Cramer: How words of wisdom from Gene Hackman help me make peace with investing mistakes

Editor's note: This is an excerpt from the CNBC Investing Club's August Monthly Meeting, which was held Thursday. In his own words, Jim Cramer talks candidly about two big stock mistakes and what the late Hollywood legend Gene Hackman would have said. Jim recalls how Hackman was a client of his hedge fund, and how he leaned on the actor over the years for his advice. Those of you who have known me the longest understand that I am far more concerned about avoiding mistakes than I am about getting things right. Winners take care of themselves. Mistakes don't. They throw you off your game. They can detract from performance. They can wipe out your gains. You manage your profitable positions, terrific. If you fail to manage your losses, you can be history, as we found out earlier this summer with Situational Awareness, a wayward hedge fund that blew up from a lack of discipline and a dearth of judgment matched with no risk controls. I study every mistake over and over to be sure that they never happen again, and we avoid the fate of Situational Awareness no matter what. Sometimes, though, it doesn't matter. I would like to, as a prelude to this meeting, talk about two mistakes for which you deserve an explanation. I am always conscious that when I started this project with my Charitable Trust, as a real portfolio to teach people how to get rich, more than 20 years ago, it would only be successful if I swallowed my pride and let everyone see — open-handed — what I was doing ahead…