If You Want to be Rich and Happy, Don’t Go to School Summary - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: When Being Wrong Is Right

1.      Many people left school with several behavioral traits, such as having belief that making a mistake will be ridiculed by the peers and teachers. School brainwashed people into believing that if a person wanted to be successful in life, he or she had to always be right. In other words, never be wrong. And if you did happen to make a mistake, at least be smart enough to cover it up.

2.      This is where all too many people are today – not allowing themselves to make mistakes and thus blocking their own progress.

3.      In maturing as a businessperson, I have learned to be cautious of people who act as if they have all the right answers.

4.      The fear of making mistakes will cause us to habitually react to our errors in ways that blind us to the real learning in them. Here are four of the most common and destructive “skills” that we have learned for handling those times when we make mistakes (which are the key reactions that stop the learning process):

a.       Pretending we did not make a mistake

b.      Blaming something or someone else for the mistake

c.       Rationalizing the mistake instead of learning form it

d.      Punishing oneself

5.      There are also several problems associated with having to be right:

a.       Inability to see the future or simply become irrelevant (as someone clings to old or outdated information)

b.      No increase in wealth or knowledge (as people who have to be right rarely learn anything new)

c.       More conflicts

d.      Frustration and justification increase and opportunities decrease

e.       Progressive inner blindness (as the person who always needs to be right stops looking in new places)

f.       Someone becomes so fixated on doing things right that they spend his entire life doing nothing at all (i.e., becoming the perfectionist).

g.      Inability to correct one’s actions and so end up crashing.

6.      All too many of us come away from the system with a lack of self-confidence, drummed into our hearts and minds by what we’ve failed to learn about the positive side of making mistakes. We must find a way to teach through love and kindness so that the “right/ wrong” systems of education can be exposed for what they really are: filter system for rejecting those who won’t buckle under and conform to the system. We must have the courage to create new learning environments, where mistakes are applauded and seen as the invaluable source of wisdom that they are.  

Chapter 12: God Doesn’t Create Stupid People – Our Educational System Does