Listing the Fuckups is More Helpful Than the Other List
Getting the elephant in the room out in the open, marrying a woman after three dates who demonstrated a lot of red flags during the early days was a mistake. This is not to say there wasn’t some fun, some joy, but mostly the marriage was filled with frustration and a chipped away sense of self that could only be eradicated by the most egregious of long-term lies in the history of married people.
During the last year or so of that marriage, while she was working the Strip and banging a bass player in a sub-par Las Vegas metal band, I was working for a company run by a guy who wanted little more than to be one of those online sales gurus. On top of the basics of copywriting—SEO tags, web articles, white papers, video sales scripts, and ebooks on the business—he wanted me to fully research several of those Make a Million Dollars in Fifteen Minutes grifters and fashion a book with the same principles in his voice.
One thing among others these idiots had in common was the unbelievable repetition of their list of successes financially. At the time all I wanted to know was their list of failures. I felt like I could learn more about the business of shifty finance and grotesquely manipulative sales technique by watching a video of them completely biffing the sale but no respite was afforded me from the ongoing bragging of big sales these guys bagged.
NEWSFLASH: You will fail. More times than you succeed. If you're "normal" (whatever that means) or "reasonable" you will fail in many small ways—ways that most people won't notice. You'll screw up a copy for your work, you'll miss the bus by 30 seconds, you'll forget to wear socks. You know, tiny shit that only you are really aware of. The thing is, if those are sum total of your failures, then your successes will mirror them. You will succeed in getting that copy right, catching the bus or wearing socks. Not really changing your world with that list of achievements, huh?
That's because the size of your successes matches the size of your failures.
You wanna go out there and change worlds (or at least your own) then you need to be bold enough to fail big. To suck with gusto. To blow it big enough that you consider leaving the State in order to escape the ridicule and shame. Do it big or stay in bed, baby.
Thus, a list of fuckups is more instrumental than the catalogue of wins.
In no specific order (and limited to my adult mistakes because, c’mon, kids are hardwired to do stupid shit):
I did not listen to Joel Jeske when he pitched the show that became KLOWN: Prick Us and We’ll Burst which ended up becoming one of my favorite pieces of theater ever.
I trusted the landlords of 3209 N. Halsted when they told me they would facilitate getting the theater license switched over to our name.
I did not listen to the advice of my best friend when I started the John Cusack-like pursuit of my third ex-wife.
The blonde highlights in my hair and pencil thin mustache when I was in college did not age well.
I waited until I was in my forties before fitness became a priority.
I started smoking at age 29.
I treated Jenny Seidleman incredibly poorly during the writing of The Edward Hopper Project and was too pigheaded to apologize.
I told too many women I loved them when I didn’t.
I produced a Hip Hop dance night for WBEZ without any understanding of Hip Hop.
Too many to mention—I let my anger and ego make decisions for me.
Not a comprehensive list. Off the top of my head. Plenty more fuckups but just with ten I can see more lessons for moving forward successfully than a much longer list of wins. I, like the swindlers, have a great win/loss ratio going for me but it is the screw ups that teach me the most.
I regret relatively few things in life—letting my Stretch Armstrong leak resin all over the cassette tapes of my Grandpa playing hysterical characters and marrying my third ex-wife—but the list of mistakes made is immense. Failure equals experience. Experience plus reflection equals wisdom.
I’d rather be wise than successful.
