My Favorite Mistake: Learning Without Blame in Business and Leadership

Matthew E. May: Leaving His MBA Career to Pursue Acting

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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Brenden Kumarasamy: Emailing 40,000 Professors—and What He Learned

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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Billy Taylor (Bonus): Standards, Respect for People, and Leading Without Compromise

Billy was our guest on Episode #5 and it's our most-listened-to episode by far (by a factor of 5X).
I hosted Billy Taylor on LinkedIn Live today, to do a "watch party" of his episode, followed by some additional conversation and I'm sharing that audio here. See the recording of the watch party and the follow up conversation.
Billy's company: http://linkedxl.com/
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A CEO Mistakes in Filmmaking and College Basketball with ”Filmpreneur” Forrest Tuff

Forrest Tuff, the founder and CEO of One Vision Productions, professional speaker, business coach, author.
Show notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake33
Joining me for Episode #33 is Forrest Tuff, the founder and CEO of One Vision Productions, an award-winning, multimedia production company. He does so many things...
Forrest is a creative person who is also business savvy (he calls himself a “filmpreneur”). He has 180+ movie credits that include documentaries, indie films, and a major motion picture with Twentieth Century Fox. He is the host of the Tuff Talk Show… and he was also a Division I basketball player.
Today, we talk about his "favorite mistake" of leaving a regular job (something others thought was a mistake). We talk about his views on the possibility of mistakes in making movies and taking three-point shots. We talk about his coaching through the SCORE program and how he defines servant leadership.
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Michele Parrish: Not Pushing Back on the Client’s Framing of the Problem

Consultant, founder and managing partner of Parrish Partners... MIT Leaders for Global Operations alum.
Show Notes: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake32
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Joining me for Episode #32 is Michele Parrish. She is a consultant and she is founder and managing partner of the firm Parrish Partners. Michele was previously an executive at Intel and one thing we share in common is that we're both graduates of the MIT Leaders for Global Operations Program.
In today's episode, Michele tells a story related to advising a CEO who called her in with a very particular problem in mind. Michele learned about the need to push back and to not be shy about disagreeing with the client about what the problem really might be. We'll talk about the importance of “emotional intelligence” (something she teaches about), systems thinking, and the need to slow down to pause and reflect.
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Five Mistakes That Shaped an ER Doctor Turned Startup CEO

Emergency physician and CEO of KaiNexus, a technology company in Austin, TX
Show notes https://www.markgraban.com/mistake31
Click here to enter to win a free "My Favorite Mistake" coffee mug!
Joining me for Episode #31 is Dr. Greg Jacobson, an emergency medicine physician and the CEO/co-founder of KaiNexus, a technology and software company. In the interest of full disclosure, I will mention that I have worked with KaiNexus, in various capacities, since 2011 and I have an ownership stake in the company.
That said, Greg is one of the most interesting people you'll ever meet. Many startup CEOs launch their company at night while working their day job. Greg started KaiNexus during the days while working some nights as an E.R. doc.
In today's episode, Greg (always the overachiever) shares FIVE favorite mistakes from his career:
Not reading more
Not figuring out work/life balance
Struggling with the diffusion of CEO attention as the company grows
Not being appreciative enough
Not doing his own due diligence
We'll talk about all of that, the importance of creating a culture of continuous improvement in a company, and much more. I think you'll enjoy the conversation, as I did.
Please subscribe, rate, and review via Apple Podcasts or Podchaser!
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