Top 10 Things I Did Wrong in My Career
3 min readSep 6, 2021
We all do things wrong, especially in our career journey. What’s important are the lessons learned from those things, not the things themselves. Here’s my short list of such things:
- I worried about what people thought about me. — Wrong! You would be surprised by how rarely other people actually think about you. (This realization 100% freed me from stage fright to becoming a successful public speaker.)
- I worried about my abilities when I was terminated from a job for dubious reasons. — Wrong! I learned fast how to adapt, move on, and be successful somewhere else. (Oh, I also learned that there really are such things as “toxic bosses”.)
- I worried about not putting every detail into a big report, which kept prolonging my efforts to finish it. — Wrong! “Getting it done” is more important than “getting it perfect”.
- I worried that I submitted a required report after the deadline. — Wrong! The delivery metric is less important than the content delivered. (See #3)
- I worried about admitting that I made a mistake, and thereby losing people’s trust in me. — Wrong! Honestly admitting your mistakes is the best way to gain people’s trust in you.
- I worried about my career choice when my very first job (following years of technical education) had such a tiny salary. — Wrong! My educational foundation ultimately proved to be an accelerant, even from a modest starting point.
- I worried, as a scientist, that my models were wrong. — Wrong! 2X Wrong! Because… “All models are wrong. But some are useful.” — George Box.
- I worried that my colleagues were much smarter than me. — Wrong! We are all smart, in different ways, about different things.
- I worried that I would never own a ’65 Ford Mustang. — Just kidding. I did own one in college. (The picture below is not my car from way back then, but mine was the same style and color.)
- I worried about and doubted my abilities to ever do anything athletic, when I couldn’t even run 800 meters in high school without exhaustion. — Wrong! I learned to start small, think big, taking incremental steps to reach a big goal, and then I actually ran start-to-finish (without walking) the entire NYC Marathon at the age of 40.
I guess I worried too much. :) That’s a time waster. I learned a better attitude to take: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
In conclusion, I have also learned to appreciate and gain wisdom from inspirational quotes. One of my favorites is this: “Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.”— Amelia Earhart.
Follow me on Twitter at @KirkDBorne
Learn more about my freelance consulting / training business: Data Leadership Group LLC
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