One of the great musical collaborations of recent times had quite a funny origin. Sting and Dominic Miller created incredible songs together, including Fields of Gold, and Shape Of My Heart.
But Miller almost screwed it up. He was a musician in London at the time, and got invited to audition with Sting, who at the time was already a big deal. They flew him in to New York and when he met Sting, he wanted to play a bit and set up his equipment, and there’s no sound coming out when he plays the guitar. He kept fiddling around with the amps and cables, and still, no sound.
Sting watches him for a while, and eventually leans over, turns the volume nob on his guitar up, and voila, there’s the sound. Miller of course felt like a total idiot and assumed Sting had written him off.
“So at that point, I thought, ‘Okay, just tell me to eff off now, and I’m fine with that.’ I got a trip to New York out of it, and I’m going to go out for a nice meal.”
They jammed on for a while, and when it came time to part ways Sting basically asked him to join the band, and that was the beginning of one of the greatest musical friendships of our days.
There’s another lesson for creative people in this: It’s ok to fuck up, to stumble, to make stupid mistakes. Just keep creating.