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T. Speed 617overly generous. Perhaps a better description is body of platitudes, slogans andepigrams by pundits and leaders from business, sport, and the arts. One thingis certain: professors do not figure prominently in this “literature.” Nothingventured, nothing gained, catchestherecurrenttheme.TheplaywrightGeorgeBernard Shaw wrote: Alifespentmakingmistakesisnotonlymorehonorable,but more useful than a life spent doing nothing, and many others have echoedhis words. Another Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde was more forthright: Mostpeople die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too latethat the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.Then there is the view of mistakes as essential for learning. That is nowherebetter illustrated than in the process of learning to be a surgeon. Everyoneshould read the chapter in the book by Atul Gawande (Gawande, 2002) entitledWhen Doctors Make Mistakes. Again, my “mistake literature” is clear onthis. Oscar Wilde once more: Experience is the name everyone gives to theirmistakes. As statisticians, we rarely get to bury our mistakes, so let’s all makea few more!51.3 Accept mediocrityWhat’s so good about mediocrity? Well, it applies to most of us. Rememberthe bell curve? Where is it highest? Also, when we condition upon something,we regress towards “mediocrity,” the term chosen by Galton (Galton,1886). Let’s learn to love it. When I was younger I read biographies (Gauss,Abel, Kovaleskaya, von Neumann, Turing, Ramanujan, ...) and autobiographies(Wiener, Hardy, Russell, ...) of famous mathematicians. I found themall inspiring, interesting and informative, but light-years from me, for theywere all great mathematicians, whereas I was very mediocre one.At the time I thought I might one day write Memoirs of a Mediocre Mathematician,to encourage others like myself, people near the mode of the curve.However, I didn’t stay a mathematician long enough for this project to getoff the ground. Mediocre indeed. Later I considered writing of Stories froma Second-Rate Statistician, butrejectedthatastooimmodest.PerhapsTalesfrom a Third-Rate Theorist, or Confessions of a C-Grade Calculator, or Diaryof a D-Grade Data Analyst, or News from an Nth-rate Number Cruncher?You can see my goal: to have biographical material which can both inspire,interest and inform, but at the same time, encourage, not discourage youngstatisticians. To tell my readers: I do not live on another planet, I’m like you,both feet firmly planted on Planet Earth. Maybe my goal is mistaken (seeabove), but I do remember enjoying reading The Diary of a Nobody manyyears ago. You see, I do not believe we can all be whatever we want to be,that all that matters is that we want to be something or be someone, andthat if we want it enough, we can achieve it. Without wishing to discourage