The Comeback Formula: How to Turn Any Failure into Your Next Win

What if your biggest failure isn’t the end… but the exact thing designed to move you forward? 

In this powerful episode, Jim Krigbaum breaks down how some of the most iconic success stories—like James Dyson, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, and more—turned repeated setbacks into world-changing breakthroughs. Through his proven CHARM-DANCE framework, you’ll discover how failure is actually feedback—revealing where to adjust, pivot, and grow in both business and life. If you’ve ever felt like giving up, this episode will challenge you to see things differently and give you one powerful question to ask the next time things don’t go your way. Because you’re not one failure away from quitting—you’re one experiment away from your next level. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Do you feel like you're one failure away from giving up, whether it's in your personal life, your career, or your business? Stay with me until the end. You'll hear how five individuals turn painful setbacks by using the CHARM DANCE principles, not just in rebuilding the companies, but in rebuilding confidence, relationships, and purpose. By the time we're done, you'll have one question you can use anytime you stumble. At work or at home, to turn that moment around into your next great experiment, not your last chapter. Hi, welcome to Ten Keys to Thrive in Business and Life. I'm your mentor and host, Jim Krigbaum. The CHARM DANCE Framework I've taught in 82 countries. CHARM stands for Communications, Honesty, Appropriate Qualities, Risk, and Markets. Dance stands for details, advantages, network, customer relations, and execution. These ideas show up in the boardroom, but they also show up at the dinner table. How we talk, what we do, what we promise when we show up, and how we respond when things go wrong. Let's take a look at five individuals who's turned their failures into ultimate successes, people that we all know of. James Dyson, the inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner. He had 5,127 prototypes. He went to the expense of developing this tritum, but they didn't work. He refused to ship a product that didn't meet the demand, that didn't work the way he felt the market thought it should work. So he had to produce the appropriate quality and he had to produce consistent quality. Details. He was obsessed with details over the airflow, the time, the flow, the drag, all the things associated with the airflow. He had to get perfect. The details were important to him. Life angle. In personal life, that's the work that shows up consistently in relationships and paying attention to the little things that make you strong and keep the relationship strong. Henry Ford. We all have seen Ford cars. We all know the story of Henry Ford. He has been a great success. His employees, his products around the world are leaders. But he failed two times before he succeeded. Two times. He was running out of money. Again, he realized that his product was too expensive for the consumers. One of the things I've said all along is that an entrepreneur is not done when they run out of money. They're done when they run out of ideas. Henry Ford had the ideas. He saw the market demand, continue to produce the product. Instead of walking away, he asked what the failures had taught him and how to adjust what he's trying to do to achieve success. CHARM DANCE lessons? Risks. He simplified his design, the process, and reduced the risk of large-scale production, markets. He studied what the ordinary consumer wanted. He studied the market demand. He studied the volume of demand, and he studied it honestly. He worked to determine what he had to produce for the Model T to achieve success and to produce it on an assembly line that was minimizing the risk and helping him achieve. Life angles. In a family or career, this is about honesty and to adjust before you burn out. Steve Jobs, he had a successful failure. After being forced out of Apple in 1995, Steve Jobs built Next, a company which products were admired, but not widely bought. On paper, Next failed, but it became the lab where he was able to refine and define the products that he wanted. Apple bought Next. Apple brought him back, and he became the chairman. From there, he was able to utilize what he learned in Next and utilize what he had learned in Apple in the earlier years to develop the products that we all desired. He didn't look at the market and say, people need a phone in their pocket, people need music in their pocket, people need maps in their pocket. Steve Jobs knew the market. There was no records of how many people were buying cell phones because they didn't exist. There was no record of how many people were carrying music in their pockets. We had the Walkman, which we had, but we didn't have it in a small size, we didn't have the functionality of a phone. So he was able to understand the market and understand the technology and put the two together. How this relates to Chim Dance, he was able to communicate clearly and sharply his ideas to his producers, to his engineers, and to his team. And when he came back to Apple, he cut jobs, he cut distractions, he ruthlessly worked to develop the products that the market demanded. The life angle, sometimes a failed season, like a loss of a job or a broken plan or a broken marriage, is a training ground where you learn to say what you really mean and act on what truly matters. Evan Williams, from O'Dale to Twitter. Evan Williams built O'Dale, a podcast platform, just before Apple launched theirs on iTunes. That made O'Dale irrelevant. He didn't cling to his old ideas. He didn't fight to say we need to achieve success in this niche, but he took the technology that developed and developed other things. He pivoted. He turned his focus and he developed Twitter. And we all know Twitter. What the CHARM DANCE lesson are? Markets. He listened