3 Possible Responses to Mistakes
My friend Binay made a major mistake: he invested all his money with a conman. After a few months, the conman asked him for more, so he borrowed money on his credit cards, and invested that. After a few more months, the conman asked him for more and told him that if he doesn’t invest, the business will fail and they’ll lose everything they’ve invested so far. So Binay borrowed money from his friends and invested. As expected, the conman disappeared, and changed his number, so Binay could no longer contact him. Binay was in trouble. He had to sell his land to repay some of the debts, which still wasn’t enough. He contemplated suicide. Eventually, he accepted that he’s enslaved to working for years to repay all these debts, putting aside his career goals such as doing satisfying work or growing, and just focusing on repaying the loans.
When Binay shared this story with his friends, he received three kinds of responses:
Derision: “Are you dumb?”
Sympathy.
“What are the learnings we can take away from this experience?”
(1) is the worst — it comes from a bad place of putting people down. Only (3) prevents further mistakes and the pain they’ll cause.
When my startup failed, I took years to tease out dozens of learnings, as a result of which I’m operating at a much higher level. This makes the trauma all worth it, and it becomes a lesson.