The Minnesota Vikings were playing the New Orleans Saints in the first round of the 2020 NFL playoffs when wide receiver Adam Thielen made a crucial mistake on the team’s opening possession. He fumbled, and the Saints were able to kick a field goal off the turnover.

Shortly after his fumble, Thielen was caught making a motion with his hand like he was flushing a toilet. Turns out he was implementing a “mistake ritual” called "the flush.” Dr. Cindra Kamphoff, a mental performance coach, taught this drill to Thielen and his college teammates, and it has served him well. He went on to have a big day and made the crucial catch to set up the Vikings’ winning touchdown in overtime.

“One component of mental toughness is the ability to live and let go,” Kamphoff told ESPN. “We’ve got to learn and burn. You have to learn from the mistake quickly and then we have to burn it. We have to let it go. That’s the heart of it. The reason we want to do that is to remain in the present moment because the past play we can’t do anything about. We can’t change it. All we can do is reset for the next play.”

The majority of us aren’t judged by our mistakes on national TV. Pro athletes, entertainers, restaurant owners, college professors, politicians -- anyone who is out in the public eye has to live with scrutiny and negative reviews on social media, and hope for the best. A little mistake looks a lot bigger when it's broadcast all over the country. Maybe it’s not always fair, but it’s the world we live in.

As I like to say, failure is not fatal. My best advice: Acknowledge that even as good as you are at your job or life in general, you are not perfect. That is not, however, a reason not to keep trying for perfection.

Despite your best and most creative efforts, your innovative project has failed. Don’t despair. Jeffrey Baumgartner’s Innovation Excellence website recommends analyzing the failure by asking these questions:

What went right? Most mistakes have some redeeming qualities. Identify things that went well. Incorporate those small victories into your next project.

What went wrong? Look at where you tripped up. Make a list of the mistakes you made so you’re clear on the root causes of the failure.

Why did it go wrong? Maybe your process was flawed, or you had bad information or you made incorrect assumptions. Ask the people around you for their perceptions. When you know why things went wrong, you’ll be better able to avoid mistakes when you get back to work.

Are you repeating mistakes? Make sure you’re not making the same mistakes over and over again. Look at past failures to determine whether your process is flawed in some way. As Winston Churchill said, “If you simply take up the attitude of defending a mistake, there will be no hope of improvement.”

What can you salvage? Take a look at the end result and see if you can find something useful to recycle -- data, equipment, product components, whatever. Your project won’t be a complete loss if you can repurpose at least some of its elements.

Thomas J. Watson Sr., an early CEO of IBM who was fundamental in shaping the trajectory of the company, said of mistakes: “Double your rate of failure ... Failure is a teacher -- a harsh one, perhaps, but the best ... That’s what I have to do when an idea backfires or a sales program fails. You’ve got to put failure to work for you ... you can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because that’s where you will find success. On the far side of failure.”

Mackay’s Moral: Don’t let a misstep make you fall flat on your face.

In his wild imagination, a man lived the lives of famous people, enjoyed their celebrity status and socialized with their closest friends. His family became concerned with his more frequent “escapes from reality” and encouraged him to see a psychiatrist.

After several sessions, the psychiatrist announced, “Congratulations, Mr. Jones, you’re a healed man.”

“What a lousy cure,” responded his patient. “Before I was famous, and now I’m a nobody.”

Was he actually delusional or looking to fulfill a dream? I’ll leave that to the professionals to decide, but really, haven’t we all imagined a bigger, better, more exciting life at some time?

I’m a big believer in dreaming. That’s how I started my envelope manufacturing company and became a writer and a speaker. Show me someone who doesn’t dream about the future and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t know where he or she is going.

Actor Kevin Costner said: “I’m a big fan of dreams. Unfortunately, dreams are our first casualty in life -- people seem to give them up, quicker than anything, for a ‘reality.’”

Life is full of people who believed in themselves and their dreams. For example, writer W.P. Kinsella envisioned an Iowa corn farmer and a dream to reunite a deceased father and son for a game of baseball. He turned his dream into the novel “Shoeless Joe,” which later resulted in the blockbuster movie “Field of Dreams.”

British philosophical writer James Allen wrote: “Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be. Be bold with your dreams! Aim high. Create your own ‘field of dreams.’”

Warren Buffett’s early years were filled with entrepreneurial ventures, from going door-to-door selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola and weekly magazines to working in his father’s grocery store. He delivered newspapers, sold golf balls and stamps, and detailed cars. He always knew that he was going to be a wealthy person, and he certainly achieved that.

Tyler Perry had a tough childhood and was expelled from high school. He was physically and sexually abused and tried to commit suicide twice. Yet he didn’t give up on his dream of working in theater. He wrote, produced and starred in a variety of shows that were unsuccessful. Finally, he achieved success and has become a superstar powerhouse in Hollywood.