to the market. When the market said no, and he understood that, he stopped putting his energy into it. He stopped putting his money into it and pivoted to find another product, to find a product that met the market demand. Networks, he relied on his team. He relied on his investors, and he communicated honestly to them to be able to keep them going and investing in Twitter. Execution. He actually shut down O'Deo and focused execution on the new idea. Life angles, sometimes the experiment is you need to stop. You need to stop forcing a square peg into a round hole. You need to give yourself permission to pivot. In your work, in your project, and even in your personal life, you need to be able to pivot. Colonel Sanders, KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken. At 65, Colonel Sanders lost his restaurant because the highway didn't go by him. So he let one out and he went out to sell his product. He understood the strength that he had. He assessed himself. He did a SWOT analysis, whether he did it on paper or not, nobody knows. But he did a SWOT analysis of his strength, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats, and realized that his strengths was his recipe, was his concept. And what he had did then was he went out and sold that idea. He had over a thousand rejections. A thousand restaurants said, We're not interested. When he finally was able to get somebody, he understood that he had to develop the customer relationships. The customer wasn't just the end consumer. In this case, the customer was the producer, was the restaurant. So he had to sell to the restaurant, and the restaurant had to sell the consumers. So he understood both markets. CHARM DANCE lessons, advantages. He leaned into his true advantages. He leaned into the strengths. Customer relationships, he understood the customer, but he also understood that the customer was the customer of his customer. And he had to understand that. These five stories illustrate one fact, the same idea. Failure is not a verdict. It's a set of notes on your CHARM DANCE skills. It's feedback on how you communicate, how honestly you are with yourself and with others, the quality of what you are offering, the risks you're taking, markets and relationships you're in, the details you miss, the advantages you're ignoring, the networks you're building, and how to treat people and how you execute. They're all CHARM DANCE principles. So here's a question for you in both business and your personal life. Think about your last failure. Maybe it's a deal that fell through, a promotion you didn't get, a tough conversation you had with your spouse or your kids. Which one of the CHARM DANCE elements is trying hardest to teach you a lesson through this experience? And what small experiment will you run this week to respond to that lesson? How you improve. You're not one failure away from giving up. You're one experiment away from getting better, from learning from what you've done and growing forward.

Speaker 7:35

So that's it for today's episode of Ten Keys to Thrive. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. Be sure to head on over to tenkeystotrive.com to pick up a free copy of Jim's gift. And join us on the next episode.Jim Krigbaum (Episode 13) === [00:00:00] Do you feel like you're one failure away from giving up, whether it's in your personal life, your career, or your business? Stay with me until the end. You'll hear how five individuals turn painful setbacks by using the CHARM DANCE principles, not just in the building, the companies, but in rebuilding confidence, relationships, and purpose. By the time we're done, you'll have one question you can use anytime you stumble at work or at home, to turn that moment around into your next great experiment. Not your last chapter. Hi. Welcome to 10 Keys to Thrive in Business and Life. I'm your mentor ~and char~ and host Jim Krigbaum, the CHARM DANCE Framework. I've taught in AD two countries. CHARM stands for Communications, Honesty, Appropriate Qualities, Risk and Markets. Dance stands for details, advantages, network. Customer relations and execution. These ideas show up in the boardroom, but they also show up at the dinner table, how we talk, what we do, what we promise, when we show up, and how we respond when things go wrong.[00:01:00] Let's take a look at five individuals who's turned their failures into ultimate successes. People that we all know of. James Dyson, the inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner. He had 5,127 prototypes. He went to the expense of developing this. ~He~ tried them, but they didn't work. He refused to ship a product that didn't meet the demand, ~that didn't work the way he thought it should work.~ That didn't work the way he felt. The market thought it should work, so he had ~to~ produce the appropriate quality, and he had to produce consistent quality details. He was obsessed with details over the airflow, the time, the flow, the drag, all the things associated with the airflow. He had to get perfect. The details were important to him. Life angle in personal lives. That's the work that shows up consistently in relationships and paying attention to the little things that make you strong and keep the relationship strong. Henry Ford, we all have seen Ford cars. We all know the story of Henry Ford. He has been a great success. His employees, his products around the world are leaders, but he failed two [00:02:00] times before he ~star~ succeeded two times. Running outta money again. He realized that his product was too expensive for the consumers. One of the things I've said all along is that an entrepreneur is not done when they run outta money. They're done when they run out of ideas. Henry Ford had the ideas. He saw the market demand continued to ~pro~ produce the product. Instead of walking away, he asked what the failures had taught him and how to adjust what he is trying to do to achieve success. CHARM DANCE lessons, risks. He simplified his design the process, and reduced the risk of large scale production. ~Markets.