Short YouTube talk by Julie Broad discussing mistakes, the human tendency to self-justify, and the value of admitting errors to learn and build trust. She cites a 1932 study by Edwin Bouchard on wrongful murder convictions and references the book 'Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)', plus President Kennedy's 1961 Bay of Pigs admission as an example of taking responsibility.
Chapters
I made a big mistake. We're going to talk about that in a second. Hey there. I'm Julie Broad of havemoreinfluence.com what if you make a massive mistake? Well, first of all, you're not alone. And if you haven't admitted it, you're not alone in that either. A crazy study was published in 1932 from Edwin Bouchard, a Yale professor. In that study, the study, by the way, was called convicting the innocent 65 actual errors of Criminal Justice. In that study, he talked about eight murders, or eight people who were convicted of murder, where the victim actually turned out later to be alive. So eight people convicted of murdering somebody who was not actually dead. Now, despite the fact that there was actually a living, breathing human being in front of them, prosecutors and police refused to acknowledge that they had in fact made a mistake. Huh? In fact, one of the prosecutors even told innocent men are never convicted. Don't worry about it. It never happens. The book, by the way, Mistakes were Made, but not by me. Great, great, fascinating read on this subject. They lead their book on page two. They actually say most people, when directly confronted with proof that they were wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action, but justify it even more tenaciously. So not only are we human beings and make mistakes, but we self justify to protect ourselves. We don't want to feel bad. We don't want to feel like we messed up and have done something wrong. You, you might have made a mistake. And by self justifying, you're robbing yourself of a fantastic opportunity to learn and, and grow. But you're not going to get there. You're not going to get to the golden part of learning from the mistakes that you've made and eventually forgiving yourself for making those mistakes if you're not first aware that you're even making them. Because your brain is stepping in to protect you from feeling bad. Because none of us want to feel bad. None of us want to feel like we messed up, but we all do. And you first need to realize when you might be justifying not taking responsibility to. Because no matter what happens, there's always a part you've played in it. There's something that you can take responsibility for and do differently in the future. So be aware, admit it, and then learn from it. And from all of this, you'll gain some real gold. And by understanding the mistakes you made and why you made them and learning from them, you'll actually become a more powerful influencer and have a greater impact on those around you. And by the way, if you're really nervous about admitting it, one of the pieces that they talked about in the book, Mistakes were Made. Very cool piece. They talked about how President Kennedy in 1961, they say that he's the only president to ever admit he was wrong. Not sure if that is still true because the book was published a few years ago. But they talk about the Bay of Pigs incident. So the Bay of Pigs disaster in Cuba. Kennedy says the final responsibility for the failure of Bay of Pigs invasion was mine and mine alone. Big thing for a president to admit, it was mine and mine alone. And you know, he had advisors all around, but he took responsibility. Now you might think that people hated him for this. The opposite was, in fact true. His popularity soared. Now think about it. If somebody knows you made a mistake and you're not admitting it, are you doing yourself any favors? Are you building your credibility? Are you building trust? No. So people probably know you made a mistake, so why not admit it? Be up front and there might be fallback. Absolutely. But there's also potentially a great opportunity to grow that relationship. So you're going to get gold from learning. You might get gold from admitting it. And well, you're opening up your mind to see possible areas where you might be able to improve by being more aware of when your brain is kicking in to self justify. So I've made a mistake. I've made many. But now I'm trying hard to be aware of it so I can admit it and learn from it. And I do hope you do too. You know what would be awesome? If you come over to havemoreinfluence.com, say hello and join the community and then I'll see you here again next time. Bye. Don't tell my husband I made a mistake. No, I'll admit it to you. But we're not gonna. We're not gonna tell Dave that I made a mistake. Deal?
