Tag Archives: mistakes

A Man’s Gotta Know His Own Limitations, by Jim Quinn

The egos and hubris of our rulers know no limits. From Jim Quinn at theburningplatform.com:

A man's got to know his limitations (HD) - YouTube

As I’ve been observing the actions and justifications of men like Jerome Powell, Anthony Fauci, Andrew Cuomo, Joe Biden and Donald Trump during this self-inflicted global depression, I can’t help but channel the iconic American actor Clint Eastwood and his most famous role – Dirty Harry, when assessing whether they have an understanding of their limitations. If a man doesn’t know his limitations, he can ruin his own life.

When men in positions of immense power don’t know their limitations, they can ruin the world, destroying the lives of millions and propelling the world towards a catastrophic financial collapse and likely global conflict. Our benevolent leaders act as if they know what is best for mankind, when they are actually flailing about blindly, corrupted by their own power and wealth, leading us on a path to destruction, because their immense egos won’t allow them to humbly admit their dreadful mistakes and take corrective actions.

The second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force, came out in 1974, with Harry taking on vigilante cops in San Francisco. His lieutenant, played by Hal Holbrook, tries to keep Harry off the case of bad guys being executed by the lieutenant’s squad of dirty cops, using the logic that Harry posed a risk to society by not following proper police and justice procedures.

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10 Lessons I Learned From Making Many Mistakes In My 20s, by Darius Foroux

If you had to distill all 10 lesson down to one, it would be: a little humility is not a bad thing. From Darius Foroux at dariusforoux.com (h/t The Burning Platform):

One of the biggest mistakes we make is that we assume we always learn from our mistakes. I’ve met enough people who learned little from their own stupidity.

We all know these people. In fact, we probably are these people. You know why? It’s damned hard to learn from your mistakes. I’ve never met someone who actually enjoyed failing.

Let’s be honest, no one likes to make mistakes, and lose their time, energy, or money. So that’s why we need to make an effort to learn from the things that we wish we didn’t do. The father of functional philosophy and pragmatist philosophy, John Dewey, made that point obvious:

“The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.”

Learning from your mistakes does not happen automatically—it requires thinking and reflection. So here’s my reflection on the lessons I learned from the mistakes I made in my twenties. Here we go.

1. Don’t Think You Know Everything

There’s a word for people who think they know everything: Idiot. I meet idiots all the time. And the reason I recognize them is because I used to be one.

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How to Evaluate a President, by Scott Adams

It’s way too early to write off the Trump presidency. From Scott Adams on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg. Richard Branson. What do they all have in common, aside from wealth?

They all succeeded without the right kind of prior experience. Apparently they knew how to figure out what they needed once they started. I’ll bet they are all systems-thinkers, not goal-thinkers.

If you see the world in terms of goals, you might think President Trump has failed at every important goal so far. He didn’t get what he wanted on immigration. He hasn’t gotten his Supreme Court nomination confirmed. He hasn’t replaced Obamacare. He hasn’t defeated ISIS. He hasn’t done a lot of things he said he would do. He even had to fire General Flynn. President Trump is a big ol’ failure when it comes to goals.

Maybe that’s because Trump just started on the job. Success generally comes after you start. If you think success comes before you start, the world probably looks confusing to you.

But in any case, as I often say, goals are for losers. Systems are better. As I describe in my book, a good system is something you do every day that leads you to better outcomes, not specific objectives. For example, going to college is a good system even if you don’t know what job you might later want. Any time you learn something valuable, that’s a system. Networking with important people is a system. And so on.

To continue reading: How to Evaluate a President