Chief Change Officer
#390 Erin Diehl: From Talk Show Dreams to a Business Built on Bombing — Part Two
Sun, 25 May 2025
Part Two.The queen of corporate improv is back—and this time, we’re going deeper into the messy, magnificent art of failing forward. In this episode, Erin Diehl shares her Worst Terrifying Failure (aka WTF moment): how the pandemic brought her business to a standstill, her body to a breakdown, and her mindset to a crossroads. But instead of spiraling, she built a comeback rooted in self-healing, radical joy, and a step-by-step method called MOVE ON.From chronic pain to corporate reinvention, this episode is a masterclass in resilience—with punchlines. Spoiler: the joke’s not on you. It’s for you.Key Highlights of Our Interview:WTF = Worst Terrifying Failure “2020 was my crash course in failure.” Erin unpacks the three Ps—pivoting, people-pleasing, and pain—and how they nearly broke her until she rebuilt with purpose, priorities, and peace.Marinate: Sit With It, Not In It“Failure isn’t a bruise—it’s a process.” Erin’s MOVE ON method starts with pausing and processing, not pushing through.Own It: Forgive and Face the Thought Worms“80% of our thoughts are negative—and we repeat 95% of them.” Learn how Erin rewired her mental patterns with self-compassion and honesty.Verify the Lessons & Evaluate the Plan“Every faceplant teaches you something—if you’re paying attention.” Erin explains how reflection plus action equals transformation.Observe and Next Failure: Keep Going“The N stands for the Next Failure—because there will be one.” Erin’s method is built for real life, where the next curveball is always around the corner.Joy as a Strategy, Not a Side Effect“My goal every day is to feel good—because if I don’t, I can’t help anyone else.” Erin closes with a message on generosity, energy, and the contagious power of a smile.________________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Erin Diehl --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: How did Erin Diehl's journey with failure begin?
Not so much the workshops you facilitate or the lessons you teach, but your personal journey. How you've dealt with, navigated, and grown from failure over time. If you like, feel free to share specific stories and give us an overview of your journey with failure. Either way works.
Yeah. So this is actually a keynote that I do called F words at work and there's no swearing Vince. Okay. There's no swearing spoiler alert. The F words are all about failure plus the frequency of failure equals the fundamentals of success. And truly the reason I even created this is because I was living a crash course myself in failure.
I created this content in 2021 and it was coming off of the pandemic in 2020. I'm sure you can remember, I'm sure our listeners can remember where they were in March of 2020 because it was a global pandemic, right? No matter where you were in the world, You were affected by COVID-19. And so at that time, myself, I was going through a period of time, which I call the three P's.
Chapter 2: What are the three P's of Erin's failure experience?
And I could also call them the three P's because it was the stinkiest period of my life. I had just delivered and had given birth to a miracle baby boy. And when I say miracle, then it's a miracle. There was a lot of science involved, if you will. My husband and I went through many years of infertility. We also had a shared genetic mutation. It was a really long battle to conceive our son.
And he had just been born in July of 2019. And so I came back to work in December of 2019. And then at about two months of work, when T-double hockey broke loose and as a business started to pivot and pivot. So my first P was pivoting and we were pivoting so much. I was legit pivoting.
taking everything that we had done in person, this completely in-person, completely face-to-face, completely human-to-human professional development company had to become completely virtual overnight in order to survive. And so on top of being a new mom and figuring that out, I was perpetually pivoting our business, which led to my second P, which is people-pleasing, which...
is a pattern I've had my whole life. I grew up moving around a lot. And so how I got people to like me was being a giver and a pleaser. And I also use comedy as some of the mechanisms I use to please people. I was the person that was the clown, right? That walked in and made you laugh. And in 2020, I really saw this pattern take over.
And I was at the time giving to this newborn miracle who was my son. I was giving to my family and my mom who was recovering from a stroke, by the way. I was giving to my team who was careful for their jobs. I was giving to my peers who are small business owners who were closing their doors, laying off their staff. I was giving to my clients.
and helping them navigate these contracts that we had with them and how to figure out our next steps. But I was truly giving and giving to everyone except myself. which led to the third P, which was pain. And I'm not talking about, ouch, I stubbed my toe type pain.
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Chapter 3: How did Erin overcome chronic pain and emotional challenges?
I'm talking about chronic pain, pain that lasted for two years, that was in my back and shoulders, that was undiagnosable by doctors, that was undiagnosable through x-rays and blood work and chiropractors couldn't crack. And this pain made me cry myself to sleep at night. It was physical pain like I'd never endured before.
And it was pain that I later realized was due to these unprocessed emotions that I had been sitting with for years, from years of infertility, from the anger I had at the pandemic for taking away my identity and my business, pain from people pleasing and not even realizing that I was doing it.
and so i had to set off on a self-healing journey because this period of time the three p's was what i call my wtf story my worst terrifying failure again i'm not swearing here but that worst terrifying failure ultimately led me to my greatest success and i was able to heal myself
Chapter 4: What is the MOVE ON method for dealing with failure?
through a lot of healing work, which I can get into, but I was able to do that without surgery, without medication, without doctors. I was able to dissolve my pain. I was able to come into a new line of sight for myself, which I call the three P's.
