Have you ever heard the expression “seeing the elephant”? It’s an expression that came out of the California gold rush. Those planning to go west in search of gold announced to their friends that they were “going to see the elephant.” Those who turned back discouraged claimed they had seen “the elephant’s tracks” or the “elephant’s tail,” and admitted that view was sufficient.

The Oxford Dictionary defines it this way: “to see the elephant: to see life, the world, or the sights; to get experience of life, to gain knowledge by experience.”

Here’s my take on it: To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. Or take the road yourself and see what you learn. Of course, it’s a lot easier to learn from others’ mistakes, and often much less costly.

But for most of us, we have to experience things for ourselves. When the outcome is good, we call it a successful experience. But when things don’t work out as we hoped, we call it a “learning” experience.

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. It is an expensive teacher sometimes. Experience is the dividend you get from your mistakes. Reportedly, Thomas Watson, an early CEO of IBM, was asked if he was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost IBM $600,000.

He said, “No, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody else?”

I’ve always said if you want to triple your success ratio, you have to triple your failure rate! I would submit that we learn as much from our failures as we learn from our successes. That may sting a bit, but there is no free tuition in the school of experience. Every time you graduate from the school of experience, someone thinks up a new course.

Consider the man who asked his boss why three other people were promoted past him. He said, “Boss, I have 20 years of experience in this job.”

The boss replied, “No, you don’t have 20 years of experience. You have one year of experience 20 times. You’ve been making the same mistakes since you first started.”

Some learn from experience. Others never recover from it.

And the most important lesson we should learn from our experiences is that we can move past failures and put the errors to work, preparing us for better days ahead. Realize that the lessons learned are valuable, even if they are embarrassing, depressing or seemingly insurmountable. Giving in to failure is letting the bad experience win.

As tempting as it can be to want to forget about bad experiences, don’t. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The past should be a guidepost, not a hitching post. Use those difficult lessons to demonstrate your resilience and ability to learn from your mistakes.

Even better, learn from the mistakes of others. I strongly encourage newcomers to connect with a mentor and extend that advice to folks at all stages of their careers. The experience you can absorb is priceless, and the guidance that might prevent you from having too many bad experiences is invaluable.

Here's a story to further illustrate my point: The promoter for a local boxing champion arranged a match with an opponent he had never seen. He had simply asked for an experienced fighter. On the day of the fight, a middle-aged man with a crooked nose, a punch-drunk manner and two huge cauliflower ears arrived in the dressing room. The promoter was aghast.

“I asked for an experienced fighter,” he complained, “but not a damaged one.”

Experience is a good teacher, but a hard one. It gives the test first and the lesson afterward. Experience enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it.

Mackay’s Moral: There is no free tuition in the school of experience.

The dominant sports media personality in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for most of the last 75-plus years never played any of the games he wrote about and never made it to college, much less journalism school. But he became one of the most popular newspaper and radio personalities in town, with a broadcast style that was no more polished than his writing style. And he blew away all competitors because of his network of relationships and pure doggedness.

Sid Hartman went to that great stadium in the sky on Oct. 18, at age 100. Affectionately known around Minnesota and the entire sports world by his first name, Sid may never make it to any sports Halls of Fame, but if they ever get around to building a Networking Hall of Fame, he would be the first one they would call.

Sid never quit working and scooping his competitors. If you demonstrated any athletic talent in Minnesota, he knew who you were by the time you were in high school, because he called you. You became fodder for his column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, or he interviewed you on one of his innumerable sports shows on radio or TV. He kept calling. He followed you through high school. He knew your background, your record, your coach. He tracked you through college. He tracked you through the pros. He even tracked you when your athletic career was over.

Once you were a part of Sid’s team, you never got cut. You were a part of it for life, as I was for 70 years. You became a “close personal friend,” his reference to anyone in his vast network. He knew more about athletes, coaches and owners than any sportswriter anywhere. And when some of these people became really big-time pro stars, coaches and executives, he had greater access to them -- and often to other stars through them -- than anyone else because he dug his well before he was thirsty.

Talent is a gift, but like many gifts, we often take it for granted. If Sid Hartman had applied equal energy, dedication, and perseverance to another career -- such as sales -- I’m positive he would have achieved the same great success he attained as a sportswriter.

