Ep 55 Big Mistakes (FINAL VIDEO)
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[00:00:00] Marijanel: Atychiphobia,
[00:00:02] Charla: Atychiphobia,
[00:00:04] Marijanel: Atychiphobia. Atychiphobia Charla and I are practicing how to say atychiphobia, which is the fear of failure.
[00:00:13] Charla: Atychiphobia.
[00:00:15] Marijanel: It's not a disease. It's a phobia. A phobia. Do you believe that your mistakes can change the world or you for good? Do you believe that your mistakes somehow will benefit you?
On the other side of learning, the fear of making mistakes is a little bit different than atychiphobia, which is the fear of failure. And today we're gonna explore why there's so many artists and creative people who won't even try because they're afraid of making mistakes, but in fact, mistakes are part of the process.
They're just part and parcel of being an artist. And today we're gonna turn failure into fuel. Yeah, it's kinda a fun word to say, but we are pronouncing it correctly. We Googled it.
[00:01:08] Charla: Failure into fuel.
[00:01:10] Marijanel: Do you wanna define what a mistake actually is?
[00:01:13] Charla: Um, Uh, we had it written down somewhere, right?
[00:01:17] Marijanel: Yeah. It's an action. It's an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong. So basically a mistake is to be wrong.
And none of us like being wrong. So you can see how that's different than failure. Failure is when you set out to do something, everything in a lot of ways are right. Um, and it just, the outcome is unsuccessful. And I've had lots of failures where I've experienced like unsuccessful outcomes. And in fact, I felt like everything was going right or couldn't have been more aligned, and yet it just didn't reach the potential of what, what I wanted.
And that's, that's just a typical failure.
[00:01:53] Charla: It can be outta your control like atychiphobia. Failure. Failure can be outta your control. Something can fail. And it's not really your doing. You did everything you could and it still failed.
[00:02:05] Marijanel: Yeah. Where mistakes are different because it's just, you're just plain wrong.
You did it wrong or you just didn't, you just didn't do it right. And I have piles of art in my studio that to me, to where I want to be. I've missed the mark. I've done it wrong. They're just like mistake pieces, but I... Well, I've come to terms with those. I can't say I've always been at peace with my mistake pieces because sometimes they're frustrating.
We've talked about that in many episodes past. We've talked about being in the ugly stage or how to finish strong, or how to get through these, you know, hard parts of the process of making art. But, um, when I look at the piles of mistake pieces, the truth of the matter is they've led me to where I am today.
So you had asked me, do you have a specific story or, you know, a time that you made a mistake that you know we can bring to the show? I am not sure if I have a specific, except to say that I know all my mistakes really have led me to where I am, and so I don't want to belittle the mistakes. It sounds funny to say. They're important.
[00:03:21] Charla: Yeah. I, when I was thinking about like stories of mistakes I've made, because we are all imperfect people, like every single person on the planet is imperfect, which means we've made mistakes. So I know I've made some, so I'm thinking of like, what mistakes have I made and what did I learn from them?
And it's, I actually found it really hard to, to think of, to think of, of stories to tell. And then I was like, why is this so hard? Did I like block them out? Were they so dramatic that I can't remember them? But I think what it actually is, I mean, I, I thought hard enough when I thought of some, but why I find it difficult to just think of them off the top of my head is because, I really don't like looking at them as mistakes, and I've, I've read quotes from people before that say, there is no mistake, there's only lessons to be learned.
You know, there's, I look at mistakes as teachers, as lessons, as something that's guiding me into the next step, a stepping stone into the next place. Like, you have a failure, so now you problem solve. It's, I look forward to problem solving. Now,. That said, there are some mistakes that are really big and cause um, emotional reactions.
And maybe for me, I have a tolerance to the smaller ones that are more like stepping stones. But I, I was thinking about like, why do we avoid mistakes? And the feeling a lot of feelings came on me like, why do we avoid mistakes? One of the first ones, Is because we wanna avoid embarrassment, like mistakes embarrass us.
And for me that is one of the like being embarrassed is like one of the worst things.
