S. Bobby Alexander's Blog, page 2

Echoes After the Misstep

The wrong turn doesn’t end the story — it starts a new one.

We often treat mistakes like stains: something to hide, scrub, or forget. But sometimes, the wrong turn is the very thing that leaves a trace worth keeping.

My dad had a way of naming this truth. After something went sideways, he’d shake his head and say:
“Bad decisions always make for good stories.”

At the time, I thought he was joking — a way of shrugging off the fallout. Years later, I realized he was teaching me something deeper. A mistake doesn’t end the story. It starts the echo.

Because what lingers isn’t just the spark of the bad decision itself — it’s the echo of how we carry it forward. Do we retell it as shame? As comedy? As a cautionary tale? Or do we let it become raw material, a signal that sharpens us rather than dulls us?

That’s the overlap between mistakes and creativity: both depend on reframing. Both ask us to see not only what went wrong, but what meaning might still be hiding in the noise.

Ways to Listen for the Echo

Reframe — A mistake is data, not destiny.

Retell — If you can laugh about it, you own it.

Ripple — Every story you carry forward becomes a signal for someone else.

Every mistake carries a spark. Every retelling is an echo. And sometimes, the best stories — the ones that linger, the ones that bind us together — are born not from getting it right, but from getting it spectacularly wrong.

So I wonder: what’s a “bad decision” in your life that, with time, turned into a story worth telling?