The next time you experience something embarrassing, think of it as a potentially valuable story to share in the future, to boost your and your team’s creativity.

New research shows that sharing your most cringeworthy moments with coworkers enhances individual and team creativity.

We found that people who recounted an embarrassing incident generated almost 28% more ideas and over 20% greater variety of ideas than those who had written about a prideful moment.

The embarrassment group performed better than a separate control group (who just wrote about their commute) on idea volume and variety, too, while the pride group’s performance was indistinguishable from the control’s.