My Favorite Mistake: Learning Without Blame in Business and Leadership

Mark Graban Podcasts
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My Favorite Mistake is a podcast about learning without blame in business and leadership. Despite the name, it’s not just my favorite mistake—it’s yours, it’s ours, and it’s what we can all learn from when things don’t go as planned. Hosted by author and consultant Mark Graban, each episode features honest conversations with leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and changemakers about a meaningful mistake they made—and what they learned after things went wrong. How they responded. How they improved. How they grew as leaders. This isn’t a show about failure theater, gotcha moments, or simplistic “lessons learned.” It’s about how real people reflect, improve, and lead better in complex organizations—without scapegoating, shame, or hindsight bias. What You’ll Hear • Leadership and management mistakes that reshaped careers, teams, and organizations • How teams and leaders learn without blaming individuals • Insights about culture, systems, decision-making, and psychological safety • Practical lessons drawn from real experience, not abstract theory Guests come from business, healthcare, technology, sports, entertainment, government, and academia, sharing stories that reveal how learning actually happens. The Perspective Mark brings a systems-thinking lens grounded in Lean management, continuous improvement, and psychological safety. The focus is less on who messed up and more on what the system taught us. Who This Podcast Is For • Leaders and managers who want to learn from mistakes without blame • Executives working to build healthier, more resilient cultures • Professionals who believe improvement starts with reflection, not punishment My Favorite Mistake: Learning Without Blame in Business and Leadership

  1. Why Chasing Growth Over Profit Cost This Founder $800K -- with Joel Steele

    4D AGO

    Why Chasing Growth Over Profit Cost This Founder $800K -- with Joel Steele

    At 24 years old, Joel Steele was buried in what would be roughly $800,000 of debt in today's dollars - the wreckage of a healthy fast food restaurant chain he had poured himself into since college. He had three locations, media coverage, and a fourth lease in his hand. What he didn't have was a team, a mentor, or a profit. Episode page with links, video, and more In this conversation with Mark Graban on My Favorite Mistake, Joel takes apart what actually went wrong. It wasn't the concept - healthy fast food was ahead of its time. It was that he had set the wrong metric. He was measuring growth instead of profitability. He was doing every job himself. And when warning signs appeared (literally, as sewage backing up four feet high in the middle of a lunch rush), he kept going. Joel shares the moment he finally took off the blinders, the catatonic stretch that followed, and how he rebuilt - first into a successful financial services firm, and now as the author of Life Switch: How to Experience the Power of Living On. He explains what it means to live "on" versus "off," why he designed a $1 million charitable commitment into the book itself, and what he tells high achievers - including pro athletes - who are trying to figure out what comes next. A thoughtful conversation about founder blinders, the trap of confusing growth with success, and the psychology of coming back after a public failure.

    39 min
  2. Why Walking Away from Tech Was the Wrong Move -- with Irna Hutabarat Athans

    APR 13

    Why Walking Away from Tech Was the Wrong Move -- with Irna Hutabarat Athans

    Irna Hutabarat Athans had an MBA from MIT, connections to VCs, and a front-row seat to the startup world. But technology felt soulless to her, so she walked away -- for years. She became a tango dancer, a poet, a world traveler. Anything but tech. Episode page with links, video, and more That decision cost her years of income and impact. The turning point came at a conference where she asked a room full of hotel and restaurant entrepreneurs what would happen to the families whose jobs AI would eliminate. Most couldn't answer. But one woman told her, "The fact that you asked that question is the very reason you have to lean into AI -- because AI is now driven by people who do not ask those questions." From there, Irna started using AI not as a search engine but as a thinking partner. She applied chain of thought reasoning to surface limiting beliefs she had carried for years -- about money, about success, about whether someone who loves Greek tragedies belongs in technology. Through those conversations, she arrived at a personal mission: to be a creator, creating something she enjoys, that people will pay for, and that makes the world a better place. We also talk about what blockchain actually is beyond crypto, why only 6.4% of blockchain VC goes to women-led companies, and why AI, blockchain, and quantum computing need more diverse voices building them.

    43 min
  3. What Bruce Springsteen's Set List Teaches Leaders About Communication -- with Andy Freed

    APR 6

    What Bruce Springsteen's Set List Teaches Leaders About Communication -- with Andy Freed

    Andy Freed has seen Bruce Springsteen perform 95 times. Somewhere along the way, he stopped just enjoying the shows and started studying them -- how Springsteen prepares a set list, reads an audience, paces energy across a four-hour performance, and makes every musician on stage feel like the most important person in the room. Episode page with links, video, and more  Andy is CEO of Virtual Inc. and author of Lead Like the Boss: The Bruce Springsteen Framework to Elevating Your Leadership. His favorite mistake goes back to 2006, when his team created an Uncle Sam-style "We Want You" marketing campaign for a global organization -- then got a call from their Japanese partner pointing out that American World War II propaganda doesn't exactly resonate in Tokyo. The campaign was already far along, forcing a sharp pivot and a lasting lesson about what happens when you view your audience through a single cultural lens. From there, we dig into the ideas at the heart of his book: why communication isn't just a leadership skill but is leadership itself, the "think, feel, do" framework for making sure your message actually lands, and why a well-intentioned company cafeteria policy once drove employees to quit. Andy also shares why Tom Peters was right that leadership is a performance, how self-awareness matters more than fixing every weakness, and what it means when Springsteen shakes every band member's hand at the end of every show.