[00:04:55] Marijanel: Charla hates embarrassment. Okay, hates it. I was telling her the story of the other day before leaving my studio, I put some chapstick on the kind that you have to use your finger to apply, and I must have gotten a big glob of it on my chin without realizing.
And I walked down the street, and went into a cafe, and someone opened the door for me, and I walked past them, and had this whole like social experience, not realizing until I opened my phone and could see my reflection that I had a glob that looked like a booger on my chin . And I was so embarrassed and I told this story to Charla and she was mortified on my.
She's like, I can't handle embarrassment. That's so embarrassing.
[00:05:35] Charla: It would take me like days to forget about that and weeks to like overcome it and, and block it out, and then I would need therapy to like forget it, to try and learn from it. I don't know. I don't know. But there's something about embarrassment, way more like other things that, that reasons why people avoid mistakes is because of loss.
Like they could lose money, lose friends. Um, there's disappointment, shame, anxiety, loss of safety. But for me, embarrassment is the worst. Like all the other ones, like loss of money. That's not something that, I mean, it's always something I try to avoid, but it's happened to me before, so I'm not, it doesn't scare me.
I know I can overcome the loss of money. Loss of friends is, is a scary one, is one that I definitely would want to avoid. Disappointment. I think disappointment is one that's on par with embarrassment for, for a reason that I would avoid mistakes because I hate the idea that someone would be disappointed in me unless it was, you know, people can be disappointed in me because I put my hair up today.
I really couldn't care less. You're disappointed I put my hair up. But if you're disappointed because I made a mistake, like a real full on mistake, then, um, that would be really hard. It would feel in the same for me as embarrassment.
[00:06:54] Marijanel: Yeah. You know, I, I'm looking back here, even in our, uh, producing the Bold Artist podcast, there was one episode.
Now I, I should open by saying this, that at this point we have an entire team of people working on the Bold Artist Podcast. It's not just me producing. But when we first started the show, I was pretty much the one behind the wheel producing and putting out the shows. And I remember one of the episodes aired.
And had a big mistake in it. And I was mortified. I took it so hard, it ruined my day. And I was apologizing to Charla, like it had this big mistake and to her she was like, it's okay, it's just a thing that happened and we'll get over it and have another show next week. And I thought the show was gonna end cause it had this whole mistake.
And in my mind it was this horrible thing. 'Cause. I was so worried to disappoint you. And um, now, I mean, a year later, and we're used to the whole process, mistakes are really part of producing anything creative.
[00:07:59] Charla: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:59] Marijanel: Whether it be a painting or a podcast, it's part of it.
[00:08:03] Charla: Yeah, it is. And so recognizing that after, after realizing that and experiencing it, we realized that like, that, that feeling or or worry about the disappointment actually disappears because you realize it's a part of life. So that's a way to kind of get rid of that. When I was young, I had a really big issue, like when I was a kid and a teenager, I was always scared of disappointing my best friends, or my teachers, or my parents. So, I became a people pleaser. I guess that's the, yeah, that's the negative outcome of avoiding disappointing somebody is that I became a people pleaser and I was doing everything to please people, but then I was never doing anything that I was supposed to do.
And for the most part, like that experience you just said. You were devastated cuz you thought you had disappointed me or the team, but in you didn't. So all that worry was for nothing. You know, like sometimes it, you can do things to disappoint people, but usually it's not as big of a deal as you think it is.
And I think,
[00:09:01] Marijanel: Yeah, sometimes the mistakes are in our head. They're, or, or let's say they're a mistake, but the big deal of it is in our head.
[00:09:08] Charla: Yeah.
[00:09:08] Marijanel: And you know, uh, you and I had had some fun gathering together some of the biggest and best mistakes ever made . And one of them we, we talked about in the last episode of our Love for Sticky Notes and post-It notes, and how it's changed our entire way of planning and creating and giving us the freedom to move all of our process around with these sticky notes.
And funny enough, post-It notes were a total accident. They were like essentially a mistake.
