Hello and welcome to pedal my way podcast where we talk about anything related to cycling and fitness. I’m your host, Mukund Murali. If you’re a fan of the show, please remember to subscribe to this podcast and follow the website pedalmyway.com. 

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Mukund 

Rob, good afternoon! 

Rob 
Hey Mukund, how are you? 

Mukund 
Good, Rob. So, today’s topic – how to capitalize on your mistakes. Jumping right into it. When is a mistake good for you, Rob? 

Rob 
I was thinking about this in the last few weeks when a co-worker of mine came to me with a mistake that they had made a little while ago. They came to me and said that they’d done something wrong. And it wasn’t a huge mistake. It wasn’t going to alter any anybody’s businesses or careers or whatever. It was a relatively small mistake, but they they were worried about it. They had come to me with this problem and they’d let go of the idea that they could fix it themselves, that anybody knowing, they they were communicating the problem and it to me, it made me. Respect them more and made me appreciate them as a co-worker more because they were able to improve their understanding of the situation by speaking to someone else and saying hey, I made a mistake. How do I fix it? The benefit here is that it’s. Showed me that this person was far more freethinking than I thought they were before. Before, with that, they came to me. We didn’t really speak. They would. You know, I’m part of a fairly large team, so we don’t always, you know, connect on a daily basis. But they came to me specifically with this problem and this mistake that they’ve made and it showed me that. They were taking responsibility sometimes I think. It’s the steps that you take after the mistake that matter and not the the mistake itself. I think this. That’s why it’s an important topic to discuss today, because I think people are more afraid of making mistakes than they are. Focus on figuring out how to fix them and how to proactively take on problems and and solve them. I think people are. Worried about what people think when you when you make a mistake and I think really you don’t have to, so you don’t have to worry about it. There are some mistakes obviously that have significant consequences. It’s just that. Small mistakes happen all the time. Nobody’s perfect. And there are a great many benefits that can come from even a relatively small mistake that you might make, whether at work or personal. 

Mukund 
That’s interesting. So you are looking more into the ownership of that mistake rather than the mistake itself, right? 

Rob 
Yeah, exactly. It tells you a lot about a person’s character when they’re able to admit the mistakes, and they’re able to accept that there was a fault there and they were able to sort of build on that and sort of let go of the idea of that, that themselves is this perfect being because. Obviously I have numerous examples of myself not being perfect, but when I see someone else come to me that and say like, hey, I wasn’t perfect here, I messed up. It shows me that they have at least the strength of character to sort of understand their how best to respond to to a mistake being made and that that can really be beneficial to both connecting with people and to solving the mistake. Itself. 

Mukund 
Mixon. So have you made a mistake that you weren’t? I’ve obviously not heard about, but how did you come out of it? 

Rob 
I’ve made I I continue to make mistakes. I’m sitting here right now with a Band-Aid on my finger because I cut myself this morning. Just trying to make breakfast as you do when you are very uncoordinated person just trying to. 

Mukund 
I’ve lopped off tips off my fingers too with the knife, so I. Have been there. 

Rob 
Yeah. It it? Yeah, it’s this. This is a different topic, but there’s just so many things going on all the time. I’m never concentrating on the one thing I should be the. Sharp object that. I’m holding, you know, the one I’m I can think of right now or the many I can think of right now. Mistakes that I made in personal relationships when I was dating the wrong people, I really benefit. That from making mistakes like that while I was younger because you get to find out exactly who you are very quickly you’ll find out what you like and what you don’t like as a person and what you’ll put up with. Well put up with. And I think that is really especially for younger people trying to figure this out or whether they’re making the right choices in life when it comes to dating people. You know, making friendships the important thing is, is to speak to as many people as possible, or find out what what you like and don’t like. Because I’ve encountered a lot of difficulties in relationships when I was a lot younger, but without doing that, I. Be married now and I wouldn’t be able to sort of know exactly who I was looking for when I found my wife. You know, you wouldn’t know that without first meeting people finding out. Hey, I don’t like this. I don’t like that. You know, these are things that you know. I I’ve I’ve I’m personally doing wrong. And that and how I communicate. How can I improve upon those things? You’ve gotta sort of test those things out and sort of figure out who you are and what you like and who’s in your life that could fit with fit, with what your expectations are. Right. It’s all about managing your. Personal thoughts about things and trying to improve upon yourself while meeting people and having different experiences, so definitely most of my the the the one example the the few examples I can think of right now are mostly about dating the wrong people and the the benefits in my later life. My current middle-aged life. That have accrued from just. Meeting people, going out and having conversations, you know, you date the wrong person, but really you’re not. You’re not dating that that person because they’re the wrong person. You you go into it with a good idea and then you realize that it’s not going to work. And then you find what does work. And that’s the only way of doing it. It is often true of business too, right? Where we go into a a strategy that might, we hope, will work. It’s not necessarily that we went into it with the wrong intentions. It just doesn’t fit with what we want to do moving forward and then we so we changed, we pivot a little, but many people consider these mistakes you consider you considered like a misstep, a mistake, but you you get to learn a lot by making these mistakes and then you get to sort of realign yourself on a path. Going forward, you’re always sort of on a growth path, right? And and mistakes are part of that growth. I think. 

