A CEO was once asked what made him so successful. He replied, “Good decisions.” “How, then, do you make good decisions?” was the follow-up question. His reply was given in one word, “Experience.” “And how do you get experience?” was the final question. The CEO provided a two-word response, “Bad decisions.”

Trying to save your children, your co-worker or your friend from all bad decisions may not be helping them. Often it is how we learn to make better decisions. I can still recall the day my son came home from work describing another awful day that he couldn’t wait to be over. His boss was continually on his case and not very nice about it. I asked him what he was learning and he told me, “I am learning that my boss is a jerk.” I shared with him there are just as many good lessons learned from bad bosses as there are from good bosses and it was up to him to either learn from the situation or choose an unproductive form of anger.

I read once that bad decisions are often the result of insufficient knowledge. How about you, what are you learning from your bad decisions?