Someone drawing this changing line is being told that the mistake in question is recoverable and that the window for recovering it cheaply is open now. The reading does not deny the error; it locates it. Something has gone slightly wrong, recently, and has not yet been built upon, defended in public, or allowed to harden into a habit. Turning around at this point costs very little, and the promise of great good fortune attaches to the speed of the turn rather than to any merit in the one turning.
What makes this line unusually clear in practice is that it asks for no repentance. Legge's rendering says there will be no occasion for it, which removes the temptation to spend energy on remorse instead of correction. The counsel is practical: undo the small thing, say the short sentence, return the borrowed item, withdraw the half committed promise, and let that be the end of it.
The line sits alone as the single strong stroke beneath five yielding ones, which in a reading often marks an impulse felt privately and not yet visible to anyone else. That privacy is an advantage. A correction made before others have noticed the fault requires no explanation and creates no reputation to defend. The querent is advised to act on the impulse while it is still theirs alone to act on, because every later line in this hexagram describes a turn that has become harder.