Mistakes are more than acceptable

A higher-up confidently declared in a team meeting that “mistakes are unacceptable.” Poppycock. Mistakes are more than acceptable.

Mistakes are more than acceptable because they are inevitable. When you reject the inevitable, you’re in resistance to reality itself. So where are you living?

In a self-constructed illusion, disconnected from the world as it actually exists. (Like, for example, middle management at a SaaS company.)

When you make mistakes taboo, you associate them with shame. Shame feels bad, so you adapt by avoiding the risk of doing and collaborating. It’s simple math: you make fewer mistakes when you take fewer actions.

Spend time with children (small humans); they produce mistakes with glee. And old people too. Your ancestors earned wisdom from a foreign land you call the past. The path from past to now is paved with mistakes.

Errors are the tax you pay for growth—expensive, necessary, unavoidable.