[00:09:39] Charla: They came out, like the idea came out of a, a devastating mistake, right? So the guy, I didn't actually write down his name, um, which was too bad cause I'd like to give him credit.
[00:09:50] Marijanel: A scientist named Dr. Spencer Silver.
[00:09:53] Charla: Dr. Spencer Silver
[00:09:55] Marijanel: ...was working to develop, uh, an adhesive.
[00:09:58] Charla: A super glue, right?
Like he wanted to, to create the most super adhesive that there was, but didn't.
[00:10:06] Marijanel: And, uh, he created the opposite.
[00:10:08] Charla: Yeah
[00:10:09] Marijanel: So, literally the opposite of what he wanted to make
[00:10:12] Charla: So, I like to imagine,
[00:10:14] Marijanel: Which can't be worse.
[00:10:14] Charla: Yeah. I like to imagine him, like, he's in a lab, and he is actually concocting things in a lab and it is like I, I imagine him, it just getting like less sticky and less sticky and less sticky.
And he is like at the point that it's almost has no stick whatsoever. And then he goes out for a drink with his friend, and he is like, I'm done. I have created the opposite thing of what I wanted. I am a failure. Like, I wanted a super glue, and I have an adhesive that barely works. And his friend is like, you know, I have this problem where I put papers... and it was in his church hymnal.
He puts, likes to put papers inside his church hymnal, and we all have done this type of a thing where you put papers inside a book, and you pick up your book and all the papers fall out. And he was like, but I don't wanna use an adhesive like tape or glue because I don't wanna ruin the pages of the hymnal.
It's a precious book, so I don't wanna ruin it. What if I use this really weak adhesive to hold the papers inside my hymnal? And thus the post-it was created. So it's like amazing. I love the story.
[00:11:18] Marijanel: You know what I hear in this first of all, is. There's friendship there, like the friendship of his colleague being able to say, it's not a, it's not as bad of a mistake as you thought.
[00:11:31] Charla: Yeah
[00:11:31] Marijanel: Let's come up with a way to make it work. And I, the other thing that I see there is invention, like using your innovation within the mistake, looking at what you've made that you feel went wrong.
[00:11:47] Charla: Yeah.
[00:11:47] Marijanel: And looking and saying, how can I use it? What is it good for?
[00:11:52] Charla: Yeah.
[00:11:53] Marijanel: And I hear so much good in that.
And then of course, I'm a huge fan of Post-Its and Sticky Notes. So to me, they're the most brilliant thing ever. Funny enough, though, they were created out of a big old failure or big old mistake.
[00:12:08] Charla: Yeah. So it's. Problem solving. Which being a mom, and I homeschooled for quite a few years, one of the things that so many of the homeschooling curriculums talked about was teaching your kids to problem solve.
Because if you can find solutions for the problems, I mean, I, I think of math problems, but it's really everywhere because you need to find the answer. And usually that requires problem solving. Like, where is the answer? And what if this isn't the best answer? Maybe there's another answer. So, teaching them to problem solve in every area and every, um, subject that we, we taught, that was what everybody in, in homeschooling is like one of the biggest themes of homeschooling
So I feel like I've used that word. You need to problem solve. Let's problem solve . Let's problem solve this together. And even now, the kids have been in school, in, uh, regular school for five or six years, I still am always telling them, you have a problem? Like, why are you coming to me? Like, I can help you with your problem, but I am not going to solve it for you.
You need to. Practice problem solving, you can only problem solve if you have a problem, which is usually the result of a failure or a mistake that you or somebody else has made. So, and that's what these inventions come out of, is problem solving.
[00:13:23] Marijanel: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's,
[00:13:26] Charla: So, there's another, there's, sorry.
There's another story that Marijanel really wants to tell because,
[00:13:33] Marijanel: Oh no, , she's putting me on the hot seat today.
[00:13:39] Charla: She has a crush on this guy. Apparently those were her first words to me.
[00:13:42] Marijanel: Oh, a little crush.
[00:13:44] Charla: Yes. Well, your crush, that's all. Hopefully Steve's okay with your crush.
