One of the most useful things I know cost me exactly one hair dryer.
Some hair dryers have a little switch that changes them between 110 volts and 240 volts, depending on the country you’re in. I found that out the hard way. Mine was set to 110 when I plugged it in somewhere running on 240, like the UK, and it blew up.
These days I don’t even have hair, so it’s less relevant to me than it used to be. But from that day on, I’ve always checked what voltage something’s set to before I plug it in somewhere the electricity is different. A small and simple lesson. An important one, too, and all it cost me was the price of a hair dryer.
Samuel Smiles had a line for this in Self-Help, back in 1859.
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
Samuel Smiles, Self-Help, Chapter XI, Self-Culture: Facilities and Difficulties
If you hate getting things wrong, read that last part again. He who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
Why playing safe keeps you where you are
We live in a world where so many people are afraid to get things wrong. Afraid to screw up, and afraid of what happens if they do. So they play safe. And by playing safe they never really learn anything new. Nothing ever really changes, because playing safe is the same thing, again and again and again.
I know that pull. My book, Done Beats Perfect, opens with an admission: “I lived between perfection and rejection.” Done beats perfect is my shorthand for getting the thing out there and improving it as you go.
The $600,000 education
There’s a story about Tom Watson at IBM that gets told so often it’s almost become a fable. Nobody seems able to say where it first came from, so take it as a story. It goes like this. An employee makes a mistake that costs the company $600,000, a fortune at the time. Watson is asked whether he’s going to fire him. “No,” he says. “I just spent all that money educating him.”
His lesson cost $600,000. Mine cost a hair dryer. Very often, our biggest lessons in life come from our mistakes.
Now think about that for a moment. What if you could decide to learn something today, on purpose, knowing you might get it wrong?
I’ve had much bigger lessons than the hair dryer, in my personal life, in business, with my health and in my relationships. What made each of them possible was being willing to try something new, to give it a go, and to stay open to the lesson even when I didn’t get the result I wanted. As I said on an episode of my podcast, you can make mistakes and things can go wrong. You’ve just got to own it and take responsibility for it.
Maybe it’s time you tried the thing you’ve been holding back on in case you get it wrong. If it goes well, brilliant. If it doesn’t, you’ll know something you didn’t know before.
And if you need a nudge, I’ve written about why done beats perfect, so start scared.
