Hi Reader,

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A DJ friend of mine has a saying: “let’s all make mistakes!”. He goes out to play a DJ set, and over the course of the three hours, he counts them up. At the end of a typical set, he’s counted 7 or 8 times something screwed up. It’s annoying, sure, but he’s learnt not to be annoyed.

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The thing is, most of the stuff that screwed up, the crowd didn’t even notice:

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That time he forgot his favourite echo effect at the end of a song? No one knew it was supposed to be there, so no one noticed.

That time the beats didn’t quite match just as the old song was fading out? People were already listening to the new one and no one noticed.

That time he left a gap too long before the new tune’s beat kicked in? No one noticed.

That time the needle jumped on the vinyl? Remarkably, no one noticed that either.

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Some people were too drunk to notice. Some of them were distracted talking to their friends and weren’t listening closely enough. Some of them were too busy dancing hard. And of the rest, none of them cared anyway. None of them came out tonight to hunt for mistakes.

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The same used to happen to me when I sang in bands or played acoustic guitar gigs many years ago. After a few years, I learnt that if I made a mistake, I basically had three ways out of it:

1. Pretend it didn’t happen, and usually no one notices. Don’t even pull a wincing face - learn to just wince internally if I absolutely must.
2. Draw ALL the attention to it! Maybe improvise something funny off it, and just make it part of the show. Doing this might mean you magically stumble upon a new bit for the song, or the germ of an idea to create another song entirely. And for even trying to pull this off, generally what happens is everyone loves the show MORE. You showed them that you’re human, which also makes the rest of the show – the bits with no mistakes in them - seem even more skilled and magical.
3. Or, my other option was I could let the thing beat me up so much that my whole evening is ruined. I could forget everything else that happened that was really good and just run the mistake over and over in my mind - and maybe become too scared to book another gig in case I made another mistake like that.

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There are still spelling mistakes in my books. I’ve been told by publishers over many years when I’ve found them and submitted them, that there are also still spelling mistakes in modern published versions of Shakespeare plays.

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The most important thing to focus on isn’t the mistakes: it’s the work. The effect. The impact. The value.

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And as the old saying goes, “Better an imperfect dome in Florence, than a castle in the sky”.

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So this week, my question to you is this:

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What are you holding onto, holding back on, delaying, or sabotaging because of a fear of making mistakes?

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And how can you create the safety in your mind to say “let’s all make mistakes”?…

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…and get started.

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Have a great week,

Graham

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PS – a few of you replied to my email the other day asking if the webinar I did about 6 Weeks to Ninja was being recorded. So it’s here. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

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If you missed the memo, it’s a taster session for my 6 Weeks to Ninja programme , which starts on the 26th of February. It’s a six-week programme designed to help you develop smarter productivity habits (including learning that you’re human, not superhero). The places are filling up, but we do still have some left.

You can find out more and book onto it here.

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