Mistakes....Mistakes...Mistakes....

A lot of my students seem to be afraid of making a mistake. This is absolutely baffling to me. Mistakes are part of the learning process.

Here are some quotes:

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." - Oscar Wilde

"A man's errors are his portals of discovery." - James Joyce

"Those who never make mistakes lose a great many chances to learn something."- I don't know

"All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes." - Winston Churchill

You probably recognize this guy on the left by now. The world's richest man? Warren Buffet wrote about his mistakes in his 2007 shareholder letter.

Here are Warren Buffet's mistakes:

1. He had the chance to buy a TV station in Dallas, TX for $35 million in the 1970s. However, he decided to pass on the opportunity. Since then, the TV station has made over $1 billion in profit. Ouch!

2. He bought stock in U.S. Air, which has gone into bankruptcy twice. By the way, never buy airline stocks. Even my friend, who is a manager at an airline company, told me never buy airline stocks. Here's Warren Buffet's quote on airline companies: "Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down." lol

3. Dexter Shoes. Have you ever heard of that brand? That's the problem. Buffet traded 1.6% of his company's stock (Berkshire Hathaway) to buy Dexter Shoes. In his words, "I gave away 1.6% of a wonderful business - one now valued at $220 billion - to buy a worthless business."

Finally, he said: "I'll make more mistakes in the future, you can bet on that."

Here are a few of my mistakes:

1. I dated a girl named !$#%!, and wasted a year of my life. If you're a princess, please stay away from me. =)

2. I didn't buy Google stock. The ipo price was $80 a share. Today, Google's share price is around $465. I was considering it for about 10 minutes, but passed. =( Luckily, I completely avoided the "Internet Bubble," but I should have realized that Google had a future. And was not the typical worthless Internet company.

3. MasterCard. Have you heard of this company? Yeah. Me too. Their ipo price was $40 a share two years ago. Today, the stock trades for around $230 a share. I researched this ipo before it came out. My conclusion was dead wrong.

"Life is learning, to fear learning is to fear life." - Andy

What mistakes have you made? =)