Here in Europe there is a low cost airline called Easyjet. In the in-flight magazine, there is a really cool column called “My Greatest Mistake” (or “My Biggest Mistake”), in which entrepreneurs tell what was the biggest mistake they made in their business.
In one of the editions, a businessman says that he lost a million-dollar contract for sales of coconut water to Europe because he was not informed about the legislation for packaging, minimizing the importance of some mandatory items. It took several years for him to get another chance to enter Europe again – luckily, in the end, he did.
Another counter magazine about a businessman who had a restaurant that was open without reservations. When he opened another one, in another part of town, he used the same principle. Only, in this place, people left and never came back, because they were never sure if they were going to get a table. The solution was to leave half the tables with reservations and half without, so he could meet the needs of both audiences. And the lesson for him was that you can't think that a rule will always fit everything you do.
Based on that, I'm going to share five mistakes I've made along the way, and how I (and you) could have avoided them. I only discovered these errors by working on my biography – otherwise I would end up falling into the delusion that things are about luck or bad luck, when, in fact, they are things that could have been handled better.
If you are in the maturity stage, it is important that you review your biography so that you can better understand why you acted the way you did, and how it is affecting the person you are today.
make emotional decisions
I can say that in my life I had some good career chances. I would join a company and then get promoted, because I had a great sense of responsibility and, above all, leadership. It ended up happening that, after two or three months, people were already putting me in charge of something, or paying for courses for me to specialize in something.
In my first job in São Paulo, for example, I was able to do a lot of training in programming because I showed curiosity in the IT area. In my second job, I trained in International Law, among others.
However, when something happened, some relationship problem, no matter how many years with the company, I resigned. Instead of separating the emotional from the rational, I put everything in one bag – an emotional problem was impacting my career.
When we talk about seven years or cycles of seven years, from the age of 28 onwards, the Self has to make thinking, feeling and will work together. You can't let the feeling rule. The Self, which is more mature, has to be the authority.
So one of the exercises I learned when working on my biography was to make a list of the decisions I made, and see what their quality was: were they made as a matter of survival? On an irrational impulse? To meet a needy need – for example, the lack I felt of a father and mother?
You can only transform your biography, your destiny, if you understand them.
Looking at work to fill a home shortage
Again, I mixed one area of life with another that had nothing to do with it.
I had divorced parents and moved house a lot. So, for a long time, I was looking for the feeling of home, family, stability within the company.
Today I see, for example, that my history of working in small companies was not a coincidence, but a pattern. If you pay attention, we call a small business a “family business”.
In these companies, there were the same dramas as there are in a family: passions, fights, etc. Everything was very focused on likes and dislikes.
This pattern has impacted my work today, since, having not had this experience of working in a large corporation, I have a lack that prevents me from working with executive coaching.
My advice is: if you are in the first half of your life and you see this trend in your biography, there is still time to correct this course and look for other experiences that further expand your experience and your perspective.
And if you're in the second half, review your work history and see what permeated it. So, first, analyze if it still has an impact on your life. In my case, in addition to what I said above, I can check if, in my professional life or in my marriage, I am still trying to fill this gap. Then put light and awareness into it so you can correct the course.
Also, try to use what happened to your advantage. You might think, for example, what qualities did you create from that? Or what can you create from it? Based on this reflection, you begin to give purpose to what has happened in your life.
Missing opportunities by focusing on a goal
As a coach, I believe that having a goal is a wonderful thing: it gives motivation, discipline, focus.
But we have to be careful that this focus doesn't turn into rigidity, or control. Sometimes we focus so much on one thing that we end up missing the flow of life, what is happening naturally, without us having to put in effort.
I recently realized something like this: I have a closed group on Facebook called “Cura de Amor”. Having a closed group is different from posting stuff to random people on the internet, where some will read it and not be touched by your content. In a closed group, people are there of their own volition, they chose to be there and they want to hear what you have to say.
In this group, I never had to do much: every time I entered the social network, there was someone asking for permission to join the group.
It's just that I was so focused on Instagram, on increasing my engagement there, that I didn't appreciate what was happening organically. And I was just feeling the pain that “Instagram was so difficult, it didn’t deliver my posts, etc.”.
So the tip I want to give you is: look around you. What is working in the flow, without you having to put in so much effort? And go there.
For example: things people ask you to do all the time, or things you feel you would do for free. So why choose to suffer, if you can invest in what you are already getting signals to do?
Revere the wrong authority
In the second seven years, that is, from 7 to 14 years old, we say that the theme is “The World is Beautiful”. It is the time when the child enters school, and the beloved authority figure is very important – which is usually the teacher, but can also be an aunt, another person. In the case of the teacher, she will use art, fairy tales, to show the child that the world is beautiful.
When this authority is lacking in childhood, you look for it at other stages of life.
I have this joke in my biography that I wish I had a German governess, who would have been a person who would have guided me in my studies: what to read, art, etc., a more refined intellectual education.
And in my book “A Namorada do Dom” I tell the story of Fernando. Fernando was an intellectually interesting person, but he felt far superior to the normal little world and didn't work. We started to relate, and I stayed there working for the two of them, I got into debt, all in exchange for drinking from that source, for having this education that I didn't have. I began to revere the wrong authority. And I didn't let the I, the proper authority of that seven years, play its role either.
I paid for it with my self-esteem, with loss of sleep, with the loss of my joy, since he had a dark personality.
It took a couple of years, but I had people who warned me, who helped me out of that situation. When you are experiencing something like this, and you have low self-esteem, lack of sleep, etc., you enter what is called a tunnel – you focus only on one thing, you cannot see the whole picture.
When you are in the tunnel, you only come out of it with an external agent. So if you're in that tunnel situation of bowing to the wrong authority, ask for help and listen to advice.
And if you're out, don't give up on people. Have compassion. Compassion is wanting the other to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. Don't think that people don't want to be helped. Sometimes they don't even know where to start; have no more strength. Offer your wisdom, the wisdom of those who have lived a lot and those who are out of the tunnel.
Not having a mentor
This is a big flaw in my biography: not having had someone to guide me in my choices.
I have already written about the issue of younger people working with older people, how the ideas of the young, when combined with mature idealism, can bear more fruit.
What happens today is that, many times, your parents had no education, or they don't speak the same language as you, and they can't guide you, especially in your career. Companies, in turn, insist on sending the mature ones away, keeping only young talent. Or the older boss thinks he knows everything and gets into the boss position instead of trading. This creates a gap between the experience of the mature and the creative energy of the youth, which needs to be set in motion, but also needs to be guided, so that there can be a connection between the youth's thinking and will.
In my life, I made many wrong decisions, mainly in the sense of not finishing what I started. I left law school behind, which was something I had the talent to pursue. Someone was missing to say: “If you do it like this, you can continue”, or “You will not leave college for this reason”.
A lot of the skills I have now, like speaking English and French, or even my degree, I got later in life, with more maturity and support.
My advice if you are in the first half of your life is: get a mentor. It could be someone from your company, your own boss, the head of another department, someone you admire. Many people even do this as a volunteer job – and they take great pleasure in helping others.
You may also like
- The benefits of looking at your biography
- Deal better with your self-criticism
- Repeat 10 Affirmations to Learn to Forgive Yourself
- Study 21 lessons parents should teach their children
And, if you're in the second half of your life, consider mentoring someone. You can help a person whose parents were uneducated and guide that person in his or her choices. You can take someone who works in the same area you worked in, and help. And, over time, you can even make a new profession out of it, why not?
This is one of the best things you can do in your maturity: pass the baton; help this new generation to stay in the future in the best way.
