Craziest deliberate mistake ever? "The Year of Yes"

I've been fascinated by deliberate mistakes every since reading the HBR article "The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes," by Paul Schoemaker and Robert Gunther, years ago. This fascination was reawakened by Schoemaker's marvelous book "Brilliant Mistakes" (my favorite book of last year).

Examples of deliberate mistakes are hard to find. Which means they are an important untapped resource of learning. As part of writing my Mistake Bank book, I went back to Schoemaker's book for more examples. And rediscovered the story of Maria Headley. This is from the website for her book "The Year of Yes."

THE YEAR OF YES (Hyperion) is a memoir of the year that writer Maria Dahvana Headley put fate in charge of her love life. Weary of the kind of guys she seemed to always date, (sample line: "I'm listening to NPR...Do you want to come over and make out?") she decided to stop being so picky, and start going out with everyone who asked her. Yeah, everyone. Surely some of them would be different. They were.

Over the next 12 months, Maria ended up dating most of NYC: a homeless guy who thought he was Jimi Hendrix, a subway conductor, a mommy-obsessed millionaire, a guy who wanted her to bite his…well, you can guess, a woman who asked herto have her baby, an ice cream man who gave her a free cone – no euphemism here, he really did, a 70-year-old salsa dancer, a Playwright, a 30-year-old virgin,a Colombian Cowboy/Handyman, a Player King, a matched set of Princelings, a reincarnated dachshund owned by her mother in the early 70’s, and more. Many, many more. She fell apart. She fell over. She fell into a few beds. She fell out of a few beds. And most importantly, she fell in love. Twice.

This is a deliberate mistake, for sure, or a series of them. She went out with many of these men (and women) in spite of her instinct against it. It seems crazy, yet there's a powerful logic behind the approach. Schoemaker writes this:

By permitting many mistakes in dating, Headley was able to learn faster about what she truly wanted in a partner. She then found her special partner more quickly. Headley's epiphany was that our typical way of experimenting - developing a preconceived idea of Mr. or Ms. Right and finding someone to fit the part - does not always lead to the best decisions. Making more mistakes, as Headley did in her year of saying yes, can speed the process of learning.

What do you think? Insanity, or genius?

Author Paulo Coelho on not trying to follow guidelines

Renowned author Paulo Coelho ("The Alchemist" and many others) as part of the Berghs School 2011 Exhibition. Coelho says he reached a turning point in his life during one college assignment: when he stopped obsessing about following guidelines and pleasing his instructors and instead did his best and was committed to the results.

This is an example of a "deliberate mistake" working out quite well indeed. Coelho challenged his own assumption that success equated to deducing and exactly matching the teacher's expectations, and from that found that relying on his own voice and instinct creates a more profound kind of success.

Paulo Coelho – on the fear of failure. from Berghs' Exhibition '11 on Vimeo.

Transcript:

Every time that I have to present a thesis or a paper, when my school asked me to do this, I said, "I have to please my teacher, I have to follow exactly what she or he taught me." That was the wrong approach, in my opinion.

So one day I decided to write about things that really touched my heart. And I remember while I was studying law, they asked me...I don't remember exactly what was the paper for, but I decided to write about Caligula, the Roman emperor, and this constant struggle between our good part and our evil part. I wrote about Caligula and I said, "I'm lost. Nobody's going to accept this." I'm going to be...not punished, but they are going to give me a very low degree. It happened exactly the opposite. They said, 'This is quite original.'

I just wrote about Caligula because...I was fearing not to follow the teacher's instruction. At the same time, I said I have to break with this idea. Because I have something different to say. The subject is important, but you don't really need to follow the guideline. Because the guideline, at the end of the day, is just to discuss the subject.

So this Caligula paper for me was a turning point. And since then, my fear of failure... it still exists, because you don't get rid of this in your lifetime. But I'm never paralyzed by my fear of failure. I say OK, I'm doing my best. And from the moment I say, "I'm doing my best," after sending a new book, or a new article, to the publisher or the newspaper. I sit down, I breathe, and I say, "I did my best. I put in all my love, I did it with all my heart." Whether they are going to like it or not, it is irrelevant. Because I liked it. I'm committed to the thing I did.

So far, no one ever refused or criticized anything, because when you put love and enthusiasm in your work, even if people don't see, they realize it is there. That you did this with all your body and soul. I encourage you to do this. And don't worry about fear of failure - actually, this is a human feeling. The important thing is to move beyond this fear, and do what you think you should do.