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The Mistake Bank

“I did, however, decide to join the site. It’s a Ning social network, so it was easy to join. And I think mistakes are second only to stories as valuable learning tools, and hey, come to think of it, most mistakes are told in stories.”

From Tim Berry’s site about Business Planning, Startups, and Stories. He’s talking about The Mistake Bank where people write about their biggest mistakes. Catholics may have flashbacks to the sacrament of Confession. For everyone, it’s a great idea, a great way to learn.

For myself, I would not know where to begin when talking about mistakes. I make so many and work hard to learn from them. The site has one interesting idea: talk about mistakes over five years old because, in their view, those have had enough time pass to offer real reflection.

The humorous mistake I usually mention has to do with being in New York City after college, getting a secretarial job with the Museum of Natural History then a week later getting an interview with the New Yorker magazine to work as a flunky. I had a good/great interview but told them that I felt an obligation to my brand new job, that I couldn’t just quit, and could I apply again a year later. They said fine. When I came back, other kids fresh from college were in line in front of me. So I went to work for Showtime, the cable TV network, met my wife, and a completely different life ensued.

Funny thing is that, until then, I had built my whole life around being a great fiction writer with the idea to live in NYC then Europe. I transferred from the University of Oregon to the University of Michigan just to compete in their Hopwood Awards, which I eventually won (for four short stories about Marsden Hartley), and which people like Arthur Miller won in their time, not to mention great poets, screenwriters, and such. I had written a letter to the poetry editor at the New Yorker, Howard Moss, also a Hopwood winner, so a gig at the New Yorker, even washing floors, would have been a perfect step to fulfill my ambitions.

In any event, mistakes are great territory to learn from, to gain distance and perspective.

URLs:

http://blog.timberry.com/2008/03/the-mistake-ban.html

http://mistakebank.ning.com/

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