The Mistake Isn’t the Problem

Two public figures got caught this week. The plagiarism wasn’t the story.

The Mistake Isn’t the Problem

Two different people got caught plagiarizing this week.

Different platforms. Different audiences. Same playbook.

Both were called out publicly. Both apologized. And both apologies were so defensive, so self-serving, so obviously crafted to minimize damage rather than actually own the moment, that the apology became worse than the original offense.

That’s what stuck with me.

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The LinkedIn creator was a shock to a lot of people. By most accounts, he seemed like a genuinely good guy. Warm, engaging, someone people actually liked. But when the plagiarism surfaced, something else came with it: private messages where he mocked the very creator he stole from, then blocked him.

He posted a public apology saying he deeply respected that creator.

The private messages told a completely different story.

When those leaked, even his own friends struggled to defend him. Not because of the plagiarism, but because of the gap. The public persona and the private reality were two entirely different people. That’s when it became clear: what everyone had loved wasn’t really him. It was a mask. A carefully maintained brand. And the mask slipped.

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The Substack situation bothered me more personally. This creator has nearly 100,000 followers across his platforms, a heavily monetized channel, and a brand built entirely on the idea of raw, uncompromising, biblical honesty. Grit. Integrity. Refusing to soften the truth.

His response to being caught was the opposite of everything he preaches.

Defensive. Victim-framed. More focused on critiquing the people calling him out than actually reckoning with what he did. I held him to a higher standard because he held himself to one. That dissonance was hard to sit with.

Deja vu?

He committed to a reckoning, then posted a personal essay about his pain instead. When I named the gap, he blocked me. I actually wrote him an open letter after Matt 18 failed me. I won’t get into all of it here.

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But the more unsettling thing is that I don’t think either of these guys woke up one day and decided to become that person.

It never works that way.

It starts smaller. A little borrowing here. A small exaggeration there. A moment where you could have told the full truth but softened it just enough. And you get away with it. So the next one is easier. And the next one easier still.

By the time the mask is visible to everyone around you, you’ve been wearing it so long you might not even feel it on your face anymore.

This is how good people, people who genuinely started with good intentions, end up somewhere completely unrecognizable. Not one catastrophic decision. A long series of small ones that never got properly reckoned with. Little compromises, left uncorrected, that quietly rewire who you are.

What could interrupt that pattern at any point? Humility. The willingness to be caught, to be wrong, to let a failure actually cost you something instead of managing your way out of it.

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I’m not writing this from the outside looking in. I’m human, fallible, and a sinner. That’s one of the core tenets of Christianity, that we all make mistakes.

When I see this play out in real life, it terrifies me, because I recognize it in myself. Not to compare what these two guys did to the great church scandals of the past as it’s a totally different magnitude, but it’s the same path that fell people like Ravi Zacharias.

He did not start out his self sacrificial ministry with the intent on abusing his power and position to abuse vulnerable women. But he did.

Somewhere along the way, slowly, small inconsistencies surfaced but no one spoke up because it seemed so insignificant, so petty. Especially if it’s a Christian, where criticizing their character could do significant damage to very real, very beneficial ministry.

And then for the person itself. It’s the slow drift. The small compromise that feels totally reasonable in the moment. The subtle shift in your own conscience until you genuinely believe your own spin, that you’re the victim here.

The only thing I know to do is stay honest about the small stuff. Don’t let things accumulate. And when you do get it wrong, let it sting. Don’t manage the discomfort away. Sit in it long enough for it to do something.

Surround yourself with people who know the real you, who aren’t afraid to call it like it is. And listen to them. Don’t power up or try to hide or deflect or blame or the myriad of things that we do.

At the end of the day, I know I need to treasure those who bring up hard truths (lovingly!) to me. Because if they don’t, who will? And then who will I become?

Failure handled with humility doesn’t end the story. It usually deepens it.

Failure handled with pride? That’s where the story starts to go somewhere you can’t come back from.

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