Mukund 
Of course, you know you learn from your mistakes. At least I have a couple of examples that I can share at work. Some time ago I had. Incorrectly priced product to customer, meaning customer is paying lower than. What we had set the price for the product. So obviously I got into it with my management. I did own up to it say that hey, it was an oversight and make, you know, there’s a. This was a case of miscommunication with the client, so it was kind of in the Gray area, which I did not clarify, and at the time of starting the project they had taken the lower price and run with it and. The onus was on me to rectify it, or rather I it was my responsibility to have collected it. I did not. But management was OK there like, you know, it’s fine. These things happen. But be careful next time, kind of conversation I had with my manager. He was nice about it, at least professionally kind of, you know, encouraging me to learn from it and go forward. It’s hard to kind of find those types of managers and I’m thankful. To him for that. So that is one thing that I learned from, and the lessons learned is kind of double checking everything. 

Rob 
Did that improve your relationship with your managers? Did that help the way they responded to it? 

Mukund 
They were, they were understanding my at least my management was understanding my managers was understanding even though they were quite disappointed in the turn of events. Of course, who does not want to make money? 

But at least. They were understanding to the point that this is not uncommon in the industry and that these things happen and for me to kind of double check going forward, which I have and I think the the better outcome was for me to have owned up to it from the get go instead of saying no, it’s their fault they did not see it which. If you’re at. Fault and they people know you’re at fault. I don’t think any story to the country is going to help you because it’s always going to be like, hey, you can see it. It’s your fault while you’re trying to lie your way around it, right? It it does not look nice. It’s not professional. So. I owned up to it. I made a mistake. Owning up has always. You know, beat about the Bush. I’m like, hey, I made a. Mistake. What do you want me to do instead of? You know, it’s it’s done. It’s like spilled milk. I have to clean it up. Right. So does that attitude I take and to answer your question, has your relationship improved? Your manager? Yes, it has. Because he was welcoming of straight shooters. Since I was upfront about it and I went up to it and trying to. He was kind of happy with the turn of events if that answered your question. 

Rob 
Yeah, I know 100% because I’m thinking of it from your management perspective too, right? They’re they’re going here is a hard working guy who makes them. Who made a mistake and they they seem to have reacted in the right way. It’s like, yes, of course we want to make more money, but they know long term, you’re gonna make the money either way and it’s it it in in many ways it’s probably. Improved your working process moving forward, right? So it’s really that’s a a win for you in general. Like it it probably it sucks that it happened, but it’s one of those things where now that it’s happened you are benefiting from that process. 

Mukund 

It kind of leans into the next question. Rather, why should lead into your mistake? This has helped me project myself as somebody who is upfront with my responsibilities taking. Ownership of my responsibilities, both both good and bad, and that’s its profile of me amongst my peers. Right. Hey, this guy is a straight shooter. He does not mess around. If it’s a good thing he owns a good. If it’s a bad thing, he makes changes so that it doesn’t happen again. So he’s a reliable guy. At least for me, that’s the messaging. I got the feedback I got from my manager. 