[00:13:48] Marijanel: Everyone's like, who does she have a crush on?
Your celebrity crush.
[00:13:51] Charla: My celebrity crush.
[00:13:52] Marijanel: Celebrity Crush is a, a good old guy with the initials T.E.. Thomas Edison. But in fact, I don't have that much of a crush on him because of my, what do we call it again? Atychiphobia?
[00:14:09] Charla: Atychiphobia
I couldn't be married to that guy.
[00:14:13] Marijanel: I couldn't, I couldn't be with him because he failed too many times.
Just kidding. Uh, well, so we all know the very overused and over told story of Thomas Edison and his, you know, 1000 light bulbs that he had to make before one worked. And, I was joking around with Charla saying, you know, don't you think that by like light bulb number 456, you might start thinking, maybe I should stop making light bulbs.
And then you get to like number 696 and you're like, maybe this isn't gonna work. Like at what point, and you know, he's on 999 light bulbs, and he still has the fuel within himself to try again. And um, It just blows my mind, the persistence, like something inside of him said, don't stop. Like don't stop going.
You're onto something. And I don't think we planned to talk about it in this light, Charla, but it comes to trusting yourself and then trusting yourself to make it through the mistakes and make it through the failure to what you know in your gut that your intuition is telling you to push forward.
And
[00:15:31] Charla: That's what I was thinking as you were just talking about Thomas Edison. I'm like, he had to have known the answer was there. He, he trusted, he had faith, he believed.
[00:15:42] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:15:42] Charla: It's all of those types of concepts. He believed that answer was there, and if he didn't try again, somebody else would pick up where he left off,
and they would get credit. And so he would do 999, and the person that did the thousand would get the credit.
[00:15:56] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:15:57] Charla: And it's, it's not really about the credit, but it's kind of like, well, if I don't do it, somebody else will. Or maybe it will take a lot longer for somebody else to do it, so why don't I just do it?
So, it is just believing that answer exists. It, it is there and just trusting that it's there and you need to just go for it until you get it.
[00:16:14] Marijanel: I just wanna say here to all the artists who are tuning in, listening and watching today that I don't care how many mistakes that you have piled up in your studio, or your sketchbook, or your attempts at becoming an artist in business and you feel like you're making mistakes, it doesn't matter how many.
What it comes down to is your intuition within yourself to trust yourself. To keep trying, to learn from the mistakes, to be able to be like Thomas Edison and say, okay, that light bulb didn't work. What do I do now to make it work? And I feel like we're all doing that to some degree. I know we do that within Bold School.
We learn from everything that we do, all the classes we produce, the podcasts we put out, we are always learning, and growing and changing in order to be better. That's the point of mistakes, is to get better from.
[00:17:07] Charla: Yeah. I agree, and I think about like every famous artist in the world, every famous art piece that you've ever seen, any beautiful piece of art that you've ever seen, there's always a hundred bad pieces behind it.
And like Thomas Edison, I would even guess that there would be a thousand behind it. And not that they would be bad, but if you've created a masterpiece, then there's probably a thousand pieces behind it. Think about sketches, you know, think about the paintings you've actually created in your lifetime, what it takes to actually get to a masterpiece. And not even a masterpiece that you, not a ma, not something that you're really happy with, but something that that gets noticed.
Something that is, um, seen in public, maybe purchased or, or, or wins an award. You know, like, that type of level. What, what does it take to get there? And it's not that they're mistakes, but they're stepping stones to getting to. A place that you feel like might be, um, unreachable . But I do think they are, the more you keep trying and believe that you can get there, you can win the award or you can get the show,
or you can make the sale, then I think that you just keep moving and you will get there.
[00:18:16] Marijanel: Yeah. And just before we close, I wanna go, I wanna just touch on a deeper level here because I actually, I feel it that people listening are gonna just begin to feel a shift in their heart of how they view mistakes, and how they viewed their past mistakes and disappointments.
And I tell a story on my memoir cast where I, um, it's about a time that I was minimizing and going minimal in life, and I was throwing things in the garbage, literally. And, um, I, I, it's called Throwing It All Away is the name of the episode. But I had a moment in my life, Charla, where I was standing in an attic.
