In High School I judged Dairy Products for our FFA chapter. If you’ve seen Napoleon Dynamite, it was not quite that awkward, but it was close.
I will never forget the hardest lesson I learned from judging Dairy Products: never second guess my first reaction.
This lesson was learned when I thought I had completed a perfect score (something very few people are able to do), but had at the last moment second guessed myself, and lost my perfect score. It was a silly mistake, but…
Mistakes make us who we are.
I judged dairy products for 4 years, and learning from that one mistake made all the difference in the world. I learned to trust myself and my first reaction. I learned to not overthink a situation, and I was better for it.
So, mistakes make us who we are.
Now, as much as I would like to claim otherwise, I have made more mistakes in the time since my days as a “milk spitter”. I am still making mistakes. Most of the lessons on this blog have to do with mistakes I’ve made over the years. But making mistakes is not the point.
Learn from your mistakes. What missteps have you made in the past month? What can you learn from those shortcomings? What can you change as a result?
Making mistakes is human. Learning from mistakes is what sets leaders apart.
You’re going to make mistakes. Let them shape you into a better person.
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