Mukund 
You are transparent in your behavior, which kind of helps. Do I lean into it? And I think I lean into the lessons learned from my mistakes and also remember this instance, every transaction I make just because I don’t make the same mistake. That’s not to say I will never make another mistake again. If if. That something comes up. I do lean on the lessons, learned various mistakes. Throughout my professional life, I’m sure I’ve made a lot of mistakes, which I’ve learned from that has been kind of improving my personal personal life ever since. 

Rob 
Yeah, I think that the communication of the mistake is is the critical part, at least from my perspective it right. How do you explain what went wrong and what you’re gonna do to fix it? And that can be true of business or relationships, personal relationships, you. Know if you’re you. You’ve made a mistake in your personal relationship with your husband or your wife, and you say you know this is, you know, I’m sorry. I I missed that day. I didn’t read the, you know, calendar reminder I didn’t get. I didn’t see that. You know, it doesn’t make it any. Better for you to say. Oh, I didn’t see it. I didn’t get the reminder. I didn’t get the e-mail or whatever. Just say hey, I made a mistake. I didn’t see it. I will fix it next time I will put it in my calendar. This is what I’m gonna do. Those those actions that you can take are the most valuable things. In building that trust, and like having that authentic reaction right, just like you were saying with, with your bosses. Like if you say to them, hey, this is, this is exactly the action I’m gonna take to make sure that doesn’t happen again. They’re gonna trust you far more than they would whether. From before you made the mistake, cause you’ve shown that you are. Adept at recognizing the impact of your mistake and the actions that you have to take to prevent that in the future. And that’s I think that’s so much more valuable than a. A colleague or someone that I work with in general, then you know someone that never makes a mistake because someone that never makes a mistake. Usually they are making mistakes, they just don’t admit it or you just haven’t. Found it yet. 

Mukund 
Actually, you’re right. Trust is the keyword there, because in any setting, if you’re trustworthy, that’s when people want to work. Like you said, if somebody does not own up to his or her mistake, there are two things that can happen. People around you will see through you and they won’t work with you and you as an individual who does not own up your mistakes, you you don’t really learn from it. So you keep repeating the same thing again and again with people who will get. 

I’ve not seen people who have never kind of learned from their mistake or don’t own up to it, but I’ve seen people try to. To. Lie their way out of a mistake, even though it’s a small way, it would not have cost them anything, right? Just saying. Hey, I’m sorry. You know, I did this. They would not do that. I think it’s a personal ego. Kind of a thing. I think it’s detrimental in a professional setting because people want trustful colleagues to work with. And if you are trying to squirm your way out of even the smallest of you know. 

I’m just saying slow coffee and be hey, it’s not my fault. Kind of a thing. It does not really make sense. 

Rob 
Well, it it, it doesn’t reflect well on your ability to see reality. 

Mukund 
Exactly. So if if if the shoes if the situation was turned right, if the shoes on the on the other feet, they would expect people make the mistakes to apologize. But if it’s your case, you would not do that. I mean it’s kind of what you call it, hypocritical of them, right. 

Rob 
Yeah, like, like you said, the ego is the the big part of it. Like, can you accept that you made a mistake? Can you accept responsibility? And what are you gonna do to fix it? And once you show those things, people, people love it, people will really appreciate you for. 

Mukund 
Actually, people I personally look up to people who own up to mistakes, because that is the genuine self. And that means that they are learning a lot in the process. If it’s somebody who does not own to their mistakes, or you know who would say that I’ve never made any mistakes. I mean, I’m not going to believe this. As humans, we do make mistakes every day. And be learned from them this this actually happened. One of the one of the guys I was interviewing for a position at the company, one of the general questions, right behavioral questions is what mistakes have been made. You know, what have we learned? The guy straight up said I’ve not. Made any mistakes? He was not selected. So and I told him right to his face, and I find it hard to believe that you have never made a mistake and you know you would not be here. If you had not learned from mistakes, so you mean to say that. You got. You know, A+ plus in all your studies, not one mistake or any any exams your your personal life is perfect. You’re not made any mistakes you have not you know broken like you know gone over the speed limit you know I mean those are all small mistakes so you know. People making mistakes are the ones who learn from it, who are better citizens within quotes than people who don’t. Again, that’s my. That’s my personal opinion. 

