Page 189 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

Learning from your mistakes

In life generally, I find that people take successes in their stride,
but they tend to learn more from their mistakes. If something

you are working on goes well, you don’t analyse it, you just
move on to the next project or deal. But if it doesn’t work, you
stop and ask the question. You want to understand it, analyse it.

I always learn far more from the deals that go wrong than from
the deals that go right. My development and my improvement
arise from my failures, not from my successes.
The number of mistakes you make is in line with how
successful you become. Without a question. More success

comes with better technique. You don’t become more success-
ful by going backwards. How do you become better, if you
don’t learn from the mistakes you make?

If I hadn’t addressed my demons and my phobias, I would
never have broken the mould. I would never have learned a
thing. There is not one day that goes by when I don’t realize that
I’ve screwed up, said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing.
But I address my mistakes, I learn from my mistakes. The key

factor for me is that I don’t make those same mistakes again.
I make di≠erent mistakes.
By being driven, by being hungry, I want to be better. I am

prepared to do something about it. For most people, those are
just words. To me, they mean something. And in that quest to
be better, how do you become better if you don’t question? You
have to question – not just others, but yourself.

177 perseverance