~ Markets. He studied what the ordinary consumer wanted. He studied the market demand. He studied the volume of demand, and he studied it. Honestly. He worked to determine what he had to produce for the Model T to achieve success and to produce it on an assembly line that was minimizing the risk and helping him achieve life angles in a family or career. This is about honesty and to adjust before you burn out. Steve Jobs, he had a successful failure after being [00:03:00] forced out of Apple in 1995, Steve Jobs built next a company, which products were admired but not like widely bought. On Paper Next failed. But it became the lab where he was able to refine and define the products that he wanted. Apple bought next. Apple brought him back, and he became the chairman. From there, he was able to utilize what he learned in Next, and ~Lou ~utilize what he had learned in Apple in the earlier years to develop the products that we all desired. He didn't look at the market and say, people need a phone in their pocket. People need music in their pocket. People need maps in their pocket. Steve Jobs knew the market. ~He didn't,~ there was no records of how many people were buying cell phones 'cause they didn't exist. There was no record of how many people were carrying music in their pockets. We had the Walkman, which we had, but we didn't have it in a small size. We didn't have the functionality of a phone. So he was able to understand the market and understand the technology and put the two together, how this relates to chime dance. He was able to communicate clearly and sharply his ideas to his producers, to his engineers, and to his team. [00:04:00] When it came back to Apple, he cut jobs. He cut distractions. He ruthlessly worked to develop the products that the market demanded. The life angle. Sometimes a failed season, like a loss of a job or a broken plan or a broken marriage ~is ground where edit~ is a training ground ~where you learn to say what you really mean and what, and edit~ where you learn to say what you really mean and act on what truly matters. Evan Williams from ODO to Twitter. Evan Williams built Ode OA podcast platform just before Apple launched theirs on iTunes. ~That made Ode O,~ that made Od O irrelevant. He didn't cling to his old ideas. He didn't fight to say we need to achieve success in this niche. But he took the technology that developed and developed other things. He pivoted, he turned his focus and he developed Twitter. And we all know Twitter, what the CHARM DANCE lessons are. Markets. He listened to the market when the market said no, and he understood that. He stopped putting his energy into it. He stopped putting his money into it and pivoted to find another product, to find a product that met the market demand networks. [00:05:00] He relied on his team, he relied on his investors, and he communicated honestly to them to be able to keep them going and investing in Twitter execution. He actually shut down odeo and focused execution on the new idea. Life angles. Sometimes the experiment is you need to stop. You need to stop forcing a square peg into a round hole. You need to give yourself permission to pivot in your work, in your project, and even, ~even~ in your personal life. You need to be able to pivot. Colonel Sanders. KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken at 65. Colonel Sanders lost his restaurant because the highway didn't go by him. So he let went out and he went out to sell ~his,~ his product. He understood the strength that he had. He assessed himself. He did a SWOT analysis, whether he did it on paper or not, nobody knows. But he did a SWOT analysis of his strength, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats, and realized that his strengths was. His recipe was his concept. And what he had did then was he went [00:06:00] out and sold that idea. He had over a thousand rejections, a thousand restaurants said we're not interested. When he finally was able to get somebody, he understood that he had to develop the customer relationships. The customer wasn't just the end consumer, in this case, the customer was the producer, was the restaurant. So we had to sell to the restaurant, and the restaurant had to sell to the consumers. ~So we understood,~ so we understood both markets. CHARM DANCE lessons, advantages. He leaned into his true advantages. He leaned into the strengths customer relationships. He understood the customer, but he also understood that the customer was the customer of his customer. And you had to understand that these five stories illustrate one fact, the same idea. Failure is not a verdict. It's a set of notes on your chime band skills. It's feedback and how you communicate, how honestly you are with yourself and with others. The quality of what you are offering, the risks you're taking, markets and relationships you're in, the details you miss, advantages you're ignoring, the networks you're building and how to treat people and [00:07:00] how you execute. They're all CHARM DANCE principles. So here's a question for you in both business and your personal life. Think about your last failure. Maybe it's a deal that fell through a promotion. You didn't get a tough conversation you had with your spouse or your kids. Which one of the CHARM DANCE elements is trying hardest to teach you a lesson through this experience? ~And what small experiment will you run at it?~ And what small experiment will you run this week to respond to that lesson? How will you improve? You're not one failure away from giving up. You're one experiment away from getting better, from learning from what you've done and growing forward. So that's it for today's episode of 10 Keys to Thrive. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. Be sure to head on over to 10 keys to thrive.com to pick up a free copy of Jim's gift and join us on the next episode.