#289: How To Start Over When You Fail
A Beautiful Mess Podcast
Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we're talking about the inevitable experience of failure and how to hone the skill of starting over. Setbacks can be crushing, but they only turn permanent if you quit. In this episode, we're sharing our own vulnerable failure stories and the things that have helped us to get back on our feet.
Thank you to this week's sponsor:
Try their products and support our show by going to DrinkLMNT.com/ABeautifulMess
Mindset shifts:
Sometimes you have to quit
no one owes you anything
BOOK REPORT
Emma: Uprooted By Naomi Novik
Elsie: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
You can support us by leaving us a couple of 5 star recipe reviews this week at abeautifulmess.com
Have a topic idea for the podcast? Write in to us at podcast@abeautifulmess.com or leave us a voicemail at 417-893-0011.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Beautiful Mess podcast, your cozy comfort listen. I'm your host, Emma Chapman, |
| 0:09.0 | and I'm your host, Elsie Larson. And this week, we're talking about the inevitable experience of failure |
| 0:14.4 | and how to hone the skill of starting over. Setbacks can be crushing, but they only turn permanent |
| 0:20.1 | if you quit. In this episode, we're sharing our own vulnerable failure stories and the things that have helped us to get back on our feet. I love this topic and I can't wait to share our failure stories. I feel like anytime when we get to share like the very vulnerable like I beg of you learn from my mistakes like I |
| 0:39.0 | I love that that big sister feeling when we get to yeah because I love it when people do it for me |
| 0:45.6 | like when they're like oh here's the thing I messed up on I'm like I don't know if it's my age or just |
| 0:51.0 | my experience in life or whatever but I'm just like like, give me your best advice and I will probably take it. I won't even think about it. I will just do it because I know that it's so easy to just like pick apart things, or at least it is for me. I'm very pick everything apart all the time. So I'm like, just tell me your best advice. And if I can tell that you mean it with sincerity, I'm going to take it in. And I'm just going to take it for myself. Like, just sign me up. |
| 1:17.2 | All right. So this one, we're talking about failure. We're going to talk about our stories of failure. |
| 1:22.0 | Do you want to tell a story first? I do. So I have a two-fer and one ends with a sad ending because I quit and I didn't |
| 1:32.6 | keep going and one ends with a happier ending because I learned from my mistakes. Okay. So I have told |
| 1:38.4 | a story on the podcast before in like somewhere deep, deep, deep, deep in our archives, |
| 1:43.0 | but I think there's probably a lot of people who haven't heard it because we have 300 episodes now, right? |
| 1:48.8 | So that's a lot. |
| 1:50.3 | That's too many, some I say. |
| 1:52.9 | Yes. |
| 1:53.7 | So when I was in my mid-20s, and I was very poor, I was like broke, broke, broke. And I was in debt and I was starting a business. And like my |
| 2:08.1 | accountant said directly to me, like when people ask you how your business is doing, |
| 2:12.8 | do you say it's doing okay? Like he was like giving me tough love. Like it was just it was a very, very low point |
| 2:21.3 | financially in my life. And like the most I have lived in poverty in my life. So anyway, |
| 2:29.0 | during that time, I made friends, lifelong friends with a man named Carter Bryant who lives in our hometown. |
| 2:38.2 | And we just like both happen to be from this small Missouri town. |
| 2:41.5 | We have like a special magic in our Missouri town. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

