Most founders survive storms. Few know how to leverage them.

The setbacks, missteps, and near-disasters you would rather skip are often the very moments that give your story weight.

But as a founder, you need to know these storms you survived are not liabilities. They are assets waiting to be shaped.

In this issue, I'll show you why bad experiences create unforgettable stories, how vulnerability spreads influence, and how to turn one difficult moment into a reusable storytelling asset. You'll also get:

Enjoy the storm, it looks good on you….LG

If you are building a company, storms are guaranteed.

Failures will happen. Setbacks will test you. Moments will arrive that shake everything you thought you knew.

The question is not whether those storms will come.

The question is: Will you learn to use them?

Because here is the truth most founders miss: bad experiences can make for great stories. And great stories build trust faster than any credential, any traction number, any polished pitch ever could.

When you share struggle authentically and with purpose, people do not see weakness. They see themselves.

That recognition creates empathy. Empathy builds trust. And trust is the currency of everything you are trying to build.

This issue breaks down how to turn your hardest moments into your strongest stories. How to leverage vulnerability strategically. How to make the storm work for you instead of against you.

VULNERABILITY IS THE GATEWAY TO CONNECTION

Here is what most founders miss: when you share struggle, people do not see weakness. They see themselves.

That recognition creates empathy. Empathy builds trust.

And trust is the currency of influence.

If you want people to follow you, support you, believe in what you are building, write you a check, or join your team, they need to trust you first.

Vulnerability accelerates the trust process.

As we covered in a previous issue on embracing vulnerability, vulnerability includes uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. That is what scares founders.

But with that foundation in place, understanding that vulnerability is not weakness but strategic honesty, we can now focus on how to leverage it.

Vulnerability creates the emotional doorway between you and your audience. Without it, the door stays closed. With it, people step through and lean in.

When you share authentically, you signal honesty. You are telling the truth, even when it is hard. You signal self-awareness. You know what you did not know. You signal confidence in your path. You are not hiding from your journey. You signal comfort with who you are. You have made peace with the mess.

That combination reads as credible, not risky. As strong, not weak.

Carley Roney transformed a personal nightmare into the catalyst for The Knot. Her wedding planning experience was chaotic and overwhelming. Instead of hiding the mess, she openly shared her frustration, stress, and disappointment, then used that moment to identify a real unmet need.

By starting with a vulnerable personal problem, she created a brand rooted in empathy and usefulness. Her story works because it starts with honesty and leads to purpose, helping her build a $130 million brand.

BAD EXPERIENCES MAKE GREAT STORIES

The most memorable stories begin with something going wrong.

Our brains are wired to notice danger and uncertainty. Crisis commands attention. Struggle creates emotional weight. Failure introduces tension, stakes, and contrast that draw people in.

Gary Keller did not hide his mistakes from scaling Keller Williams too fast, and that honesty helped him build the largest real estate company in the world.

Clayton Christopher openly admitted what he did not know building Sweet Leaf Tea, which helped him create a brand that sold for nine figures.

These founders recognized that perfect paths feel artificial and forgettable. Easy wins fade quickly. But when something goes sideways, audiences lean in because they want to know what happens next.

Reframe your thinking and understand that bad experiences:

Stories rooted in difficulty stick in memory longer because emotion strengthens recall. Audiences remember moments of risk, loss, and recovery more vividly than smooth success

VULNERABILITY IS CONTAGIOUS

Here is the ripple effect: when one person opens up, it creates permission for others to do the same.

It accelerates trust far faster than guarded professionalism. It creates advocates who feel personally invested in your success.

One story often invites another. Barriers come down quickly. Empathy grows on both sides.

When you go first with vulnerability, you give others permission to be human too. That is influence.

This is exactly what I saw Brené Brown, one of the world's foremost experts on vulnerability, demonstrate with 200 of the country's top CEOs and founders at the Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit. I was filming the event and interviewing the CEOs when Brené gave her keynote.

When she went first and shared her own struggles with leadership and vulnerability, the entire room shifted. Leaders who had spent their careers projecting certainty suddenly felt safe enough to admit doubt, fear, and uncertainty.

That is the contagion effect. Vulnerability invites vulnerability.

Sara Blakely made failure a central part of her story and her pitch for Spanx. She openly shares rejection from manufacturers and retailers. She talks about embarrassment, self-doubt, and early missteps. She celebrates failure as proof of effort. Blakely regularly credits her comfort with failure as a competitive advantage. 

By making rejection visible, she removes fear from the process. That honesty makes her story memorable and makes success feel earned, not lucky, and became a powerful force that helped her become the youngest self-made female billionaire in history.

TURN BAD INTO GOOD: MAKE IT HUMAN

To use vulnerability strategically, you need to convert what happened into meaning your audience can feel and apply.

This is not about glamorizing pain. It is about turning lived experience into a story that teaches, connects, and builds trust.

The goal: Share the scar, not the wound.

Share what healed and what you learned, not what is still bleeding.

Brian Sharples, founder of HomeAway, openly credits failure as his greatest teacher. He talks about early failures and missed opportunities. He frames setbacks as shaping moments, not regrets. He refers to this process as learning from the storm.

By sharing what went wrong and how it changed him, he builds credibility with other founders. His story resonates because it treats failure as a shaping force, not a liability, and that perspective and those learnings helped him turn HomeAway into a $3.9 billion exit.

USE THE STORM

Storms are coming. They always are when you are building something that matters.

But use these storms as story material.

The failures, the embarrassments, the moments that almost broke you, those are the stories that will connect you to your audience faster than any perfectly polished narrative.

Learn to love the storm. Chronicle it. Mine it for lessons. Make it human. Use it to build trust.

Because when you stop hiding and start sharing the truth, you shift from performing to leading. And that is when people start following.

If you have already done the work of naming your disasters, finding the human moments, and identifying your contrast from the previous issue on embracing vulnerability, you are ready for this next step. If not, start by acknowledging what went wrong, what it felt like, and how you changed because of it.

Now let's take one vulnerable moment and turn it into a strategic story asset you can use. Here is the three-step process:

In this video: “Vulnerability. The Gateway Drug to Connecting With Audiences When Sharing Your Story”, I unpack why vulnerability is not weakness, but leverage. It makes you human. It makes you relatable. It builds trust faster than polish ever will. It signals courage and confidence. And when you share honestly, others often follow. If you want audiences to lean in instead of tune out, this is the shift that changes everything. Watch here:

Send an email to [email protected] and someone from my team will circle back with you.