    40 min
  4. Why Hope Outperforms Resilience -- with Dr. Julia Garcia

    MAR 30

    Why Hope Outperforms Resilience -- with Dr. Julia Garcia

    Dr. Julia Garcia -- psychologist, author, and host of The Journey with Dr. J -- built two businesses that didn't survive. Episode page with links, video, and more The first was a performing arts collective that grew to 20 people before the economics collapsed. The second was a mental health app for young girls experiencing harassment on social media -- grant-funded, scrappy, and gaining real traction -- until a cross-country move, a young son, no childcare, and an eroded sense of self-worth made it impossible to continue. She never set up a single investor meeting. That one, she says, was the hardest to recover from. What she learned from both failures shaped her book, The Five Habits of Hope -- and a sharp distinction she draws between hope and resilience. Resilience, as she sees it, has been co-opted by a push-past-it culture that encourages people to power through without addressing root causes. Hope is different. It's a cognitive science with measurable predictors of success: more collaboration, better problem-solving, greater willingness to adapt. Hopeful teams outperform resilient ones -- and leaders who build emotionally safe environments are the reason people stay. Dr. Garcia also turns the tables mid-episode, walking host Mark Graban through a live coaching exercise on honesty, self-worth, and the feelings we suppress instead of process. It's one of the more candid moments the show has had.

    44 min
  5. Why "Have a Sense of Humor" Was the Wrong Company Value -- with Mike Chaput

    MAR 23

    Why "Have a Sense of Humor" Was the Wrong Company Value -- with Mike Chaput

    Mike Chaput bought his first company at 24, went bankrupt at 28, and started over. When he co-founded Endsight, he and his partners worked hard to establish company values -- and landed on one that sounded great: "Have a sense of humor and take enjoyment from the day." The problem? Elevating humor to the top of the values hierarchy gave permission for blame-based behaviors, including a rubber chicken shaming ritual where the chicken got hung on the cubicle of anyone who made a mistake. Episode page with video, transcript, links and more  The turning point came when Mike encountered W. Edwards Deming's work at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and a sales leader told him bluntly that the organization felt like it was always looking for someone to blame. Deming's Point 8 -- drive fear out of the workplace -- made it clear: humor without respect underneath it creates the conditions for people to hide problems from leadership. Mike shares the framework he now uses to test whether values are actually working, how Endsight replaced blame with problem registers, value stream managers, and A3 thinking, and why command-and-control leadership turns teams into panicked prey animals instead of coordinated predators. Drawing on Primed to Perform by Doshi and McGregor, he explains the motive spectrum from play to inertia -- and why fear-based management guarantees low performance.

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

    MAR 16

    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." Episode page with links, video, and more 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.

    46 min
  7. The Mistake of Going It Alone -- with Patrick Engasser

    MAR 9

    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. Episode page with links and more 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.

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

    MAR 2

    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. Episode page with transcript, links, and more  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.

    42 min
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4.9
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About

My Favorite Mistake is a podcast about learning without blame in business and leadership. Despite the name, it’s not just my favorite mistake—it’s yours, it’s ours, and it’s what we can all learn from when things don’t go as planned. Hosted by author and consultant Mark Graban, each episode features honest conversations with leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, and changemakers about a meaningful mistake they made—and what they learned after things went wrong. How they responded. How they improved. How they grew as leaders. This isn’t a show about failure theater, gotcha moments, or simplistic “lessons learned.” It’s about how real people reflect, improve, and lead better in complex organizations—without scapegoating, shame, or hindsight bias. What You’ll Hear • Leadership and management mistakes that reshaped careers, teams, and organizations • How teams and leaders learn without blaming individuals • Insights about culture, systems, decision-making, and psychological safety • Practical lessons drawn from real experience, not abstract theory Guests come from business, healthcare, technology, sports, entertainment, government, and academia, sharing stories that reveal how learning actually happens. The Perspective Mark brings a systems-thinking lens grounded in Lean management, continuous improvement, and psychological safety. The focus is less on who messed up and more on what the system taught us. Who This Podcast Is For • Leaders and managers who want to learn from mistakes without blame • Executives working to build healthier, more resilient cultures • Professionals who believe improvement starts with reflection, not punishment My Favorite Mistake: Learning Without Blame in Business and Leadership

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