No Genius Mistakes

My friend and world-class acting teacher, Howard Fine, often says, “There are no genius acting mistakes.” 

What he means is that no matter how accomplished the actor, if something isn’t going well in a scene, it’s always the basics.  Not listening, not having strong actions, not playing the given circumstances, etc…We don’t reach a level in our work where we make “higher-level” mistakes.

The same can be said for all of life.  When we mess up, it’s the basics.

This is good news! Because it means that when we mess up, and we will, often, we can more easily diagnose what went wrong. And then take steps to fix it.

It also means that to get great at anything, we just have to practice the basics.

A lot.

P.S. The pics above are…

(1) Bill Buckner (apologies Red Sox fans)…was a great baseball player. All-Star, Batting Champion, near Hall of Famer, 20-plus year career in the Majors. Yet in Game 6 to close out the 1986 World Series, he miffed a routine ground ball. He picked his glove up, the ball went through his legs, and the rest is history (the Mets came back to win the Series).  A little leaguer easily makes that play.

(2) “Inverted Jenny” postage stamp…A rushed, flat-bed printing process led to several sheets being printed with the airplane upside down. All the stamps were destroyed, but one sheet of 100, somehow got out to the public.

(3) Ford Edsel…Ugly, overpriced, overhyped, poorly made and poorly timed, the Edsel was a colossal mistake. Easily the biggest in the company’s history and a staple case-study taught in business school classrooms.

P.P.S. – All three mistakes are rare collector’s items. The Jenny sells for over $1 million.