Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that’s me) shares one way to achieve a breakthrough at work — and build a career or company you love.
Today’s edition is sponsored by Vanta — the all-in-one trust management platform. Details at the end of the newsletter.
When things go wrong, here’s a question to ask yourself:
“Did I just run an accidental experiment?”
The answer might be yes. And once you realize this, you’ll feel a lot better.
Because here’s the thing: Mistakes suck. They make us feel empty — like there’s a vacuum where there should have been a victory.
But the “accidental experiment” completely reframes the experience. It gives you something to ponder, explore, and learn from.
I stumbled into this idea recently, after something went wrong for me. It helped me immensely, and I think it can help you.
So today, I’ll share why it works — starting with my big mistake.
Where it all went wrong.
I recently organized an online workshop. It was scheduled for 60 minutes on Zoom.
The call started great. Dozens of people came. They were learning a lot. But after 40 minutes, Zoom abruptly disconnected.
Everyone and everything was gone. And I had no idea why.
I felt a panic. Then I did the only thing I could think of: I clicked the original Zoom link, and re-entered the room. To my relief, so did 90% of the group. We all laughed about it, and then the workshop carried on.
When the call was over, I did two things:
First, I figured out what happened. My credit card had expired, so my Zoom account defaulted to the free setting — including maximum 40-minute calls. That’s why we got cut off.
Then I called my friend Richelle DeVoe to apologize. I’d invited her to be my guest expert in the call, and she prepared a full presentation. I felt terrible that I’d abused her time.
But Richelle wasn’t upset. She saw a great lesson in it.
“It was like an accidental experiment,” she said. “When the call got cut off, you got to see how many people were truly engaged and willing to come back — and almost all of them did. That’s very high retention!”
I laughed. It’s true.
Then I thought: OMG, what a brilliant way to learn from mistakes.
The genius of an accidental experiment.
Think of an accidental experiment like this: When something goes wrong, you get to see the results of something you wouldn’t have normally done.
For example, let’s say I wanted to know how engaged people were on my Zoom calls.
This is a hard thing to test, because…
- I could track how long they stay on the call, but what if they’re just bored and checking their email?
- I could survey them after every call, but that’s tedious and prone to error.
- I could literally cut the call off in the middle and see who comes back? But no, that’s a terrible user experi—
Whoops, it just happened. That sucks. But now I get to see the results!
This is how some great scientific discoveries are made — by waiting for things to accidentally happen, because we can’t (or ethically won’t) set them in motion ourselves.
We don’t harm people just to see how we can heal them, for example. But when mistakes are made and people are harmed, we have an opportunity to study our bodies and discover new cures.
In her new (and excellent) book Tiny Experiments, neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff describes experiments as our natural way of learning. As children, we constantly experimented — testing to see what works and what doesn’t, and asking “Why?” more than 100 times per hour. (That’s a real number!)
“But then something changes,” she writes. “We begin caring about what people think of us and we project an image of confidence, focusing on self-packaging over self-improvement. We welcome anything that provides the perception of control — whether it’s a productivity tool, a time management method, or a goal-setting framework.”
That’s when we begin to fear experiments — and we miss out on everything they have to offer.
Experiments are all around you
So much can go wrong. Our efforts can fail. Our relationships can fracture. Our time can be wasted. Our egos can be bruised.
But in each case, as we face the challenges of the moment, it is worth asking ourselves these two questions:
- If this was an experiment, what is being tested?
- What do the results reveal?
Because I’m telling you — something is being tested. And some result was (or will be) found.
Imagine the possibilities! Here are some accidental experiments at work:
- You miss a meeting, and your team handles everything perfectly without you. This reveals how independent and capable they are — meaning that you can step away more.
- You send an email with a typo in the subject line — but the open rate is higher than usual. Why? Maybe imperfection humanizes your brand and grabs attention.
- You lose a big client. You thought you needed them, but now you’ll see what happens without them — and as it turns out, your team has more bandwidth to serve other clients better, and your business grows.
Of course, those are examples with clear and obvious benefits. Life doesn’t always work that way. But even when something goes truly wrong, the “accidental experiment” framing can help — because although it won’t erase the pain, it can help you process.
For example:
- You lose a big opportunity because you hesitated to say yes. You just tested your decision-making speed, and gathered valuable data about how to move faster and more decisively next time.
- You spend $500 testing an idea that flops. Now you’ve learned that the idea doesn’t work, saving you the time and money you might have lost on a larger investment.
- You were just laid off. Now you can test whether this was the right work for you. Was this job holding you back from doing something better? Are there other things that will make you happier?
It’s the scientific process at work: You had a hypothesis. Something else happened instead. Now you’re in uncharted territory, learning the things you didn’t set out to learn — but they might be the best lessons of all.
So let’s be first to fail. To know what’s on the other side of it. To learn the lesson quicker, to react to it faster, to have a solution to it sooner. To test our own resiliency, and the strength and commitment of others. To know what we’re dealing with. To create what we want.
That’s an experiment worth running.
And that’s how to do one thing better.
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