The power of making mistakes

Video transcript:

You know when you build boats you make a lot of mistakes. I would say that any boatbuilder who says he's built a boat without making any mistakes he's lying, for sure, haha!

But making mistakes is definitely part of the process, you know, and the best boat builders are those who are best at fixing their mistakes - and perhaps also hiding them ... while still willing a good boat, of course!

So making mistakes, of course, is very annoying. But, you know, if you step back, maybe say "Okay we call it a day", go home, think it over, you know, in the evening. Getting back to the shop the next day or the next weekend, usually, it's not that big of a problem.

Usually, you can fix it, or if you can't fix it, you can take a new piece of wood. You're not a heart surgeon, you know. You're working with wood. It's a material, you know, you can get some more wood and you can fix it.

So when I make a mistake the first thing that happens is that i don't realize it. And then after a while, I realize it and I say "doh" and, you know, it can go several ways: If it involves anything with gluing, then I usually panic and try to fix it before the glue sets, haha.

If it involves other things, I probably just become really upset with myself and really annoyed. But then I take a few deep breaths and maybe I go home, maybe I grab a bit of food.

And then, the next day everything's okay and I realize, you know, I can fix it in one or two hours work, and the result of the next version so to say will be even better than the first version it was supposed to be because I've learned something during the process

- Mikkel Pagh