My Favorite Mistake: Learning Without Blame in Business and Leadership

Why Being Great at Your Job Isn't Enough to Get Promoted with Kendall Berg

Kendall Berg was the most productive person on every team she joined. She was so technically good at her job that she thought she didn't have to be nice. Then a VP she respected -- someone outside her chain of command -- pulled her aside and delivered six words that changed her career: "Nobody likes working with you."
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That blunt feedback could have been a setback. Instead, it became the catalyst for a complete transformation. Kendall spent a year building structured templates for the soft skills nobody had ever taught her -- how to make small talk, how to disagree without being dismissive, how to advocate for her own work -- and went from stuck at the manager level to earning five promotions in six years.
In this episode, Kendall shares her favorite mistake and what she learned about the real reasons people get promoted (and don't). We talk about why "playing politics" deserves a reframe, why nobody actually wants to work in a true meritocracy, and the "acknowledge and respond" technique that changes how people receive your ideas. She also shares how she turned a team of 17 underperformers into high performers by giving them something most managers never provide: structure for soft skills.
Kendall Berg is an internationally published author, TEDx speaker, and career coach. Her book is Secrets of the Career Game: 36 Strategies to Get Ahead In Your Career. Her TEDx talk is The Clash of the Generations. Find her at ThatCareerCoach.net.

The Mistake of Going It Alone -- with Patrick Engasser

Patrick Engasser spent two years ranked near the bottom of a 615-person sales organization -- broke, in debt, and grinding through trial and error -- before one decision changed everything. He hired a coach. The problem wasn't effort or talent. It was not knowing that was even an option.
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In this episode, Patrick shares the mindset shift that had to happen before any strategy could work, how he turned blindness from a perceived liability into a genuine competitive advantage, and what actually separates leaders people want to follow from managers who just have a title.
What you'll learn:
Why trial and error is the most expensive way to learn -- and what to do instead
How mindset has to come before strategy in any coaching relationship
What real leaders do differently when things go wrong
How to coach people through excuses without damaging the relationship
What procrastination is really telling you -- and how to interrupt it
What to do (and not do) when you encounter a guide dog in public
Patrick Engasser is the bestselling author of "If I Can Do It, You Can Do It" and a business coach and motivational speaker who built a seven-figure sales team after starting from zero.

Why Conflict Avoidance Costs More Than Conflict -- with Dr. Jen Fry

Dr. Jen Fry's favorite mistake is a disagreement with her best friend of over ten years -- a small miscommunication that led to eight months of silence. Neither of them knew how to reconcile it. Then Jen's mother passed away, and her friend sent a card. That single act of reaching out changed how Jen thinks about conflict, reconciliation, and the kind of people worth keeping in her life.
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Jen is a sports geographer, tech founder, TEDx speaker, and author of I Said No: A No-Nonsense Guide to Setting Boundaries, Speaking Up, and Having a Backbone Without Being a Jerk. In this conversation, she draws on her background as a college volleyball coach, tech founder, and conflict expert to break down what leaders and teams get wrong about conflict, feedback, and boundaries.
We dig into why niceness gets weaponized to keep people quiet, why kindness requires accountability, and why people pleasing quietly ruins reputations and results. Jen explains why conflict-avoidant bosses create conflict-avoidant cultures, why anonymous feedback does more harm than good, and the critical difference between being defensive and defending yourself. She also shares what she saw on a high school volleyball video that she wishes she could burn -- and what it taught her about being a better teammate and leader.

Robot Umpires Are Here: ABS and the Mistakes It May Create | Mistake of the Week

Baseball has always made room for human error. Umpires miss calls. Fans complain. Life goes on.
But this season, MLB is rolling out the Automated Ball-Strike challenge system -- ABS -- giving teams two challenges per game to contest ball-and-strike calls.
The idea is to reduce bad calls. The likely side effect is a whole new category of mistakes.
In this "Mistake of the Week," Mark Graban looks at what happens when correcting human error depends on another human decision -- and what one anonymous coach predicted, vividly, about how this will play out.

Public Health Shouldn’t Be Political — A Career “Mistake” That Changed Everything | Dr. Tyler Evans

In this episode of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Dr. Tyler B. Evans, infectious diseases and addiction medicine physician, public health leader, and author of Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics.
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Dr. Evans shares a deeply personal “mistake” — giving up his dream of working in global health abroad to take what he thought was a conventional job in the United States. That decision led him to work with Native American communities in Wyoming, build refugee health programs in New York, and serve in leadership roles during the COVID-19 pandemic. What initially felt like a detour ultimately shaped his career and mission.
The conversation explores the politicization of public health, the erosion of trust in expertise, and why solidarity among healthcare professionals may be essential to restoring confidence. Dr. Evans reflects on lessons from seatbelt laws, smoking reduction, and pandemic response — and why public health measures are fundamentally about protecting communities, not restricting individuals.
They also discuss how scientific understanding evolves, how leaders can communicate uncertainty responsibly, and why learning — not blame — must guide how we respond to mistakes.

