"A person who makes few mistakes makes little progress"
About this Quote
Perfection is being dragged here not as a virtue but as a cover story. McGill's line flips the usual moral math: mistakes aren’t proof of incompetence, they’re proof of participation. The blunt parallel structure makes it feel like a law of physics rather than a pep talk - fewer errors, less forward motion. It’s a clean rhetorical trap: if you pride yourself on being mistake-free, you’re also admitting you haven’t been testing yourself where it counts.
The intent is motivational, but the subtext is a quiet critique of risk-avoidant identity. In modern professional culture, “high performer” often translates to “low variance”: don’t miss, don’t fail publicly, don’t create chaos. McGill suggests that’s not mastery; it’s maintenance. Progress requires contact with the unknown, and the unknown produces scuffs. The quote dignifies those scuffs as evidence of learning velocity.
Context matters because McGill writes in the self-development tradition, where aphorisms are designed to be portable - something you can tape to a monitor or repeat before a hard conversation. Portability forces simplification, so the line compresses a whole learning theory argument into two clauses: experimentation increases error rate; experimentation also increases growth rate. It’s an implicit permission slip for iteration in a culture that often demands polished outcomes on the first try.
It also subtly recalibrates shame. “Mistake” stops being a moral failing and becomes a data point, a receipt for trying.
The intent is motivational, but the subtext is a quiet critique of risk-avoidant identity. In modern professional culture, “high performer” often translates to “low variance”: don’t miss, don’t fail publicly, don’t create chaos. McGill suggests that’s not mastery; it’s maintenance. Progress requires contact with the unknown, and the unknown produces scuffs. The quote dignifies those scuffs as evidence of learning velocity.
Context matters because McGill writes in the self-development tradition, where aphorisms are designed to be portable - something you can tape to a monitor or repeat before a hard conversation. Portability forces simplification, so the line compresses a whole learning theory argument into two clauses: experimentation increases error rate; experimentation also increases growth rate. It’s an implicit permission slip for iteration in a culture that often demands polished outcomes on the first try.
It also subtly recalibrates shame. “Mistake” stops being a moral failing and becomes a data point, a receipt for trying.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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