill your gas tank before driving a distance, which can of course become a dangerous situation.  Running out of fuel could potentially causes a chain reaction or some kind of accident, which results in bodily harm.  Every driver knows you have to check your gas before taking a lengthy trip.  What could possibly make you overlook such an important task?  Was your intuition not warning you?  Did you forget?  It almost does not matter if something bad resulted from your omission and failure to check the gas.  You will remember your oversight forever, but only if there was a negative result.

Choices

Every day of our life we face choices, and for the most part, we rely on our intuition to lead us in the right direction.  The waters get deep and cloudy when external circumstances influence our judgment.  We allow ourselves the luxury of not following our intuition.  We all have an inner voice that whispers in our ear and hopefully we listen to before making any major decisions.  Personally, I am guilty of over thinking and over analyzing choices.  Those two little annoying words, ” what if? ” are always haunting me. The ” what if ” scenario is a dangerous one if allowed to go unchecked.

I was recently touched when listening to the former president Jimmy Carter during an interview regarding his recently discovered battle with cancer.  The interviewer asked him if he had any regrets.  His answer was stunning in its honesty.  He revealed that to this day he regrets not sending the second helicopter to rescue the American hostages in Iran.  I think it takes an unusually great deal of courage to admit that you have made an error in judgment that affected other people’s lives.  It is also an admirable trait when you are able to do so publicly, even at the risk of public scorn.

I was recently touched when listening to the former president Jimmy Carter during an interview regarding his recently discovered battle with cancer.  The interviewer asked him if he had any regrets.  His answer was stunning in its honesty.  He revealed that to this day he regrets not sending the second helicopter to rescue the American hostages in Iran.  I think it takes an unusually great deal of courage to admit that you have made an error in judgment that affected other people’s lives.  It is also an admirable trait when you are able to do so publicly, even at the risk of public scorn.

Regrets

President Carter’s interview was so impressive that I went back and started looking at other recent presidents over the last 60 years. Each and every one of these great men had made mistakes that they regretted. However, not all of them seem to have had the courage to step up to their failures and move on to create new and better success in their life’s mission. Is that the difference between great courage and the inability to accept your own failures?

Who are the people who rise from their ashes

Is that where the difference lies between those of us who succeed and others who fail? Who are the people who get over their mistakes and move on? I believe it is the ability to understand that mistakes are human and no matter how great we are every one of us makes mistakes. What do we do with those errors? Do we allow them to destroy us emotionally and our sense of self-worth? I say no. We learn from our mistakes and failures. We grow stronger and admit where we went wrong and face whatever criticism may come our way. In fact, I think admitting mistakes makes us vulnerable and honesty makes us equal to everyone on this planet. No one is without mistakes or failures.

Reflection

When I reflect on my own personal errors in judgment, there were many, one that always resurfaces is one that happened in the 70s.  I had a full-time job working as an account executive for a major cosmetic corporation.  I happened to read an article about a hot new product that was sweeping the country.  It was suntan salons and tanning booths. At that time, I lived on the new York/New Jersey border.

I became so mesmerized by the thought of instant tanning, that I failed to do the proper medical research.  I reached out and was lucky and found a great partner to join my venture.  To this day we are still friends.

We were on fire and we immediately signed a lease to open this tanning salon in Bergen County, New Jersey.  At that point in time, there was no such thing as ready to order tanning booths.  Computerized programs written to judge the amount of ultraviolet that your skin could safely absorb had not been formulated.  My partner and I had to hire a computer programmer.  At that time finding a computer programmer was a major task. So we started from scratch.  When I say we had to piece it together from the bottom up, I mean it.  We put months of hard work and sacrifice into building the salon, booths, computers and all.  How could I have neglected to read what the medical research had to say about tanning booths as well as exposure to natural sunlight? How could I have made such an error in judgment to pick a place that was so upscale but located in the wrong place?  The salon was situated in a predominantly Asian community? How many Japanese people have you known that like to sport tans? Japanese culture is very different than ours and being tanned in their opinion meant you were in a lower socio-economic status. What were we thinking?  It is almost funny, if it hadn’t been such a big error in judgment.  How could I have made one of the biggest mistakes anyone who opens a business can create? I was not there on a daily basis because both my partner and I were working full time elsewhere.  So I hired other people to run the business.  Good grief!

What were we thinking?

Although the place was all set to succeed, or so I thought, and the day we opened the door the Bergen Record Newspaper appeared to do a story about the dangers of sun tanning.  We got front-page publicity- uncooperative press from start to finish.  Although, the publicity brought us many curious customers, the negatives outweighed the positive.  One year later, we sold the place, but we never recouped the thousands of dollars in debt we had accumulated. Looking back on those years I admit that I was terribly embarrassed by my lack of judgment and hasty decision to open a business that I knew little about. It was definitely a failure.  The positive side is that I learned a tremendous lesson the hard way. It would serve me well later in life.

Acceptance-we are only human

It has taken me many years to face my mistakes and fears.  It is after many disastrous errors and much despair that I know the courage it takes to face and admit your mistakes. However, you must have the courage to move on with your life with confidence. I learned the hard way.  Perhaps I can prevent others from making the same mistakes I made. Today on NSI & DOOD Radio I have chosen to read a short 7-minute chapter from Dancing on Your Disabilities available on Amazon.com

Click here to listen to a 7 minutes except from Dancing On Your Disabilities