From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn't Own You

From two authors who made life-defining mistakes, a profound and entertaining exploration of mistakes, and the transformative power of confronting them.

While very few people start enormous companies or discover lifesaving medical cures, we all make mistakes. Yet there are lots of books about successful entrepreneurs, massive failures, and compelling scientific discoveries, and no book that helps us understand how our personalities drive mistakes and how mistakes shape our lives.

Longtime friends Michael Lynton and Joshua L. Steiner made mistakes that shaped their careers and lives, but it wasn’t until the isolation of the pandemic that they began to open up to each other about them. When Lynton was the CEO of Sony Entertainment, he greenlit the film that led to the infamous North Korean hack; meanwhile, a private diary Steiner had kept as Chief of Staff at the Treasury Department became a focal point in the Clinton Whitewater scandal. As their conversation deepened, they searched for a book to guide their exploration, they came up empty. So they set out to write one themselves.

Through a revealing examination of their own stories and candid interviews with influential figures such as Karol Mason, Joanna Coles, and Malcolm Gladwell along with people from all walks of life, the authors unveil the hidden dimensions of mistakes and the universal struggle to move beyond them. Working with Alison Papadakis, Director of Clinical Psychological Studies at Johns Hopkins, they ground their observations in relevant research and unpack the difference between failures and mistakes, the stages of mistakes, and how it’s possible to break the patterns that lead to misunderstandings and shame.

From Mistakes to Meaning is an essential and fascinating read, combining compelling narrative and actionable advice, showing that mistakes can be used as portals for personal growth instead of lifelong burdens.