Throwing away my past art and things I had made. I had CDs I had recorded when I was young. I had self-published books and things like I had so much extra stock, and I wasn't doing these things anymore, and I was throwing them away. And it was very intentional. And I needed to purge. But I had this feeling like I'd made a mistake, like I'd wasted time.
And I think there's a real correlation between wasting time and making mistakes where we feel like, look at all these mistakes piled up in my studio or these boxes in my attic of past ventures that didn't work out. Um, and that's metaphorical for a lot of people. For me it was literal. And I want to say that wasting time...
and we've talked a lot about productivity and using our time, but wasting some time on learning and making these mistakes is part of the process, and we have to almost become comfortable with the fact that it takes time to learn and part of the time spent is on things that don't quite go how we wished or wanted.
And the other thing, a good friend of mine pointed out when I, I actually shared with her the experience. I said, I was just like throwing all my old projects in the garbage, and I feel like I wasted all this time. And if I had started such and such all these years ago, I would be better at such and such.
Like, I was really having a bad day. And she also reminded me, of my motivation. And she said, but you did those projects out of love, and out of love for the people that you made them for, or out of love for, like, what you were doing. And she said, that's not a waste. And so, in your mistakes and in your like mini failures, I'll say failure in general, but just these little stepping stones that we're pointing out
our motivation and our love behind what we're doing is enough to carry us through. And, and have it not be a mistake that we're learning and growing. Does that make sense?
[00:21:13] Charla: Yeah. Like there's, there's just, I, I think like so much in there is, I think a lot of time, the words that come outta people's mouths when they make a mistake is, Like you said that a couple of times it was, it was a waste of time.
[00:21:26] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:21:26] Charla: Like, I just spent all this time, like you think Thomas Edison, he's like, I spent all this time, all this money, I've like neglected my friends and my family, and it's not working. It's such a waste of time. But, it's not. Like, it's the time that gets you to the next stage in life. For me, it's, it's trusting God in a process and trusting that he's bringing me through something that I need to learn to, to build like a, a piece of my, to build wisdom and knowledge, to build a piece of my character, to build strength for that next level of
things that are . When... I remember when I went into business, like, my dad used to say over and over again, like, expect there to be a lot of bad stuff. Like, be ready for that first person that comes along to take you to court. And I'm like, what? Take me to court. I'm not gonna make that kind of a mistake, you know?
But he's like, you don't have to make mistakes. He was in business, and he was taking to court. He's like, you don't have to make, make mistakes to be taken to court. But you still gotta go through hard stuff sometimes. Like, you still have to deal with hard things, even if you didn't do anything to make that happen.
So you, you go through these hard things, you become stronger, you become wiser. You become, you become able to make better decisions next time, and you become able to teach and to help those coming before coming after you. You get to help that person now because you're strong. And I think we all look at a good movie versus a cheesy movie.
A good movie is full of grit. And truth and, and dark times and hard places. And overcoming. And a cheesy movie is, oh, you know, like, I'm just having a wonderful life, and everybody's happy, and my family's happy, and we all love each other. And you're like, no, that's not real life. Like, yeah, you might love each other, but it's not happy if flowers and roses with fresh baked pies every night.
So, truth and, and reality is that we go through hard things, which is usually through mistakes that we're making, mistakes that other people are making that even hurt us.
[00:23:28] Marijanel: Yeah.
[00:23:28] Charla: You know, that we have to learn from, and I think we gotta be kind to ourselves, give ourself grace. We have to offer grace to other people who are making mistakes around us.
Because we're all becoming stronger and wiser. And it's a stepping stone into the place where, or you're getting one step closer into the place that you wanna be. As an artist, every painting is a step closer to the painting I really wanna make. And the same in business, and in relationships, and raising my kids.
I mean, how many mistakes have I made in raising my kids? definitely could write a book on that one, but we're all still moving forward and becoming better for it.