Rob 
Yeah, 100%. You, you, everyone has some sort of floral character or otherwise that the the recognition of that wall is the most valuable thing you can have you, your authenticity will come off 1000 times more if you can say, hey, I screwed up. 

Here’s what I’m doing to fix that and people will go OK, I’ve screwed up too. I connect with that and then you can make that connection with or whether like I said, whether it’s at work or in your personal relationships, it it’s obviously it’s something that can be a defining as a as a character trait is the ability to sort of set aside your ego for a little bit. I. I still have trouble with it myself. A lot of the time I see, you know, I. Like it’s still small things that sometimes you don’t notice it, and then when someone points it out, it can be very difficult, but you just have to sort of set set yourself aside a little bit and say, you know what, you’re right. I screwed up. But this. Is what I’ll do next time. 

Mukund 
See the other point of this is you’re talking about from the person who committed the mistakes point of view. If you look at from the recipients point of view, who was a victim of your mistake? How is it going to look? In my example, you do the wrong pricing for an order. For. The customer there are two options. You can go back to them and ask them for a revised order. With the higher pricing, I’m I’m saying you know. Though. $100 you put $50.00, right? That’s a loss of $50.00 for you. They can say, OK, fine. You know what? You have been a valuable partner. We’ll increase the pricing for you, which rarely happens, but that is the possibility. The second thing is no, we have to. We have to stick with. 

It because you committed to it, right? If you accept and say, hey, my apologies. Fine. You know, we’ll let you keep it, but once you accept that, you know, hey, this was a mistake on our end. We will handle it. That gives a lot more. Confidence. In you as a partner than saying no, no, no, we have to cancel it because of even though it’s our mistake, we’re not willing to. From from a user point of view or from an from from the other side, they would have less credibility in work with you, because even though you made a mistake, you Rome want to accept to that and remedy it, but you rather go back to before the mistake was made. Nobody is going to forget what happened. So I think from that point of view, even somebody who spilled coffee on somebody else’s desk. You ruined that person’s desk. That is not going to go away. Even if you go back before that incident happened for a victim owning up to that mistake is better. Then fighting for it because you can’t change that person’s point of view. 

Rob 
Yeah, 100%. It’s. You’re fighting nothing. You’re fighting against yourself at that point. 

Mukund 
Exactly. There’s no winner in this. 

Rob 
Yeah, exactly. And it’s UMA, lot of the time like we’ve discussed before and different different episodes of the pedal, my way podcasts, a lot of these behaviours are driven by fear, aren’t they? They’re they’re driven by the fear of the response to the. And not the confidence in owning the mistake and accepting that you can do better next time. People are very fearful of a response to something and I think certainly in my case a few times where I’ve made a mistake, I I do try to think about how that mistake has impacted people more than I think about what will be their response. Because if I think about how it’s impacted people, I can sort of try to resolve that. But if I think about what their response is, there’s no, there’s no resolution to that. Was that? That response hasn’t happened yet. You’re driven by fear. You’re driven by a hypothetical situation, whereas the you you make the mistake and then you respond to it. It it’s difficult in that moment, but it’s always the best way to to handle it because you’re going to get a negative response from the person who’s been impacted by the mistake. 

Mukund 
Right. 

Rob 
But you will learn from it far better. You will learn from it and you will be a far more adept person, a far more effective person moving forward by understanding why you made the. Take and then accepting it and building on your own sense of understanding and responsibility over time, rather than denying it, denying it, and then getting more insular and more self involved, which can happen. 

Mukund 
Right, 100%, do you consider yourself a risky person? I mean, do you take risks for the betterment of your personal and professional life? 

Rob 
I don’t know. I don’t do it in my personal life and it really depends like in my professional life, I like to take risks on companies and exciting ideas. I will always give my time to an exciting idea, something that I’m interested in. I’ll take a risk on something where people are passionate about something. That’s how I got involved. On my way, obviously in terms of that, I do like a risk. I don’t risk money really. I don’t like to gamble. I like to say things to people that will they may not like hearing. So I think that in that sense as a risk to it, that’s the I used to. I was qualified as a journalist. So I like the idea of risk in the sense of is this person going to like what you have to say? And sometimes they don’t, but some some people need to hear things that you don’t want to say. So there is a risk there. So I do like that part of risk. 

