Fucking Up Is Fine

Heey there,

Heart beating fast, body warming up, anxiety rushes kicking in.

Chill out.

It's fine.

You're not the first and most certainly not the last one to fck up something.

Fred Linfjärd is the Director of Growth at Planday. Plus he advises other successful, big businesses & is constantly invited to podcasts to share his knowledge.

Case in point: if you like to learn from a smart marketer but also wonder how someone can be so funny & humble with so much experience...check this out.

But first.

Do you know where the name of WD-40 comes from? (The blue-yellow spray every dad has that displaces water and prevents corrosion.)

I'll let you know at the end of today's course.

However, if you find these insights valuable, the best way to support our work is by inviting your friends to become Dot Connecters and learn more about Connecting The Dots between marketing activities and financial goals.

Topic Of Today

• 🎙 Episode Highlight: Learning from Fcking Up

• 📚 Deep Dive: Embracing Mistakes for Growth

• 📌 Actionable Advice

• 📚 Homework

• 💡 Pro Tip

📽️Connecting The Dots: The Subtle Art of Messing Up📽️

In a recent episode of Connecting The Dots, Frederic Linfjärd opens up about the inevitable bumps in the road that come with any career.

From sending wrong emails to millions of people to ordering 20,000 paintbrushes instead of 200, Frederic laughs through his mistakes and draws attention to the importance of learning from each one.

1.🎙 An Episode Highlight: Learning from Fcking Up

Fred shares some of his most memorable blunders, not as cautionary tales, but as learning experiences. He advocates for adding a "wait step" in workflows to catch errors and shares how each mistake has been a lesson learned.

Key Takeaways:

1. The "Wait Step":
Frederic suggests adding a "wait step" in workflows to catch errors before they go out, a lesson he learned the hard way when he sent out a mail to millions by accident.

2. Learning from each mistake:
Whether it's killing an API or making an awkward comment during a webinar, the key is to learn from each experience. Everyone fcks up. The difference will be in how & what one learns from these.

3. The Importance of Humor:
Frederic uses humour to cope with mistakes, showing that a light-hearted approach can make the learning process less painful. Sure in the moment of realisation... and for some time after it, it is hard to laugh. But instead of spiralling deep into the maze of "who does that?!", try to acknowledge the fact that it happened, own up to it, draw some conclusions for your future and move on.

2. 📚 Deep Dive: Embracing Mistakes for Growth

Fred's funny stories about his career fckups rhyme well with a growing body of thought on the importance of embracing mistakes.

Here's a deeper look into this topic, enriched with insights from Frederic and the articles.

The subtle art of fcking up:
I couldn't agree more with what this article from Creative Hackers suggests: mistakes are not just inevitable but also valuable. They can be the catalysts for innovation and personal growth. They even go as far as to say that if you're not making mistakes, you're not pushing your boundaries enough. I tend to agree. Keeping it safe may work in favour of your nerves... but you are likely missing out on tremendous opportunities to learn. This resonates with Frederic's point about adding a "wait step" in workflows, which is something he learned to do by fcking up before.

Why it's actually important to mess up:
Michal Lasman in this article argues that fear of making mistakes can stifle growth. He encourages people to ask two questions after a mistake:
1. "What is the next step?" and 2. "What can I learn from it?".

What better way to handle your mistakes. They happened already. You can't make them disappear (well in most cases anyway)... so what better to do then look ahead and see what you can learn from it?

Creating a fail-friendly culture:
Megan Mateer writes about how organisations can benefit from a culture that encourages mistakes as a part of the learning process. She argues that a fail-friendly culture can lead to more innovation, as employees are not afraid to take risks. Could not agree more.

Fck ups will always happen. If you teach your colleagues that it's the end of the world, they'll learn to A) avoid higher risk/higher reward situations, and B) lie/hide mistakes. Neither of those are things you should aim for.

