Nick Saban calls it “the dumbest decision I ever made” — a fourth-and-one call from the 2001 SEC Championship Game that still sticks with him.

In this episode, Mark Graban breaks down why even the greatest coaches make mistakes, what Saban learned from the moment, and how leaders can turn high-pressure missteps into opportunities for trust and growth.

Perfect for listeners interested in leadership, football, coaching, and the psychology of mistakes.

Jingle Bells is one of the most recognizable Christmas songs ever written… except it wasn’t written for Christmas at all. In this week’s Mistake of the Week, we unpack one of America’s most enduring cultural misconceptions: the belief that Jingle Bells has anything to do with Christmas.

Originally titled One Horse Open Sleigh, the song debuted at a Thanksgiving church service in the 1850s and was inspired not by Santa or reindeer, but by noisy, fast sleigh races in Medford, Massachusetts. No Christmas trees. No North Pole. Just winter racing, youthful chaos, and a catchy melody.

Over the decades, repetition turned assumption into “truth,” and a Thanksgiving song quietly shifted into a holiday anthem. It’s a perfect example of how knowledge mistakes spread — harmless, familiar, and rarely examined.

In this 3–4 minute episode, Mark explains:

• Why Jingle Bells was never meant to be a Christmas song

• How repetition and cultural habit transformed it anyway

• What this teaches us about assumptions, organizational habits, and the stories we never question

• Why small knowledge mistakes can persist for generations

If you care about learning, improvement, and understanding how mistaken beliefs take root, this episode offers a fun seasonal reminder: even our most cherished “facts” deserve a second look.

In Episode #332 of My Favorite Mistake, Mark Graban talks with Dr. Josh McConkey — emergency physician, Air Force Reserve Commander, combat-deployed medevac leader, and Pulitzer Prize–nominated author. Known as the “MacGyver Doc,” Josh has spent his career solving problems in high-pressure environments where you rarely get a second chance.

Episode page with links, video, transcript, and more

Josh shares the most painful mistake of his professional life: entering a business partnership without doing the proper due diligence. What followed was a cascade of red flags — Medicare violations, skimming, financial misconduct, and even a $3.4 million bribe offer he refused. The ordeal ultimately cost him nearly $5 million and forced him to rebuild his career and life with integrity front and center.

In our discussion, Josh explains how this experience reshaped his understanding of leadership, accountability, and courage — especially in systems where incentives can push good people toward dangerous choices. He also reflects on two decades in emergency medicine, including the structural failures that helped fuel the opioid crisis and the pressures physicians faced to prescribe narcotics.

Josh shares why he wrote Be the Weight Behind the Spear and his new children’s leadership book The Heart of a Leader, and why he believes character development must start far earlier than most of us realize. We close with his decision to run for Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina in 2028 — a move grounded in service, accountability, and a desire to strengthen public leadership.

This episode explores integrity, systemic failure, resilience, and the lessons we carry forward after a mistake that changes everything.