"Dad, I need to interview you for a school project."
My fourteen-year-old was working on a project for his video class this week and needed to interview someone. He set everything up in my office — the camera, the microphone, the tripod — and asked me a series of questions.
One stood out more than the others: "If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything different with your life?"
My response? No.
I don't believe in regrets, I don't believe in looking back, and I don't think I would change anything. It's not because I've lived some perfect life — I haven't. I simply don't believe in looking back or having regrets for two reasons.
First, I think regrets are a waste of time and brain power. Second, I think we make the best decisions we can make, with the information we have at the time; therefore, we can't make different decisions because we simply don't always know better.
When I look back, I see chapters that were messy, unpredictable, and at times, downright painful. But I also see how every one of those moments is connected to something else. The mistakes built awareness. The failures built humility. The losses built gratitude. And even the things that didn't make sense in the moment ended up shaping how I lead, how I parent, and how I show up for people today.
Regret doesn't change the story; reflection does.
I mean, if I'm being honest, I would go back and buy hundreds of thousands of dollars of Amazon, Nvidia, and Apple stock, but I don't own a time machine!
It's easy to think about the moments we could have handled differently. The job we stayed in for too long. The opportunity we were too scared to take. The person we didn't appreciate enough until later. But I've learned that those moments only have value if we use them as teachers, not anchors. They're reminders of what we've learned, not evidence of what we've lost. You can't grow if you're still trying to rewrite the past.
So when my son asked that question, I realized he wasn't just asking about my past — he was asking about his future. He wanted to know if the mistakes are survivable. If the detours still lead somewhere meaningful. And the truth is, they do. That's the beauty of life. It doesn't go according to plan, but it still unfolds exactly how it needs to. You find clarity in the middle of the chaos. You build confidence by getting back up.
I told him that every decision, even the questionable ones, led to something worth learning. That the goal isn't to live perfectly, it's to live fully. To take chances that make sense in the moment and own the outcome, whatever it is. Because that's how you build wisdom — by living it, not theorizing about it.
It reminded me that our stories aren't meant to be perfect; they're meant to be lived. The only real mistake is spending too much time looking back when the next chapter is waiting to be written.
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