The Professional Confessional Ashley Stryker

Today's guest is content marketer Brooklin Nash, whose early career in a Guatemalan non-profit led him to a "fight or flight" situation with a stubborn, insecure director who gaslit him.Brooklin's mistake was the bad presentation of good ideas, compounded by youthful inexperience and the director's own insecurities. Basically, he didn't know when to quit! He pushed his organization for changes they were never going to implement, while simultaneously ignoring the writing on the wall that they ...

Marc Maxhimer, a former middle school teacher, talks about the time he tried to help his new principal -- only to get the door slammed in his face.Marc's big mistake wasn't confronting problematic behaviors in his boss. Rather, it was not anticipating his principal's misinterpretation of intent as a personal attack or a complaint.In future conversations with the powers that be, Marc would pre-emptively and succinctly frame the conversation to come with a matter-of-fact statement of the issue ...

Graphic designer Charlotte McBride talks about how her greatest strength turned into a weakness so big, she delivered 6 months' worth of bad projects.Charlotte's biggest professional mistake was rushing her projects to completion, prompting a career-defining confrontation with her direct supervisor. Her speed, combined with her inexperience and her manager's reluctance to speak up sooner, which was her own mistake, resulted in six months' worth of mediocre product that may have been avoided.&...

"The Godfather of Content Marketing" Joe Pulizzi describes how his first business flopped by selling the wrong service to the wrong audience.Joe's big mistake was actually two-fold. First, he fell in love with his product before his customers validated the approach. Second, he sold to the wrong audience altogether! His original target market of agencies generally never spent on their own marketing, even as they sold the service to others.Joe brought his business back from the brink by switchi...

Content marketing champion and Fortune 100 consultant Robert Rose reveals how his private insecurities kept him chained to the wrong job for 3 years.Robert's big mistake was waiting so long to leave his corporate gig -- but more than that, it was believing that inner voice that said he'd always be a failure because he "couldn't finish what he started." That insecurity -- rooted in his own failure to finish college -- only dislodged after his mentors reframed the question from "What if?" to "W...

Serial entrepreneur Steve Teare's core mistake led him to embezzle computer parts and plunged him into homelessness before he could pick up the pieces.Steve's big mistake was his lack of awareness of his own personality, and how it could compromise his values to the point where he embezzled computer parts from his company suppliers. Even after repaying the theft, Steve had to hit rock-bottom homelessness before he lucked into a greater understanding of his innate personality traits and how th...