J.K. Rowling was an unemployed, divorced mother living off state benefits when she decided to turn to her writing passion. Within five years, she was one of the richest women in the United Kingdom, thanks to her fictional creation Harry Potter.

Dreams take many forms -- awake, asleep, lost in thought. Don’t downplay any of them! Sometimes we can go places in our minds that help us formulate goals and plans that will shape our future.

“Since it doesn’t cost a dime to dream, you’ll never shortchange yourself when you stretch your imagination,” said the late pastor Robert Schuller.

“I think, therefore I am” is a fundamental concept of philosophy: We have to assume that we really exist because we’re aware of our existence. But in neurological terms, the idea is more complicated, because scientists haven’t been able to identify the area of the brain responsible for self-awareness.

Research involving lucid dreaming may solve the mystery. Lucid dreamers are sleepers who are aware that they’re dreaming and can even control their dreams. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich are comparing brain functions before and during lucid dreaming, hoping to pin down how the brain knows it’s awake and aware.

That’s more science than I can absorb! But what I do know is that dreams come true every day. Small dreams can grow to big dreams.

Barbara Grogan founded Western Industrial Contractors in 1982 with a 1969 orange pickup truck she bought for $500. Western became a nationally recognized industrial construction company. Among her many accomplishments, she became the first female chair of the board of the Denver branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and was the first female chair of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

“The world is chock-full of negative people. They have a thousand reasons why your dreams won’t work, and they’re ready to share them with you at the drop of a hat,” Grogan said. “Well, this sounds trite, but you just have to believe in yourself and in your ability to make your dreams come true.”

Mackay’s Moral: Dream on -- and then DO something about it.

For 25-plus years I’ve had a Post-it note on my bathroom mirror that simply states: “You haven’t hit your peak yet!” I’ve looked at that message every single day. So when I was wracking my brain trying to think of a title for my new book, it was staring me in the face. I saw the note and said, “That’s my title!”

“You Haven’t Hit Your Peak Yet!” comes out Jan. 29. I hope you’ll order a copy from your favorite bookseller.

I never thought I’d write another book, but readers of this column and my seven other books got me thinking that I’m not done yet. I’ve still got a wealth of information that I’d like to share to help people navigate the shark-infested waters we live in.

I wanted to cover a variety of subjects -- 27 to be exact. I start with adversity because I’ve never met a person who hasn’t had to overcome a little or a lot of adversity in life. To me, the worst failure is the failure to try.

Next is attitude. I learned years ago that one of the most powerful things you can do to have influence with others is to simply smile at them. On the flip side, of all the human failings that can destroy a person or a business, arrogance is the deadliest.

In my public speaking, I hammer home the point that people achieve to the degree that they believe in themselves. It doesn’t matter if someone says you can’t do something. The only thing that matters is if YOU say you can’t do it.

I cover business basics in my new book, such as accountability, discipline, persistence, setting goals, ethics and trust. And I share advice I’ve learned over the years from coaches like Sam Walton, Peter Drucker, John Wooden, Lou Holtz and others. Coach Holtz also wrote the foreword.

There’s a section on competition, because rivalries and opposition make you better. It’s important that you learn how to beat your competition.

Creativity is the first lesson I talk about in all my speeches, because we can all be more creative. But how do we cultivate creativity to grow success? And I discuss innovation, one of the hottest themes in business today.

Taking care of customers is taking care of business, which is why you need to create a service culture. And when you do screw up -- and everyone does -- you need to know how to correctly apologize.

You cannot be a leader under any circumstances unless you understand one four-letter word in the dictionary: HIRE. The single greatest mistake a manager can make is to hire the wrong person. And when it comes to getting hired, the most important thing to remember is that getting a job is a job.

People skills are so important that I made it one of the larger sections in the book. I include my 10 commandments for the office, and touch on the importance of manners, watching your language, friendship and being a class act.

There is no substitute for quality. Doing something that’s good enough never is. You need to do it right the first time. Our values determine who we are.

Self-improvement is a crucial section. The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. There are many things you can do, such as strengthening your memory and learning from your mistakes.

Check out my seven Cs of success: clarity; competence; constraints; concentration; creativity; courage and continuous learning. Success is the difference between working hard and hardly working. There is no I in team, so I share the successful traits of team players.

I’m a time management freak, so I show readers how to keep time on their side. If you want to have the time of your life, make the most of your minutes.

I couldn’t write a book without valuable information on networking, negotiations and sales. I have more than 50 years of experience on these subjects that I’m happy to pass on. It’s important to remember that everything is negotiable.

I have several lighter but equally important sections in the book, like humor and laughter. A sense of humor is no joke.

In the last section, called Final Thoughts, I share life lessons like volunteerism, making people happy and thoughts on a richer life. Be sure not to let making a living interfere with having a life!

Mackay’s Moral: People’s lives change in two ways -- the people they meet and the books they read.