Unclematt made the comment that in the corporate world ther are no mistakes, just :"opportunities". That struck me as an ineresting topic to open. What mistake have you made that truly turned into an opportunity.
What springs to mind for me is way back when i first began teaching. I mentioned somewhere else how I had gotten to be a music teacher, the dream job of my life. I left out an important piece. When I graduated from UCLA, I was offered a job with LA City Schools, and with Burbank City Schools. I chose the second, as it was a much smaller district and would, I felt, be easier to fit into. I began my teaching in September of 1950 (talk about ancient history!) I was assigned to a first grade class. The principal seemed to feel I was doing OK, even though he had to point out some things that I needed to do better. Unfortunately my class was small, so small, in fact, that in the middle of the year I was assigned to a different school, and my former class distributed among other first grade classes.
In the new school, I was assigned to a class directly across from the office. It had been taught by a beginning teacher like myself. She was, however, pregnant when she began, and it was time for her to leave. At that time, the first graders had been assigned to classes according to their ages, and this was the youngest bunch. I found they did things like skipping on a row of table tops, ineracting whether it was appropriate or not. It was a huge chore to get them to get into a line and walk somewhere. In short, I was not up to the task. I began making mistakes in trying to teach them. I got a few notes from the office staff asking me to close my door because they were disturbed by the noise in my classroom. I did not teach well. At the end of the year, I was asked to resign.
Ever since I had been in the 4th grade, I had wanted to be a teacher. Well, actually, a music teacher in a school, but at least a teacher. Now I had failed. I could not even apply for a position in another district, because I would get such a poor recommendation from the Burbank principal.
After sloughing in despair for a time, I finally had the courage to try to think of a way out. That's when I realized that I had been accepted by the LA District. With some apprehension, I decided to call them and see if my name was still active on the list. It was! So I let them know that I was now available. Within a few weeks I got that call from a music supervisor, asking if I would like to be a music teacher. I was absolutely filled with joy.

ånd to think that if I hadn't made so many mistakes teaching in Burbank, where of course there were no music teachers, I would never have become the happy, confident, successful teacher that I did. Thanks be to God.