Competition is what made Sid Hartman the best sports reporter around. He hated to get beaten to a scoop. Sid was an inspiration not only to legions of sports personalities, but also to his readers and listeners, who appreciated his work ethic and dogged pursuit of a good story. He understood that slacking off would take away his edge. He saw sports reporting as a competition in itself. He almost always won.

No matter what industry you are in, competition is healthy. It keeps you sharp. It improves quality. Competition is like exercise; it makes you better.

Many people don’t seek out competition because of the fear of losing. They give up too easily and then never really find out how good they can be. Welcome competition so you can gauge how good you are and where you need to improve. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.

I like to say, if you can’t win, make the person ahead of you break the record.

Outsmarting the competition has taken on a whole new meaning, with competition being stiffer than ever. As we watch longtime successful businesses crumble under economic pressure, we must constantly look for ways not only to survive, but to thrive.

Consider the two hikers who spotted a mountain lion stalking them. One of the hikers calmly sat down, took off his hiking boots and began putting on his running shoes.

“What good are those shoes going to do you?” asked his buddy. “You can’t outrun a mountain lion!”

Lacing up his shoes, the friend responded, “I don’t have to outrun the lion. I just have to outrun you.”

Sid outran the lions every day. He was a competitor to the end.

Mackay’s Moral: The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it’s competition.

Like millions of Americans, I watched the 10-part ESPN documentary “The Last Dance” about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. His mental toughness and mindset really stood out throughout the series.

Jordan was an extremely gifted athlete who worked tirelessly at his craft and was 100% committed to do whatever it took to overcome his competition. Nothing was going to deter him from winning. And he has a handful of championship rings to prove it.

He understood that so much of sport and business is a mental game.

Golf legend Jack Nicklaus was not the longest driver, the best iron player or even the best putter, but he said, “I never missed a putt in my mind.” Golf is 50% mental, and no one mastered the mental part of winning major golf tournaments like Jack.

Baseball’s “philosopher” Yogi Berra famously opined, “Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical.”

No matter what your occupation, you need to create a winning mindset. What does this mean? You have to set goals and then prepare to achieve them. I’ve often said, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”

You need dedication to your craft, focus and discipline, plus what I call the three Cs: confidence, commitment and competition. Michael Jordan welcomed competition. He knew competition made you better.

Mindset even extends to body language. You need to show people that you are confident in what you are doing.

Having the right mindset is having the right attitude. Your mindset shapes your attitude, and your attitude reinforces your mindset. A positive attitude enables you to look for or create opportunities. If you take advantage of them, opportunities multiply.

As an eternal optimist, I firmly believe that there is virtually nothing that I can’t do if I set my mind to it, but I am realistic enough to know I am never going to pitch in the World Series. However, I can be a player/manager of a top-notch company. I took a big gamble buying a failing envelope manufacturing company and getting it off the ground, and I’ve never looked back.

While mindset seems to be a current term, it actually originated in the early 1900s; however, it didn’t become a household term until this century. One of the key influencers was American psychologist Carol S. Dweck, a professor at Stanford University who wrote the 2006 landmark book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.”

Dweck believes there are two very distinct types of mindset -- fixed and growth. In a fixed mindset, you believe your abilities are unchangeable.

She explains: “You were born with certain traits and a certain amount of intelligence and that’s that. Many people are trained in this mindset from an early age -- for instance, by a teacher who believes your IQ determines everything. You’re either smart or you’re dumb; you can learn or you can’t. If people get a set amount of intelligence, you want to prove you have a lot, although you secretly worry you were shortchanged.”

Fortunately, I have what Dweck calls a growth mindset, where you believe the abilities you were born with are just a starting point. A growth mindset helps you unleash your potential.

She writes: “You can get smarter and grow with hard work, persistence and the right learning strategies. You have a passion for learning, welcome mistakes as opportunities to learn and seek challenges so you can stretch.”

I’ve also studied negative mindsets, where people are filled with negative thinking. It’s not easy to overcome, because negative thoughts can quickly become habit. It takes a lot of positive thinking to pull people out of this rut.

“Never let your mind talk you out of your dreams, trick you into giving up. Never let your mind become the greatest obstacle to success,” writes Roy T. Bennett, author of “The Light in the Heart.”

He reminds us: “Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”

Mackay’s Moral: Set a course for success with a positive mindset.