Up and Running Blog

You Will Make Mistakes. Deal With It

by Tim Berry on November 3, 2009

I’m not a baseball fan, and I don’t particularly like sports metaphors. But there’s a lot of baseball in prime time these days, and one of the fundamentals of baseball that applies beautifully to entrepreneurship is about making mistakes.

In baseball, pitchers don’t always throw strikes (good pitches). They get up to three bad pitches per batter. And batters don’t always hit the ball. Players who get successful hits more then 30 percent of their times at bat are really good. In the major leagues, fewer than 10 have ever gotten 40 percent for a season. And the scoring includes errors.

In business, we make mistakes. And you’re going to make them. And when you do, you should acknowledge, file it away so you can use it as experience sometime later, and go on with your day.

If you can’t make mistakes and live with them, don’t start a business. Don’t run a business. Keep your day job.

(Photo credit: deepspacedave/Shutterstock)

About Tim Berry

Tim Berry

Tim Berry is the founder of Palo Alto Software, a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. Tim is the originator of plan-as-you-go business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching, and evangelizing for business planning. His full biography is available on his blog.

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