INSTANT MBA: There's No Greater Sin Than Not Learning From Mistakes

"Well, I've made lots of mistakes. Probably the worst one — I would say they tie. It's either when I didn't move fast enough on something, or I didn't take a big enough risk. And I can think of multiple times — I mean, the worst mistakes to me, though, is you don't learn from your mistake. There is no greater sin than to not learn from it."

Rometty knows that everybody is bound to make mistakes, so why not use them to our advantage? The more you can grow from the mistakes you've made, the stronger you become, not just on the job, but on a personal level as well. The difficult part is admitting that you've screwed up. The people most likely to succeed are those who aren't afraid to face their errors and tackle them head on.

"The recommendation when I'm mentoring folks, I always tell them -- and we talked about this last year — take a risk...I am big on — even with our whole team — it's always about, well, what were the lessons learned? And I think it's that idea of if you are very confident to admit you always have something to learn. If you are confident to admit that, it will help clear your way."

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