In a world that often demands perfection, what do we do with the unavoidable fact that we all make mistakes a lot of them? More often than not, our instinct is to hide our “wicked, cringey, mess-ups,” burying them in shame. But what if our biggest blunders were actually our greatest assets for development?

Theresa M. Ward tackles this paradox head-on. She argues that what matters most is not the mistake itself, but how we fundamentally shift our relationship with it: how we learn to see it clearly, love the lesson it contains, and actively use it as fuel. Drawing from her own vulnerable journey, Theresa shares how the radical act of speaking our most embarrassing failures out loud can dismantle shame and become the single most powerful ingredient for profound personal growth.