Over my life time I have worked hard to not make mistakes. Apparently a lesson in futility. I have made lots of mistakes. The result of mistakes hopefully brings you to a better place, with fewer mistakes and better outcomes.

For instance a young driver might make more mistakes than a more practiced one. A golfer who practices AND gets good advice will usually drop points from his game.

Many rely on life for the response to see if something works or not. Fortunately not everything is by trial and error. Usually you can find someone who has done what you are readying to do and save yourself the “shooting blind” exercise. I often say, “experience is a wonderful teacher, but it can also be rough on your life.” I have told my kids and others that you do not have to experience all of life to know what works and what does not. I do not need to put my hand in a bag of rattlesnakes to know that it could be painful!

While writing the “technical” portion of my book on interrupted process, I found that so much of my problem solving measures I respond with is learned behavior. The behavior developed by study, practice and education. Now practice without study may not better a golf swing. Learning to ride out a skid and turn into it requires one to over come “instinctual behavior” which would turn away.

Clarifying my process of response to interruptions has taken more time than I thought it would and is certainly more complex than I initially would have thought. And certainly one size, one answer will not fit all. There are sometimes those “I have never been here” moments. Sometimes all you can do is pray, hope and make a decision. And not every good decision works out well.

For instance when my home flooded, I quickly moved to remove the 6” of water to protect furniture and our tenant’s $50,000 transmitter. Unfortunately I could not save the furnace. BUT, after a year of doing what had been recommended, I also found that I would have been better off if I had allowed all to be destroyed. The tenant would have sued me and ultimately my insurance company. Because of my salvage actions, insurance never kicked in and my wife and I lost $179,000 over the next few years. I feel I did everything I knew to protect our finances, our home and our reputation. Looking back I see the problem. but if that happened today I would still feel guilty about not doing something.

Decision making will never always be easy or fun, but it does show you are growing up!