Happy Mistakes

As many of us know, Columbus did not set out to find the new world, in fact he came across it much by accident. The thinking he had found a shorter route to Asia still bears his mark as we refer to Native Americans as “Indians”. Eventually we came to the realization that these were not India Indians, rather people of a different land altogether. This in no way diminishes the awesomeness of the discovery of the new world, but rather heightens it when we look at it through the scope of a “Happy Mistake”. As much as we may not enjoy the mistakes of our lives, there is no denying that the mistake is truly our own. Our mistakes have our fingerprints all over them. What comes next is the tricky part, we need to learn from them. Sounds simple enough, but studies show that we can learn from our mistakes, but only if we want to. The two typical responses the brain has to mistakes mirror closely our fight or flight instinct when faced with stress. First, and best is when the brain addresses a mistake as a problem that needs solving. The brain increases attention during the next decision making process, as if to avoid the pain repeating itself from the first mistake, increases the chances of making a good decision, and fostering learning through positive confirmation. These people take critique well. The second response is not so good. When faced with a mistake the brain simply shuts down, taking it as defeat, we flee from the mistake's pain. Such people react better to positive reinforcement.  Studies also show that you are more prone to learn from a mistake if you believe (truly, don’t fool yourself) that you have room to grow in your knowledge. Some offenders of this include people who think they already know it all, successful people who deny the need to know any more and people who believe intelligence is immutable. These people are less likely to learn from their mistakes because they pay less attention to them as a learning tool.  With such an arsenal at our disposal it would seem silly not to tap into this explosive resource for learning. Instead of the "woulda coulda shoulda" mentality of counterfactual thinking which debilitates us into daydreaming about our whatif universe, embrace the mistake, learn from it and use it as the fuel to fire your growth.

In one of my many past Chef lives I catered. I really enjoyed the challenge of producing under extreme circumstances and with changing boundaries. It was exciting. Stakes were high and mistakes were costly. On one such occasion I found myself and my crew in the middle of nowhere at a palatial home to cater a New Year's Eve party. Aside from being some twenty miles from anything resembling a store, it was a late night affair, so even if we could get somewhere for supplies, chances are they would not be open. This sort of event needed to be extra perfect in its planning and execution.  We checked our mise en place, double checked it, loaded the vans, checked the lists, and made sure we had all we needed to WOW another customer; and we set off on our way. The night went off without a hitch, all the planning and double checking was sure paying off as we wined and dined our client into the night...and morning. The theme was dinner by the bite. The entire menu, served course by course, was all bite sized, a progressive meal served in hors d'oeuvres form. That way you could eat as much or as little as you wished, and not worry about lugging a plate around, just your glass. Well, it was well past midnight as we started on one of the final courses, dessert spoons. I loved these. We scooped little quennels of creme brulee onto dessert spoons, sprinkled with sugar, and caramelized each spoon individually. People loved them, too. I began on the first round, I thought I must be tired, they weren't caramelizing like usual. Maybe it was the torch I was using. I adjusted the flame and got back to work. After a few more passes of the torch I realized something must be wrong, these brulees were not....well, bruleeing. I tasted one. OH MY G....salt. Are you kidding me? SALT. I turned to the young cook who was in charge of packing the dessert mise en place.
"Did you taste this?" I sternly asked, equally as disappointed in myself at this point for not doing so before using it.
"Ummmmm, No, it looked like sugar...and it was on the pastry bench. So I figured..."
This was bad,
"Check the coffee station!" I blurted out to one of my servers, "make sure that's not salt too." I quickly brought in the servers and began to retrieve all the spoons that had made their way out into the party. But what to do now, middle of the night, middle of nowhere? Hopefully the host had a bag of sugar in the cupboard. Wouldn't you know it, not a grain. All the sweet and low you could imagine but no sugar. My mind went into overdrive. Luckily the cook who put together the desserts was not in charge of the coffee station. The coffee was safe and had enough sugar to get the desserts going again. Luckily, too, the guests had a good sense of humor about that initial round of salty custard spoons. They didn't miss the chance to give me and my apprentice some good-natured ribbing about it for the rest of the night.
Now I know what you're saying, that doesn't sound happy at all. And you're right, it was dismal. I should have checked, I should have tasted. But you know what, after that night, I always did. And happily, a mistake like that never happened again.

Mistakes do happen, not much we can do about it, it’s part of life, we are imperfect. What we can do lies within our reaction to them. In that moment we may not be happy about it, but that moment will pass. Be happy, maybe not that you made a mistake, but that you survived it, and perhaps even are the type of person who has learned from it. And that experience will add to the others and form the person you are presently. And if you are happy with who you are today you should realize you are you because of all the experiences that led up to this moment, including all the mistakes.