[00:24:03] Marijanel: Yeah. And yeah, it's good stuff. My heart just, like, feels full right now with, yeah. Just thinking about, just thinking about how, you know, it's coming back to me that I think there's a proverb that says that a fool resists
the teacher. Like, the fool resist learning. But the wise one will accept the teacher's rebuke and, and accept the teacher's discipline. And I see that the same like as a wise artist or someone who wants to get the most out of every, like, lesson in life. It's wise to learn from the mistakes.
I think you said it earlier, the mistake is the teacher.
[00:24:50] Charla: Yeah, I think so.
[00:24:51] Marijanel: So, we don't set out to make them. We don't like, we don't go in the studio and be like, well, let's make a mistake today. But it happens.
[00:24:59] Charla: Yeah. And if you can learn from other people's mistakes, I mean you're gonna be even that much better off because you won't have the drama yourself.
[00:25:05] Marijanel: That's even wiser. We should add that to the proverb.
[00:25:08] Charla: And it's, I mean, it's why we have this podcast, 'cuz we wanna be able to share what we've learned along the way. And that's not just all. Pretty roses and fresh baked pies. We've, we've come through stuff.
[00:25:21] Marijanel: I want a fresh baked pie.
[00:25:22] Charla: I had a fresh baked pie on the weekend, actually filled with gluten, and I didn't feel so good afterwards.
Oh, thinking about mistakes.
[00:25:28] Marijanel: Yeah. What you learn from that now?
[00:25:31] Charla: Yeah, even fresh baked pies can be a mistake. . So, but we've, you know, we've built resilience in different areas, and we've overcome things and we, we think we have something that we can share. So, if you can listen to us and say, Hey, I'm gonna learn from their mistakes,
and then not make a mistake. That's e that's really great too. Mm-hmm. . But really when you experience it yourself, like, so you'll, you could take some wisdom from what we're saying. I could tell you that I went into a partnership in my business. And I can tell you the nitty gritty details about how it went really wrong, and what I learned from that.
And it's, you know, it can be a really cool story to, to learn from your mistakes, and you can take that, that information. But until you go through it yourself, you really can almost can't... I don't think you have to experience something to take wisdom from it, but when you go through it yourself, this is, this is when you can take good from a bad situation.
When you go through it yourself, nobody can take that experience from you. You have learned it, and there's nobody that can say, you didn't experience that. You didn't get stronger from that. I don't even care if somebody says that to me because it's not true. I experienced it. I know I experienced it. I know I became stronger and wiser, and I know I am where I am today
because of the things I've already gone through. And I'm thankful for a lot of the good and a lot of the bad. And so when you experience it nobody can take it from you. You become stronger. You become a warrior that's been in battle and has been victorious in that battle. You won and you leveled up.
[00:27:04] Marijanel: Which makes art so original. It makes your art so original because you're the one who brings your story. You bring the, you to the uniqueness of, of your art. And it brings us to a whole different subject, but just in conclusion of today, be encouraged that your mistakes, that in, in art, in art business, in life, they are leading you into wisdom, into better things. And you can learn from them, like stepping stones and
on the inside of the Bold School community, there's a whole lot of artists in there who love to support each other and help each other through our mistakes. And
[00:27:44] Charla: We share our mistakes in our community threads so that we can help each other get through them. Yeah.
[00:27:49] Marijanel: Yeah. And being that community is, is so important.
It's vital to success and to pushing, having the courage to push forward.
[00:28:00] Charla: Yeah, having support, right? From people like you Yeah.
[00:28:03] Marijanel: So, we want to invite you into our community. If you're not already a part. There is room for more and Bold School has open doors. You can go to boldschool.com, sign up, join the community, and if anything, just make sure that you're on our newsletter list so that you're getting the updates, and you're staying in the know with what's happening in in Bold School with the courses that we have coming out on a regular basis, the painting classes. Just everything going on. Uh, you can find us on Instagram @boldschoolinc. And of course, right here on the Bold Artist Podcast, on the Bold School Channel on YouTube and all audio apps. Thank you for joining us today, and until next time, keep creating.
