June 25, 2017 0 Comments Experience Working in Alberta's Oilfield, Motivation

Theory of Making Mistakes

“You often think it’s all over once you fuck up. But then you know now you won’t be doing that ever again.”

Risk takers and those who err are commonly viewed as sinners and society’s enemies and especially that of the financial and career world. Flawless performers on paper and perfectly molded examples of the commonly accepted social or financial clique are praised. People, businesses, and/or assets with a questionable track record, and divergences from the social and financial norms, are deemed generally unattractive prospects.

If a worker makes a mistake, you want to fire him/her. Now you can either hire another who you know little about, or you can keep the same who knows not to make the same error again.

If you buy a stock, property, another asset, or start a business, and you lose money, most would just immediately sell, or give up:

“Well that’s just a primary example of the dangers of risk. You fucked up. You took too much risk. You see what happens when you take a risk and fail. Now don’t do that ever again. Just go back to school and get a normal cookie-cutter salary office job. Just throw all your pocket change in a savings account.”

An alternative is to learn from the experience:

Why did it drop in value? Why did my business lose money here?

Does this now present an additional opportunity- where the underlying fundamentals never changed or changed little, and now more of the same can be acquired at a lower price?

Is it just normal volatility? Does a sunny day just turn into a rainy one, but it will become nice and sunny again?

If not- where did I go wrong? Now when I look for an investment or another business opportunity next time, I ought to make sure I don’t do that again.

Now notice if you never made the mistake and underwent the learning experience, you would have not learned.

There is also the implications of competitive economics:

Hardship presents a barrier of entry to additional competition. The capacity to learn and improve from error is the divide between the inferior and successful.

Be glad something is hard, because if it were not, then like the higher education world where the masses all want to be accountants, lawyers, doctors, workers in medicine, engineers, etc. would bring down wages and job opportunities, so that there is no money or opportunity in it anymore.

Additional demand for an avenue of a perceived set profit raises entry prices, hence decreases yields- to the point that yields become no longer attractive, or even eliminated.

If you make a mistake- learn to grow more powerful from the experience. Be glad others are giving up and going home. That is less competition.

Throughout your life endeavours, despite this logic of mistake-acceptance and learning, you will meet new allies, but also more new enemies- such that who doubt you, stand in your way, and deemed you are doomed for failure. These are only your competition, and test your strength. Aside from the above mentioned common negative feedback, some will even ask for the enemy’s hand:

“How can I improve for you, so that you accept me?”

The preferable objective is to not hold the enemy’s hand, but defeat and exceed the enemy. Aim to be above the enemy, not like the enemy:

“So you think I am not good enough for you? You want to be like a certain cliche? You can kiss my ass as far as I am concerned. I am above you and whatever else you deem to be above me.

Even if not, I will return to be superior to anyone else you deem to initially be superior to me, and superior to you. You and all else are just competition.”

In my personal financial and career affairs, I always never spoke to the employers or financial institutions ever again if they deemed me incompetent, and inferior to another candidate. If I really had to, it was for a particular resource to use for personal development- such that of the public’s fear (i.e. bank’s investment funds), or to secure employment income until the next superior opportunity arose. I do not like banks, but I require the funding to grow my investments. I do not like being an employee, but I require the paycheque to pay the bills and to invest. They view me as not the best candidate- inferior in many scenarios- as I am risky, with an imperfect or otherwise insufficient track record. In summary, anyone standing in my way are only either or both: competition, tool(s) to rise above it.