Errors of enthusiasm are mistakes that come from an excess of eagerness, a phrase 📝Pete Higgins used for some of 📝John Zdanowski's mistakes while coaching him in his first job as a chief financial officer.
The phrase dates to 2003, when John joined HouseValues, the company later renamed 📝Market Leader, as its CFO. Higgins, a former Microsoft executive, sat on the HouseValues board and mentored John in the role. The label names where a mistake came from, the enthusiasm behind it, rather than grading the mistake itself.
In 2003, I took my first CFO job at a company called HouseValues. Pete Higgins was on the board. He coined a phrase when coaching me one time, calling some of my mistakes "errors of enthusiasm."