In this episode, we discuss how we need to learn from our mistakes but then discard them as fast as possible.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how mistakes should be examined, learned from, and discarded; not dwelled upon and stored. If you do the second part, then what is going to happen is that you won’t be able to grow and move on with your life. You’re just going to stick with the past.
I think it is really crazy that how mistakes in the past have kept people down and no one can be immune from this. I remember getting in a serious car wreck when I was 16 years old and I caused my friend to get hurt. I felt really bad and I would do anything to help him out but all I can do is say I’m sorry and then live a better and more responsible life down the road. I seriously could have died in that car wreck and could of let that incident hold me back from doing anything. I’m also thankful that I had parents that treated the situation well and caused me to have trauma from the incident.
I think about that car accident from time to time and maybe one of the reasons why I don’t like settling for things is that I could have died. Now at 33 years old, I don’t like to stick with things longer than I have to. There are other things that happened in my past that caused me to think this way but when you get in a serious accident, it gives you a different perspective on life.
I’m not brave in every situation and things do slip by that shouldn’t but I say for the most part I’m good. Plus reading books and listening to podcasts made me realize that a lot of people make mistakes but they just move on from those mistakes. You learn from them and see what should have been done, then you discard that mistake as much as possible.
After my car accident, I could have been scared to drive again but now I know my boundaries and I won’t pass them. This probably one of the reasons why I don’t like to speed either. There have been times where I speed but I really don’t do it. My old roommate wouldn’t let me drive because I would be too slow. So that’s another way I learned from my mistake. Plus I don’t really want to drive ever again. I haven’t driven in the past four months and I love it. I like it for other reasons. I hate to pay attention to the road and I feel that I can do other things like reading on my phone. Plus Ubers in Colombia are cheap and I can afford to take them everywhere. So maybe that is another reason why I like living in cities is that I don’t have to drive.
I don’t really see this as a mistake because I’m maximizing my life in other areas like the extra exercise from walking and reading while I get transferred to my next location. But the key thing with mistakes is that if you dwell on them, they are going to hold you back from the person you really want to be. I’ve bombed in front of crowds doing public speaking but that hasn’t stopped me from doing the next one. I just learned from my mistake and strive to do better the next time. I was in Costa Rica for my MBA program and no one volunteered in my group to present, so I volunteered. I also got someone else to volunteer but I made it my goal to figure out how to make my classmates laugh and I succeeded. After studying public speaking, I found out that make people laugh about once every one to two minutes is pretty good. So I came up with some jokes and they landed. My mistake with public speaking made me go out and find books and podcasts on how to become better and I’m getting better.
Public speaking is a great skill to have and if you can do it well, it can provide you a lot more opportunities in life. You’re better able to connect with people as well. Since I’m trying to do great things in the future like start my own endowment fund to provide underprivileged Latinos with more opportunities, then I have to grow from my mistakes not let them hold me back.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, mistakes should be examined, learned from, and discarded; not dwelled upon and stored like Tim Fargo said. I don’t know who that is but he said it. When you make a mistake, realize that you can get better from and it doesn’t have to define who you are for the rest of your life. When you store your mistakes, it’s like your walking around with a weighted vest and now everything you do is harder to do. The best thing you can do is learn to drop your vest. The vest only serves one purpose, to learn from it and then let it go. If you have trouble with letting go of your mistakes, go read other stories who made mistakes and then turned things around. This helps me. Or maybe you need to go see a therapist. Whatever you do, make sure you can move on with your life.
So in your journal, ask yourself, what is a mistake that you’re dwelling on and storing? Do you believe that these mistakes have to be with you forever? Who else made a similar mistake but come out of it just fine? Just look at Trump and his confidence about getting past mistakes, that is something special. I’m not saying everything he does is good, but his ability to bounce back from mistakes is something special. The key thing is that you’re moving on with your life and actually doing what you want to do with your life and not live a life with caution and regrets.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