The role of humour & perspective:
Fred uses humour to cope with mistakes, showing that a light-hearted approach can make the learning process less painful. This is a crucial point because the way we perceive our mistakes affects how we learn from them. If we see them as catastrophic, we're less likely to take risks in the future. But if we see them as learning opportunities, we're more likely to innovate and grow.

This does not mean that you should take every mistake lightly. Taking responsibility and owning up to mistakes can be hard sometimes. But it does mean that you should focus on what to do next instead of the "how could this happen" part.

The collective wisdom of mistakes:
One of the most overlooked aspects of making mistakes is the collective wisdom that can be gained. When team members share their mistakes and the lessons learned, it creates a repository of experience that can help prevent future errors.

This is something that we continuously aim for at Saasmic. If someone makes a mistake, see what they can learn from it and share it with the rest.

It's always cheaper to learn from other's mistakes.

3. 📌 Actionable Advice

• Implement a "Wait Step":
  Before finalising any significant action, especially those that are irreversible, add a "wait step" to review everything thoroughly.

• Post-Mistake analysis:
  After a mistake, instead of dwelling on it, ask yourself what you can learn from it, how to avoid the same thing next time and what the next steps are from there.

• Cultivate a fail-friendly culture:
  Encourage open discussions about mistakes within your team to foster a learning environment. Share your fckups and how you solved them.

4. 📚 Homework:

Identify your recent mistakes:
Take some time and list the last three mistakes you made in your professional life. This exercise is not to dwell on them but to identify learning opportunities.

Perform a 'Wait-Step' analysis:
Inspired by Frederic's "wait step" in his workflows, identify areas in your current projects where a pause for reflection or double-checking could be beneficial. Implement this 'wait step' and monitor the results.

Create a 'Fail-Friendly' action plan:
Based on Megan Mateer's article, draft an action plan to create a more fail-friendly culture within your team or organisation. Include steps like 'Celebrate the Fail of the Month' or 'Hold a Monthly Mistake Roundtable.'

Ask the 2 questions:
Following Michal Lasman's advice, the next time you or your team makes a mistake, ask: "What is the next step?" and "What can I/we learn from it?" Document the answers and revisit them in a few weeks to see if the insights gained were accurate.

Share and learn:
Create a 'Mistake Log' where you and your team can anonymously share mistakes and the lessons learned from them. Review this log in team meetings to disseminate the collective wisdom.

Practice humour & perspective:
The next time you make a mistake, try to find the humor in the situation as Frederic does. Write down why it's funny and how this perspective shift changes your emotional response to the mistake.

Push your boundaries:
Choose one task or project where you feel too comfortable or unchallenged. Intentionally see how you may up the risk to reward ratio (of course align with your leaders first) to push your boundaries, as suggested by the Creative Hackers article. Document what you learn from this experience, whether you succeed or fail.

Review & Reflect:
At the end of the month, review your 'Mistake Log' and your answers to the two questions. Identify patterns and make a list of actionable steps to implement these learnings in the future.

5. 💡 Pro Tip:

The key to turning mistakes into learning opportunities lies in your mindset. Adopting a 'Growth Mindset,' as coined by psychologist Carol Dweck, can be a game-changer. In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, "Oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses," you say, "Wow, here's a chance to grow."

If it's a "bigger one", give yourself 24 hours to feel bad about a mistake. After that, it's time to shift into problem-solving mode. This time limit helps you process emotions but prevents you from wallowing.

Fun fact answer:  WD-40 got its name because the first 39 formulations failed. The 40th attempt was a success, and thus the product was named "Water Displacement, 40th formula" or WD-40.

Isn't that just fun?

Keep learning and growing! 🚀 ❤️

New episodes of Connecting The Dots & Business Companion are coming out regularly, so stay tuned.

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LinkedIn posts worth reading this week:

1. 1 piece of content. 75 assets gained.
If you are not repurposing. What are you doing?

2. 5 reasons your website content fails
Vendors barely even make it to the top five sources of information and support for buyers making decisions.

3. The best GTM playbook
Why you shouldn't overcomplicate things.