A few months back on The Tonight Show with Stephen Colbert, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the Broadway musical Hamilton that won 11 Emmys, was talking about how he was bringing the musical to Puerto Rico, where his parents are from, for three weeks and donating all the money to arts organizations in Puerto Rico.
At that time, it had been over two years since he stepped away from being a performer in the play. Colbert asked him how long rehearsals would last. Miranda said that the cast would rehearse its usual six weeks in advance. Miranda, on the other hand, would rehearse only one and one-half weeks in advance.
Colbert asked, “What happens if you get on stage and you blow the lyrics to one of your own songs?”
Miranda responded, “It’s a rewrite.”
I laughed when I heard his response as I found it to be a perfect response to recovering from mistakes.
Here’s what I’ve learned. Most people we interface with never, ever know that we may have just made a mistake. We may have missed a point we wanted to make in a conversation. We may have forgotten to say something in a talk we practiced. We may have gotten our talking points out of order. We may, if we ever do any of those things, blame ourselves for a while for making such a mistake only because we knew it was a mistake.
When I find myself beating myself up about any of the above and more, the negative self-talk begins. You know, that inner dialogue that we have with ourselves. The talk that limits our ability to believe in ourselves and our own abilities and kills our attempts to reach our potential.
Oh yeah, that dialogue.
Well, instead of even beginning that inner dialogue what if instead, you chose to say to yourself, “It’s a rewrite.”
Can you feel the difference?
For me, using this simple phrase has made a world of difference in how and how quickly I now recover from mistakes.
I challenge you to try it. You will feel lighter, even if it results in laughing at yourself.
Oh, and by the way, Hamilton helped raise $14 Million for the Arts in Puerto Rico.
Even if it may have been a rewrite.
Written by Pat Obuchowski