And I ultimately went from pivoting people, pleasing and pain to this life of purpose, which is helping people understand their own failures and how to move on from them. I have a serious toll on my priorities. I understand them. I even have an organizational chart for my priorities now. And I have the third P a deep sense of peace.
And that is something that I've never had in 40 plus years of walking this earth. But it was ultimately that three piece story that guided me to this place. And that's what I'm here to teach people is that failure isn't the end. It's not a door closed. It's opening you up to something greater. And.
I sit here today and say this story without tears and without heartache because I've lived it and now I'm through it. But when I was in that story, it was so hard and every day felt like an uphill battle. And physical pain on top of mental pain is not something I would wish on anyone. So I share that to say, you can change.
There's such a thing as a mind-body connection, but you can also be the catalyst and the inspiration for other people, but you have to give to yourself first. And ultimately that story guided me to write the book that I wrote and released in February of 2024.
And I can talk about that too, but it was that healing that allowed me to be in alignment, to write that book, to help other people live the life they were meant to.
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Chapter 5: How can joy be integrated as a strategy in life?
I haven't read your book yet, but failure as a concept resonates deeply. Just before this, I was interviewing another guest and we talked about transitions, not just career changes, but life changing events. In her case, two years ago, she survived a severe car accident that left her paralyzed.
She shared how she endured the physical and mental pain, learned to walk again, rebuilt her coaching business, and even started a podcast within just two years. Coincidentally, your experiences also highlight how resilience and failure intertwine. I call this lifting human intelligence. That is the ability to reflect deeply on who we are and transform setbacks into meaningful insights.
And while these three words like fill, learn, grow may sound simple on the surface. Developing that level of clarity through real experience is far from easy. What stands out is not just the lesson itself, but the process of sustaining pain, making sense of it, and transforming it into a systematic approach others can understand and apply.
The pain itself is real and unfortunate, but it often opens doors to growth. As I told my other guest, failure, if managed well, can become one of the greatest opportunities for transformation. Would you agree?
Yes, I'm so with you. I have a methodology that I use, and this is something I teach in my keynote. I'm happy to share it with you that has really helped me, and it's helped me with that story and more what I call WTFs, worst terrifying failures that have come since then. Can I share that with you, Bens? Sure.
I think that's a great way to wipe things up. I always discourage hard selling on the show. But this isn't about that. It's about sharing the lessons you've distilled from your real, sometimes painful, life experiences. Lessons that listeners can take away and apply right now. So as a closing thought, could you share a method or approach from your work that anyone can try?
Something practical, educational, not just inspirational, that could help listeners facing their own dilemmas, whether they're in career transition, dealing with personal challenges, or simply feeling stuck. What's one step or exercise they could use to figure themselves out and take that first step forward?
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Chapter 6: What lessons can be learned from failure according to Erin?
Yeah, yeah. And I definitely want to point out, it's not a hard sell. It is a tangible tool that I want to give you for free. That is something that I've used with my human intelligence and life experience to get me through these failures. And I think anybody listening and anyone going through any type of moment where they're beating themselves up, they don't know how to get through it.
They don't know how to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a tried and true method. And it's called this. You ready? move on okay and it is an acronym move on and i'm gonna break it down because honestly this method is so easy to remember because obviously you want to move on but the m in the move on stands for marinate
So when you think about your worst terrifying thing, actually, Vince, I'm going to have you do this with me. So I just want you to close your eyes for just a moment and everybody listening, just close your eyes. And I want you to think about your worst terrifying failure, your
worst fall on your face flop, that story that comes up when you think about failure, when you hear the word failure, and it could be one circumstance or a series of circumstances like my three P's story. It could be something where you were at home or at school or at work. I want you to think about who you were with and where you were when this happened. Okay, got it.
And then what we're going to do is we're going to apply this story to this move on methodology, okay? So take this story now called your WTF story, your worst terrifying failure, and let's start with the M. So the M is marinate. And so whatever this failure that comes up for you is, you've got to take the time to sit with it, Marinating is not like a steak. It doesn't happen overnight.
You're probably going to need days, weeks, maybe even months to process. So sit with it within every way you feel comfortable, whether it's just going on a walk with no music or sitting in a meditation or journaling, but really allow yourself space to feel and process that failure. And then you move to the O of move on, which is own it.
And it doesn't mean that you give full responsibility to anybody else or to yourself. You're just acknowledging that you were a part of this.
and you are forgiving yourself for those negative thoughts that you've been thinking because here's a really fun fact for you the average human thinks between 50 to 80 000 thoughts a day of those 50 to 80 000 this is from a study from the national science foundation Of those 50 to 80,000 thoughts, we form what are called thought worms. We form 6,200 thought worms.
And of those 6,200 thought worms, what percentage of those would you think are negative? What do you think percentage-wise of 6,200 thoughts, what percentage of those thoughts do you think are negative?
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