Henry Ford (1863-1947) was famous for making cars cheap enough that non-wealthy people could buy them. He revolutionized manufacturing by using assembly-line methods. Instead of having each car made individually by highly skilled craftsmen, he divided the process into simple steps. Each step could be done by moderately-trained workmen along a moving assembly line.

Ford’s positive attitude was a key to his success. If something went wrong, he said “You have a problem? That’s good!” Every problem was a chance to learn how to do better: “What went wrong? What could we have done differently?”

That’s a good attitude to apply in every area of life. When things go wrong, it’s pointless to sulk and feel sorry for ourselves. It’s much more helpful to examine what went wrong and how we can do better.

Many things are outside of our control. Sometimes, we’ll lose even though we did everything right. But we can’t know unless we analyze what went wrong. And we can’t improve unless we decide to learn from our mistakes.

How to learn from our mistakes is a key theme in Chapter 16 of my book Why Sane People Believe Crazy Things Second Edition, now on sale!