Learning from mistakes

I saw an interesting tweet a few days ago that has been rattling around my head. It basically said that you shouldn’t give others advice until you work on your own problems.  I guess on the surface that makes a lot of sense. You don’t want a doctor working on you who hasn’t finished medical school.  But I’m not sure I totally agree with it. Why? Any wisdom I have came directly from me screwing up.  And I think one of our greatest tasks is to help others. If I have to wait until I am perfect, I may never make it.  There was only one perfect human.  Everyone else is just fooling themselves.

In the past year, I’ve been angry. I’ve been depressed. I’ve had people not believe in me. I’ve lost my faith in certain people. I gained an unGodly amount of weight in a short time. And I lost it in an even quicker amount of time. I’ve had to reinvent myself on the fly.  I’ve learned I had talents I didn’t know I had.  Those talents are taking me new places.  I’ve been on an incredible journey filled with screw-ups, mistakes, accidents and joy.

I’ve always joked if I became a motivational speaker, I’d be like Chris Farley’s Matt Foley.  “I LIVE IN VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!” I don’t have all the answers like most of the folks you see on TV selling their seven point plans.  I  don’t live a perfect life.  I don’t have a perfect family.  I don’t accomplish things in a linear fashion.  But I have a great life. I have a great family. And occasionally I accomplish great things in a very haphazard way.

Quick, I’m going to bellyflop on the coffee table! CRASH!

So if I say something motivational, realize it was born out of  one of my mistakes. It’s just me talking out loud so I don’t make it again. And again. And again. Because if you truly learn from your mistakes, then I’m well on my way to becoming Einstein.