by a few hundred clients and you can quickly see how I made it to the $9,000+ mark.

Oops.

I, of course, had a number of reasons for the mistake, but if I was never given the opportunity to share them, my time there would have shortened dramatically. It was the assumption of positive intent given to me that didn’t allow this one mistake, to be my last.

So the next time you or someone you know makes a mistake… remember..

How many times have you been criticized for making an honest mistake? Perhaps you left laundry in the dryer, forgot to put the milk away, or neglected to set your alarm for work? Hey…these things happen. After all, we’re only human right? Then why, at times, do we forget this universal truth and excessively criticize others for their mistakes?

The answer is simple and something I believe everyone, including myself, can improve upon; always assume positive intent. In other words, when you witness someone else’s mistake, assume they didn’t do it intentionally and they were trying their best to prevent making the mistake in the first place.

As an example, I’ll share with you a pretty big “boo boo” I made in 2004. I was coding the first draft of our company's monthly billing script, which bills every subscriber we had for their upcoming month of service. As you can imagine, I was pretty nervous. With so many clients, what if something went wrong?

I tested the script over and over to make sure I was charging each client the correct amount. Each time I ran the test, it appeared to be working. Confident that everything was in order, I executed the script for the first time in our history, which quickly led to my first biggest mistake in its history.

Instead of billing each client correctly, I billed them anywhere from $50 to $9,000! My fatal error? Not testing my script with more than one account at a time. If I had, I would have noticed that I wasn’t resetting the value for each subscriber’s account total.

So instead of this:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $75
Bob Stanley: $50

It looked like:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $125
Bob Stanley: $175

Multiply that by a few hundred clients and you can quickly see how I made it to the $9,000+ mark.

Oops.

I, of course, had a number of reasons for the mistake, but if I was never given the opportunity to share them, my time there would have shortened dramatically. It was the assumption of positive intent given to me that didn’t allow this one mistake, to be my last.

So the next time you or someone you know makes a mistake… remember..

pon; always assume positive intent. In other words, when you witness someone else’s mistake, assume they didn’t do it intentionally and they were trying their best to prevent making the mistake in the first place.

As an example, I’ll share with you a pretty big “boo boo” I made in 2004. I was coding the first draft of our company's monthly billing script, which bills every subscriber we had for their upcoming month of service. As you can imagine, I was pretty nervous. With so many clients, what if something went wrong?

I tested the script over and over to make sure I was charging each client the correct amount. Each time I ran the test, it appeared to be working. Confident that everything was in order, I executed the script for the first time in our history, which quickly led to my first biggest mistake in its history.

Instead of billing each client correctly, I billed them anywhere from $50 to $9,000! My fatal error? Not testing my script with more than one account at a time. If I had, I would have noticed that I wasn’t resetting the value for each subscriber’s account total.

So instead of this:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $75
Bob Stanley: $50

It looked like:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $125
Bob Stanley: $175

Multiply that by a few hundred clients and you can quickly see how I made it to the $9,000+ mark.

Oops.

I, of course, had a number of reasons for the mistake, but if I was never given the opportunity to share them, my time there would have shortened dramatically. It was the assumption of positive intent given to me that didn’t allow this one mistake, to be my last.

So the next time you or someone you know makes a mistake… remember..

ce. As you can imagine, I was pretty nervous. With so many clients, what if something went wrong?

I tested the script over and over to make sure I was charging each client the correct amount. Each time I ran the test, it appeared to be working. Confident that everything was in order, I executed the script for the first time in our history, which quickly led to my first biggest mistake in its history.

Instead of billing each client correctly, I billed them anywhere from $50 to $9,000! My fatal error? Not testing my script with more than one account at a time. If I had, I would have noticed that I wasn’t resetting the value for each subscriber’s account total.

So instead of this:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $75
Bob Stanley: $50

It looked like:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $125
Bob Stanley: $175

Multiply that by a few hundred clients and you can quickly see how I made it to the $9,000+ mark.

Oops.

I, of course, had a number of reasons for the mistake, but if I was never given the opportunity to share them, my time there would have shortened dramatically. It was the assumption of positive intent given to me that didn’t allow this one mistake, to be my last.

So the next time you or someone you know makes a mistake… remember..

t correctly, I billed them anywhere from $50 to $9,000! My fatal error? Not testing my script with more than one account at a time. If I had, I would have noticed that I wasn’t resetting the value for each subscriber’s account total.

So instead of this:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $75
Bob Stanley: $50

It looked like:

Joe Smith: $50
Allen Wood: $125
Bob Stanley: $175

Multiply that by a few hundred clients and you can quickly see how I made it to the $9,000+ mark.

Oops.

I, of course, had a number of reasons for the mistake, but if I was never given the opportunity to share them, my time there would have shortened dramatically. It was the assumption of positive intent given to me that didn’t allow this one mistake, to be my last.

So the next time you or someone you know makes a mistake… remember..

by a few hundred clients and you can quickly see how I made it to the $9,000+ mark.

Oops.

I, of course, had a number of reasons for the mistake, but if I was never given the opportunity to share them, my time there would have shortened dramatically. It was the assumption of positive intent given to me that didn’t allow this one mistake, to be my last.

So the next time you or someone you know makes a mistake… remember...

• Hindsight is always 20/20
• It’s easier to criticize a job than complete it
• It’s not the mistake that’s important, but what you learned from it

But most importantly, remember that success comes from having the courage to make one more mistake.