My Favorite Mistake: Business Lessons from Failures and Success

The Time the Phillie Phanatic Didn’t Show Up: Dave Raymond

The original Phillie Phanatic (1978-1993), Author of "The Power of Fun"
Notes & enter to win a signed copy of his book: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake43
My guest for Episode #43 is Dave Raymond, author of the book The Power of Fun. So what does Dave know about fun? He's had an incredibly fun career. For one, he was a somewhat accidental pioneer as a sports mascot — he was the first person to perform as the Phillie Phanatic, doing so for 16 years, in 48 states and five countries.
He started Raymond Entertainment Group 20 years ago, where he has designed and rehabilitated hundreds of character brands for Fortune 500 companies, sports teams, and colleges and universities — Including Victor E. Green, who I’ve seen at Dallas Stars games and Gritty, the new Philadelphia Flyers mascot. In 2005, he founded the Mascot Hall of Fame. Davie is also a motivational speaker (doing a lot of virtual work now).
In the episode today, Dave shares his "favorite mistake" story which involved him and the Phanatic not showing up for an event -- and how the Phillies team leadership helped him learn a valuable lesson. We'll also talk about how he became the Phanatic, as a marketing intern with the team, the reception that he got from the fans, and whether the animosity with the late Dodgers' manager Tommy Lasorda was real or not.
We also talk about his recent work and why people should be having more fun in the workplace. Can you have a process for creating fun?
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Being Surprised by Losing Her Consulting Role: Kristie Tobias

Author of the new book Fearlessly Made You: Surviving and Thriving in a Perfectly Imperfect Life.
Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake42
My guest for Episode #42 is Kristie Tobias, author of the new book Fearlessly Made You: Surviving and Thriving in a Perfectly Imperfect Life. You can learn more about Kristie and the book via the book's website.
Kristie Tobias is a Consultant with Huron Consulting Group, Coach, National Speaker and she is now, as of this week, a published author with over 15 years of consulting and leadership experience.. She has consulted over 30 organizations on topics focused on change management and leadership, employee engagement, leadership development, business optimization, and financial improvement.
Content warning: Kristie does mention instances of being abused in her past. We do not discuss this in detail, but the subject matter might be alarming to some listeners.
In the episode, Kristie shares a story about her favorite mistake, earlier in her consulting career, when she was removed from her role working with healthcare C-suite executives. Kristie reflects and shares that she" wasn't honest with herself about the internal work that needed to be done to improve the client" and she "took for granted" that she needed to grow, learn, and move relationships deeper than the surface.
She says she can "now look back and laugh" because she has come a long way. We also talk about her book, what a "perfectly imperfect life" means (from the subtitle of her book) and what it means to be a better version of oneself.
Here is an article about Kristie using exercise as a way to overcome PTSD.
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Questioning a Business Leader’s Commitment: Adam Lawrence

Author of The Wheel of Sustainability
Episode page with transcript, links, and more -- https://www.markgraban.com/mistake41
My guest for Episode #41 is Adam Lawrence, from his firm Process Improvement Partners. He is the author of the new book The Wheel of Sustainability: Engaging and Empowering Teams to Produce Lasting Results. You can also find a longer interview that I did with Adam about the concepts in the book, from April 2020, before he wrote the book.
Adam has over 30 years of experience in process improvement activities, targeted at manufacturing and business processes and he started this company in 2018, based in Lancaster, PA.
Today, Adam tells a story about a mistake that he made over 20 years ago, much earlier in his career. He was sent to a factory to do some improvement work and he wasn't getting much engagement or participation from leaders there. Adam made the mistake of questioning the commitment of the business unit leader, let's call him Carl. Adam reflects on this story and shares his lessons learned.
“So, over the years, Carl and I developed a pretty good working relationship.”
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Learning to Be a Stronger Patient Advocate: Krista Hughes

CEO of Hughes Advocacy, Birmingham, Alabama
Show notes: ⁠https://www.markgraban.com/mistake40⁠
My guest for Episode #40 is ⁠Krista Hughes⁠, the CEO of her company ⁠Hughes Advocacy⁠, a private patient advocacy firm that helps patients and their families navigate the health care system and get the best medical care possible.
She has over 25 years of experience working in the medical industry for Fortune 500 Companies like Cardinal Health.   She has also worked for CareFusion, C.R. Bard, and Karl Storz.  Prior to founding Hughes Advocacy, Krista worked as a medical device representative in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and the Florida Panhandle.
She has worked for the last five years as a “patient advocate” and we have a chance to talk about that today. Krista's “favorite mistake” is related to a time when she was advocating for a patient. We'll hear what she did (or didn't do) and how she's adjusted her approach as a result — to be a more effective advocate.
We also talk about our shared passion around what's often called “medical mistakes” — many of these mistakes are very preventable. We'll talk about systemic causes of these mistakes and how the system often falls back on a strategy of “delay, deny, and defend” which we all known gets in the way of learning and progress. We'll also explore this in a future episode with ⁠Dr. David Mayer⁠, the CEO of the ⁠Patient Safety Movement Foundation⁠, so please stay tuned for that.
You can listen to or watch the episode below. A transcript also follows lower on this page. Please subscribe, rate, and review via ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ or ⁠Podchaser⁠! You can now ⁠sign up to get new episodes via email⁠, to make sure you don't miss an episode. This podcast is part of the ⁠Lean Communicators network⁠.

