The best mistakes we know how to make

I recently read How Can We Keep from Singing: Music and the Passionate Life, by Joan Oliver Goldsmith. Goldsmith is a member of the Minnesota Chorale, a truly amateur group in the sense of doing something fine purely for the love of it. She uses various musical concepts as the framework for discussing life itself, and it resonated with me.

In the chapter titled “Creativity’s Compost”, Goldsmith takes on mistakes.

“What kinds of mistakes do you make? Do you err on the side of jumping into possibility when life beckons? Or do you hold back until conditions are definitely favorable? Are you more afraid of not following your heart’s dream or spending your old age bagging groceries?”

From those questions she goes on to discuss how businesses approach mistakes—whether they welcome and learn from them, or fear bagging groceries. The example she chooses, being in Minnesota, is from 3M Corporation:

“A productive mistake is: (1) made in the service of mission and vision; (2) acknowledged as a mistake; (3) learned from; (4) considered valuable; (5) shared for the benefit of all.”

(I have to say that, here in the Valley They Call Silicon, a lot of disruptive game-changing execs talk about innovation a lot, and hit hard on how they want employees to be creative risk-takers. But when you ask them for examples of how they as a company learn from mistakes, you get nothing but caffeine-charged crickets.)

Then she brings it back to the personal level:

“In this life we make the best mistakes we know how to make. Then, with any luck, we go out and make new ones. I don’t make mistakes when I watch TV or take a walk. These activities are pleasant, restful. But I could not make a life of them. After all, the easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be.”

I’ve made so many mistakes in my life; you know—the ones that still make you cringe decades later. And I’ve gone through the walking-and-reading retreat periods; I know exactly what Goldsmith is talking about. I know from personal experience that it can be very risky to open your mouth and sing, but worrying about bagging groceries is worse.