Birth Family

We have all been shaped and molded by our family of origin, our birth family. This is where we get our beliefs about ourselves. It sets up how we approach everything, especially mistakes.

I'm reminded of years ago sitting in the Arden Fair Mall watching people walk by. Along came a young family consisting of a man, a woman, and a little 4-year old boy. The little boy was running ahead and suddenly he tripped and did a full face plant onto the tile. He didn't do anything at first and then looked back at his parents. They had horrified looks on their faces so he started screaming. They ran up to him and surrounded him with love that was fear filled. He might have been killed. I thought it was very interesting.

A few minutes later along came another family with a similar make-up of parents and a little boy. The little boy was running ahead of the family and he also tripped and fell face first on to the tile. However, he rolled over on his back and started laughing from his belly. His parents were also laughing and one of them said, "great fall Tommy!"

So look at the different feedback the two little boys got. For the first boy, do you perhaps think in adult life when he made a mistake it was life and death and paralyzed him? Do you think the second little boy grew up and made mistakes as an adult however he looked at what he learned and used it as motivation?

In our house there was a cycle to mistakes. It was always making the mistake; followed by shame, blame and guilt; followed by all the things that went wrong to produce the mistake. In my house, it was finally followed by how stupid I was.

Then I became a partner with my mentor Phil in a construction company.. My partner had a totally different mistake cycle. It was make a mistake; look what it took to resolve the mistake; take steps so the next time the mistake could be avoided. This was filled with Phil's concept of making the people around him a success by valuing their strengths and not placing them in situations which brought up on their weaknesses. Instead, their areas of weakness were filled with mentoring and teaching moments. Phil helped me change my approach to life.

So growing up prior to Phil, I believe that a mistake was a life and death situation. It would paralyze me in a heartbeat and to this day it is so easy to beat myself up way beyond normal reactions around mistakes.

Remember Thomas Alva Edison tried over a 1,000 filament materials before he found one that would work. The reporters asked him during the journey how he could work with continued failures. He replied that indeed each attempt was a success for it took another material off the board and he was one step closer to the answer. Paralyzing or motivation - what does making a mistake produce for you? If you don't like it, then change it!