I’m not a baseball fan, and I don’t particularly like sports metaphors. But there’s a lot of baseball in prime time these days, and one of the fundamentals of baseball that applies beautifully to entrepreneurship is about making mistakes. 
In baseball, pitchers don’t always throw strikes (good pitches). They get up to three bad pitches per batter. And batters don’t always hit the ball. Players who get successful hits more then 30 percent of their times at bat are really good. In the major leagues, fewer than 10 have ever gotten 40 percent for a season. And the scoring includes errors.
In business, we make mistakes. And you’re going to make them. And when you do, you should acknowledge, file it away so you can use it as experience sometime later, and go on with your day.
If you can’t make mistakes and live with them, don’t start a business. Don’t run a business. Keep your day job.
(Photo credit: deepspacedave/Shutterstock)
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
