My e-mail wasn’t delivering me any messages from Basecamp. My latest broadcast went out without the ‘name’ code in it. I spelled a word incorrectly in my latest blog post and it went out to my 345,600 Twitter followers (I don’t really have that many followers by the way). A client had trouble checking out in my shopping cart.

This all happened this morning.

Okay, it didn’t really but it could have… Really, it all could have gone to h-e double hockey sticks this morning and my entire business would have crumbled and fell apart and people would have unfollowed me and boycotted my business and called me names.

Or… the people I am talking about would have realized that I’m human and that businesses everywhere make mistakes and are infallible.

Let me stop talking in hypothetical terms and bring it down to one statement: you have to learn how to roll with the punches.

Sometimes, in business, things go wrong. It’s inevitable really. When you’re building an entire business around technology, stuff happens. Things aren’t going to work or go as planned.  In fact, sometimes, you may feel like everything on the planet is butting up against your ability to be successful but guess what?  It’s not true.

Nothing is affecting your ability to be successful except for the way you handle certain things that come up. If you become upset whenever a mistake happens, there is going to be a long trailing effect from that.  Your team will be less inspired, your clients will see your anxiety and feel that they too can never make mistakes and you’ll cause yourself undue stress.

Instead of becoming upset, frustrated, stressed out, anxious or angry, try breathing through it. After you’ve taken a breath, ask yourself, “What do I need to do to fix the mistake?” Generally, it’s as easy as e-mailing your list to say, “Whoops! I called you name when really, I do know you… That wasn’t very friendly of me!”  Or, you fix the technology issue and move on.

If it’s a team member or an assistant that has made the mistake, bring it up, ask them what they can do to fix it and then move on.  Team members, clients, colleagues, etc. are all much more inspired to be around you and help you do amazing work when you can see these things for what they are – a natural by-product of running a business.

The way to stay successful is to remain calm and roll with the punches.  Otherwise, you’ll never survive the long haul.

How do you handle mistakes in your business?