Mukund 
So it’s it’s interesting because when you say pedal my way, this is my risky enterprise risky venture. So everybody wants to have their own thing, that they’re good at. You’re good at what you’re doing in terms of writing, in terms of your writing talents, your S your talents. I believe I’m good at creativity and paving my own path. What whatever we are experiencing here, which is kind of unconventional. So this is a risk that I made consciously to take. I wanted to try this out. My thing is you only live once, that kind of thing. So I mean, it’s an interesting question. I wanted to ask because we are talking about risk not in the traditional sense, but in. Terms of your. Venture into unknown territories. 

Rob 
Yeah, I I just thought of the idea when you were speaking about that, I was thinking about the idea of. Risks that affect other people and risks that affect yourself. I’ll risk things that only affect me. I won’t risk anything that affects my family. Really. I’ll. I’ll risk my time for things that I’m excited about, but I won’t risk. For example, I don’t know. Making a big bet on a sports game that’s going to impact my wife and my family. You know what? I’m. 

Mukund 
Even though it’s a, even though it’s a guaranteed return. I’m just kidding. 

Rob 
Saying like. I’ll tell you, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t bet on it. I can’t. 

Mukund 
It’s a risk free investment, right? The FDX was a risk free investment of bitcoins. 

Rob 
Ohh yeah, yeah, that. Well, that’s not that. You really bring a good point there to the stock market. It’s so it’s so funny that. People look at. Risk in a different way. When it’s this sort of intangible thing, don’t they? They think about it like they look at it as numbers on a sheet, but they don’t think about it in their day-to-day lives. I always think it’s funny that people are willing to spend, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars on on vague products or services. They, they, they don’t really understand. But if you handed them the cash, they would just keep it. There’s no way they’re gonna do anything with it. I think that says more about our psychology. Physical things then, than it does anything else. 

Mukund 
Right. In paper, it’s all virtual, right? I mean, if you’re on a computer screen, it’s virtual. It’s like a game, but if you are, if it’s tangible cache with you, then your entire perspective changes. That’s. 

Rob 
Yeah, I tried it in terms of risk, I tried to think about like the money that I have in my bank as as like actual like, I always try to picture it as a physical thing so that you know, each dollar I spend is a physical dollar I give away so that I’m not just so I’m, I’m very let’s say let’s say the nice word is frugal. I’m quite cheap. In terms of what I spend. Leon. So I’m not gonna spend money. I think we talked about before, like people that drive around in like $400,000 cars and you know, are wearing, I don’t know, $2000 jackets or a $10,000 suit. Whatever it is, that’s not going to be me because I don’t. I think it’s all about what you value. And you know, I’m not going to. Risk my money on things that don’t bring me the same return. Good. 

Mukund 
So coming back to our topic of mistakes you’ve made, do we have our catch all kind of talk? 

Rob 
Yeah, my sort of my catch, all summary of it is only up to your mistakes is gonna make up for any mistake that you do make owning up to it and showing character and accepting responsibility is just everything that is beneficial to your. Day-to-day life will make you feel better or make people around you more confident in your abilities and you know, accepting responsibility. Then making that a defining characteristic can go a long way to accomplishing whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, because we all make mistakes of it. As we mentioned that that would be my summer. 

Mukund 
Same here. My thing would be more of you will make mistakes. Own up to it, because that will make your life and the lives of people. Aren’t you much better and also learn from it. Don’t repeat the same mistakes. At least remember the situation so that that can help you prevent making similar mistakes. That’s what I have done, but we are prone to make mistakes. We are human. So you know, we shouldn’t be ashamed of making mistakes. But learning from it. Is more important. 

Rob 
Absolutely. 

Mukund 
So great, Rob, I think it’s been another good topic that we discussed today. So till the next one, you have a nice. Week. 

Rob 
You, too, Mukund. It was great. Speaking with you. 

Mukund 
Thank you, Sir. Bye bye for now.