Pursuing an Acting Career After His MBA: Author Matthew E. May

Multi-best-selling author, former University of Toyota instructor, chief strategy at Stratechia
Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake39
My guest for Episode #39 is my friend Matt May, he's a multi-best-selling author and he's Chief Strategist with his firm Stratechia.
I've known Matt for a long time as a former University of Toyota educator, a Wharton graduate, and an amazing author. I've interviewed him many times before. I didn't know that he was formerly a theatre and television actor (including a stint on a soap opera — I don't have video clips of that).
Today, we talk about a few of his favorite mistakes:
Not taking the traditional high-paying job after completing his MBA
Leaving New York City for Los Angeles in the pursuit of his acting career
Matt and I also talk about mistakes more generally — when are they “happy mistakes?” Were there any acting gigs that were mistakes? How should we think about mistakes, as individuals and as organizations?
This podcast is part of the Lean Communicators network -- check it out!
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Emailing Every Professor in Canada — 40,000 of Them: Brenden Kumarasamy

Founder of Mastertalk, based in Montreal
Show notes and more: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake38
My guest for Episode #38 is Brenden Kumarasamy, and he is the founder of MasterTalk, a YouTube channel that he started to help the world master the art of public speaking.
Today, we talk about his favorite mistake, when he sent 40,000 emails out to “every professor” in Canada… and that did not go well for Brenden.
What does go well for him is public speaking. Brenden shares his expertise about common mistakes that people make in public speaking (hint: it relates to practice) and mistakes that people make on YouTube.
You can also find him on Instagram.
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Not Listening to Her Intuition and Wasting $23,000: Monica M. Bijoux

CEO of "Decide to Move," military veteran, coach, author, and podcaster
https://www.markgraban.com/mistake37
My guest for Episode #37 of "My Favorite Mistake" is Monica M. Bijoux, the founder and CEO of DECIDE TO MOVE. She has been coaching business owners, entrepreneurs, and individuals for almost 20 years.
As a veteran herself, she has been working with veterans as they transition from active duty life to business owners and entrepreneurs for over 10 years. Monica has a Masters of Science Administration with a concentration in Human Resources and a Masters of Social Work.
Monica is host of a podcast, also called “Decide to Move”, and she has co-authored three books: Fiercely Speaking; Teach Your Expertise; and Propel.
In this episode, Monica talks about learning to follow her intuition and learning to value herself. What are some of the challenges that veterans face when transitioning to civilian life? And, we also talk about her coaching work and how not to be victim.
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Thinking He Could Sell His Way to Profitability with Stephen King

Founder, President, CEO of GrowthForce.
Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake36
My guest for Episode #36 of "My Favorite Mistake" is Stephen King... no, not that Stephen King... but the Stephen King who is founder, President, CEO of GrowthForce, one of the nation’s largest outsourced bookkeeping, accounting and controller service for companies and non profits that use QuickBooks. He is also the host of the "Path to Profits" podcast.
Today, Stephen talks about his favorite mistake of not billing what he was worth and thinking he could "sell your way to profitability." What good is more volume if the margin isn't good? He talks about the valuable lessons he has learned -- how a small pricing change can lead to a huge profitability boost, while still making the customer feel good about it.
Stephen also shares how the "most important part of the culture" at GrowthWorks is "learning from mistakes" and being a "learning organization" as a core value. You'll hear how Stephen once had a "best mistake of the month" award and how they now use a Slack channel to share mistakes, even if there's no longer a prize.
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Using Shame as a Leadership Tool with Sabrina Moon

Engineer, founder & CEO of the Problem Solving Institute
Show notes and more: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake35
Joining me for Episode #35 is Sabrina Moon, founder & CEO of the Problem Solving Institute. She's an engineer and a certified Dare to Lead™ facilitator.
Today, we talk about her favorite mistake of using shame as a leadership tool, and we discuss what we were exposed to in our early days at General Motors -- the "command and control" leadership style (as Jamie V. Parker brought up in Episode #8). How did Sabrina learn to become more self aware about her leadership style and the impact it had? What was the transformation process that she went through? Sabrina also shares what she has learned from Brené Brown about leading.
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Mistakes Running a Chiropractic Practice with Dr. Kelly Henry

Chiropractor, entrepreneur, consultant, and author
https://www.markgraban.com/mistake34
Joining me for Episode #34 is Dr. Kelly Henry, a chiropractor who has owned clinics, but now helps others in his role as "The Customer Experience Doctor." He is also the author of the newly-released book Define and Deliver Exceptional Customer Service: Proven strategies to maximize your profits. The book is currently the #1 new release in the Amazon "customer relations" category
Enter to win a signed paperback copy of his book!
In the episode, Kelly talks about his "favorite mistake," which was an underperforming chiropractic office in Phoenix. The business was "harder than he thought" and he reflects that he should have had coaches to help him. We talk about chiropractic schools don't really teach much about starting or running a practice (a problem that is common across various medical specialties).
Kelly was later very successful when he purchased an existing practice with a built-in patient base. He's learned a lot about improving the customer experience and customer retention over time, which he shares in his book.
We talk about why the employee experience and the customer experience go "hand in hand," how a small bump in customer retention leads to a big bump in profit, and what healthcare organizations can do beyond surveying patients on their experience.
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