💬 Fireside Chat: Mistakes Were Made
We can't avoid them, but we can learn from them!
Hi, it’s me.
Welcome to the fire circle—it’s good to see you again! Grab any open seat and help yourself to beer and sodas in the fridge. We’ll get to this month’s question in a minute.
Nine or so years ago I was working on a new passion project—a podcast series of interviews with creative women in my community. Podcasting was in its early days at the time, and after listening to a few, I was interested in exploring the production side to complement my skills as a writer and producer of video and animation.
I interviewed three women on mic and produced one shitty first draft of a pilot episode before realizing I had This American Life storytelling taste on a TikTok time budget, so I abandoned that idea for one that fit better into the margins of my life.
During one of those interviews with a friend of mine who’s a small business owner and designer, I made a rookie mistake: The batteries died on my Zoom recorder, and I didn’t notice right away. In fact, we had a great conversation for about an hour, and almost none of it was recorded. All of the work I did in production and prep, and all of that time wasted for my interviewee, not to mention the embarrassment of such a dumb mistake–I was mortified.
For a very long time I’d been doing something I was really good at—writing, producing, consulting—so it had been awhile since I made a newbie-level mistake like that. My shame and embarrassment felt supersized, because I knew from general professional experience what was at stake when stuff like this happened.
“I HATE BEING NEW AT THINGS!” I blurted out in a haze of panic.
My first thought in that moment was, “I wish I just KNEW that,” as in, without having learned it through the mistake. How quickly I had forgotten all that can be learned through mistakes—the shitty first draft essays, the client who’s not happy with an outcome, the failed recipe experiment, and so on.
In the end, I always learn from my mistakes. For example, I’ll never record anything ever again without fresh batteries on hand and without keeping an eye on my equipment. But I still wish I was instantly good at doing stuff.
How about you?
What have you learned from making mistakes, either personally or professionally?
🙋🏼♀️ I’ll go first: In my garden, the 2021 growing season was the best I’d ever experienced—so much gorgeous food and flowers! I felt like a god! I’ve been chasing that level of production and growth ever since, with no success in replicating it. In fact, my soil health seemed to be declining. Last week as I prepped my beds for spring planting, I went back to my gardening notes from 2021 and realized I had not been amending my soil in the same way I did back then, even though I thought I was. I felt stupid, but I also recognized I’d mostly been going through the motions disengaged due to crazy Life Stuff going on. This year I made some corrections to bring my soil health back to life, so hopefully I’m back on track—we’ll see in a couple of months!
What I learned is to always review the plan, even if I think I already know the plan.
🔥🪵 Your turn! If we were hanging out around the fire pit, how would you answer this question? Leave a comment, reply to this email, or use it as a personal writing prompt.
Until next time,
Jen
What’s happening in my garden this week
Mother’s Day weekend is usually when I start putting out my tomato starts, but overnight temps are still hovering just below 50 degrees, so I stalled a little. I put out a couple to see how they would do, knowing I had a few spare starts if they didn’t make it. The rest can probably go in this coming weekend.
I’ve been doing this long enough, now, that I appreciate and look forward to the rhythms of the growing season—especially after having read the book, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Pretty soon I’ll be eating my breakfast toast with peanut butter and fresh raspberries, and vanilla ice cream with fresh blueberries, and later this fall, homemade fig and prosciutto pizza.
In the images below, you can see the fresh layer of dark, rich, compost that I added to the beds, which will hopefully begin to improve my soil health and help with water retention.
I hate making mistakes - I still remember feeling shame from stupidly grabbing someone else's sippy cup when I was 4! And yet...as you remind us, we're supposed to be doing that. We're supposed to be learning. As much as I would prefer not to be a mistake-maker, I know I want to be a learner, so I guess I'm stuck!
Garden is looking good my friend. Reading that "mistake" made me chuckle thinking of my many many fits and starts, turn arounds and dead ends.