Oscar Peterson was one of the greatest jazz pianists who ever lived. He could find chords on the piano that would just turn your heart inside out, and his blazing speed on the keyboard was legendary. A former piano teacher of his once said, “I don’t think Oscars’ fingers could make a mistake if they had to.” I had the privilege of intervewing Oscar once, and I mentioned this quote from his teacher. He gave me a huge smile and said, “That’s nice of her to say that—but I make mistakes all the time!”

And so should you.

Oscar went on to say, “But when I make a mistake, it just changes the direction of whatever I’m playing at the time. I just change with it, and a lot of times I’ll find something far more interesting.” Forgetting for the moment that, in Oscar’s case, these changes are happening at lightning speed, that’s a fabulous way to look at “mistakes.”

Instead of thinking of them as “mistakes,” what if we started thinking of them as “unexpected outcomes” that could change the direction of whatever we’re working on at the time, possibly leading us to something far more interesting (and, perhaps, more profitable!)? It’s pretty much common knowledge that penicillin, Post-It Notes®, and X-rays were the result of what some would call “mistakes.” The difference is that in each of these cases, there was somebody who looked at the “unexpected outcome” and said, “Hmmm, that’s interesting. I wonder if this might lead to something.”

Miles Davis once said, “When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that makes it good or bad.” In other words, it’s not the “mistake” that matters—it’s what you do with it.

When the Beatles’ monumental single, Strawberry Fields Forever, came out in February, 1967, it had an element that was revolutionary for its time: a false ending. The song fades out—and then fades back in again! People listened to it and thought, “That is so cool!” And it was. But it was also a mistake. If you ever get a chance to listen to the unedited master, you’ll hear what really happened. The band kind of fell apart for a couple of measures. They made a mistake. But what did they do next? Rather than just fade out a little earlier, or re-mix or even re-record the song, they looked at the “mistake” and thought, “Hmmm, that’s interesting. I wonder if this might lead to something.” What it led to was somebody having the thought, “What if we just take the volume down until the mistake is over, and then bring it back up again?” And thousands of stoned teenagers cranked the volume and freaked out. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but sometimes a mistake can be the father of innovation.

Look, we’re all going to make mistakes. I’m referring, of course, to Britney Spears’ career. But the rest of us will make mistakes as well. We can either get mad, crumple up the real or metaphorical piece of paper, and throw it away—or we can take a moment (or, in Oscar Peterson’s case, a nano-moment) and think, “Hmmm, that’s interesting. I wonder if this might lead to something.” And that “something” might turn out to be something far more interesting. After all, where would we be without penicillin? Or Post-Its?