When a Water Leak Turns a Street Into Ice: Mistake of the Week

A forgotten water heater tap led to an overnight leak, an unexpected ice rink, and a reminder that the real lesson isn’t about blame — it’s about designing systems that catch small mistakes before they spread.
A small, human slip led to a big, icy problem in a neighborhood in northwest China. After a woman forgot to turn off the tap on her solar water heater, water flowed unnoticed for nine hours — and overnight temperatures turned the street outside into an accidental skating rink.
In this episode of Mistake of the Week, we look past blame and shame to ask a better question: why did the system require perfect memory, instead of detecting the problem or shutting itself off?
It’s a story about water leaks, design flaws, and how small mistakes can spread when systems aren’t built to catch them early — along with practical lessons for our own homes about alarms, automatic shutoffs, and mistake-proofing everyday risks.
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Confusing Performance with Alignment — A Leadership Mistake That Causes Burnout, with Genevieve Skory

In Episode 339 of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Genevieve Skory, executive coach and former Chief Field Development Officer, about a leadership mistake that many high performers make: confusing performance with alignment.
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For years, Genevieve defined winning by revenue and results. Pressure was normal. Constant pivoting felt strategic. Intensity was rewarded. The numbers came in — but so did exhaustion, turnover, and a culture operating in fight-or-flight mode.
In this conversation, we explore the hidden cost of performance-at-all-costs leadership, the neuroscience behind fear-driven decision-making, and why teams don’t always tell leaders the truth when the environment feels unsafe. Genevieve shares what changed for her and how she now helps ambitious leaders build sustainable success without burnout.
If you’ve ever sensed that strong results were masking deeper misalignment, this episode will resonate.

Olympic Medals That Couldn’t Handle the Celebration | Mistake of the Week

After winning gold at the Winter Olympics, skier Breezy Johnson did what champions do — she jumped for joy.
And her medal fell off.
She later joked, “Don’t jump in them… I was jumping in excitement and it broke,” adding that it was “not, like, crazy broken. But, a little broken.” Other athletes experienced similar ribbon failures during their celebrations.
In this episode of Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban looks at what happens when a system fails during the very moment it’s designed to support — and why it’s encouraging that Olympic officials acknowledged the problem instead of blaming the athletes.
Because if your medal can’t survive celebration… what exactly was it tested for?
This episode explores:
Designing for real human behavior (including joy)
The importance of testing under realistic conditions
Why admitting a flaw beats assigning blame
What organizations can learn from a broken ribbon

I Made a Marine Cry: Leadership, Authority, and Learning from Mistakes | Olaolu Ogunyemi

What happens when a leader realizes their approach caused real harm?
In this episode of My Favorite Mistake, U.S. Marine Corps officer and leadership mentor Olaolu Ogunyemi shares a defining moment early in his career—recognizing that his leadership style, while well-intended, crossed a line and made a Marine cry.
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Rather than defending his authority, Olaolu reflects on the gap between intent and impact, and how that moment forced him to rethink what effective leadership really looks like. We talk about learning from mistakes, the difference between fear-based compliance and true accountability, and why psychological safety is essential—even (and especially) in high-pressure environments like the military.
This conversation explores how leaders grow when they confront mistakes honestly, respond with humility, and commit to changing their behavior—not just their words.

When Diesel Ends Up Where It Shouldn’t — Mistake of the Week:

Most of us pull up to a gas pump on autopilot—until something goes wrong.
In this Mistake of the Week, host Mark Graban looks at a real-world systems failure that affected hundreds of drivers across the Denver metro area. Due to an upstream error at a fuel terminal, diesel fuel was mistakenly delivered into the gasoline supply—leading to stalled cars, tow trucks, and costly repairs.
Instead of rushing to blame or punishment, Colorado regulators emphasized learning, investigation, and prevention. That response matters—and it offers an important lesson about mistake-proofing, system design, and leadership.
In this episode, Mark explores:
Why focusing on who made the mistake misses the real problem
How mistake-proofing works—and where it often fails
Why downstream safeguards can’t fix upstream system errors
What leaders can learn from choosing curiosity over blame
Mistakes like this are disruptive and expensive—but they also create an opportunity to improve systems so the same error doesn’t happen again.