The Three Agreements for Success and Failure
Build resilience by committing to persistence, learning, and constructive reframing.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
The framework establishes three agreements before pursuing ambitious financial or business goals: do not quit, trust your ability to figure things out, and interpret events as happening for you rather than merely to you. Together, they create a feedback loop. Persistence produces more attempts, a learning orientation turns missing skills into solvable problems, and constructive reframing converts failures into information for the next iteration. The mechanism is not blind optimism; each setback must yield a lesson or changed action. Jasmine Star uses these agreements to explain how she continued through criticism, learned unfamiliar digital-business skills, and converted lost contracts into a course opportunity. Repeated consistently, the agreements make progress more likely by keeping the entrepreneur engaged long enough to learn and adapt.
Origin
Jasmine Star developed these agreements through her transition from law school to photography, her early digital-product experiments, and a career crisis involving lost contracts and sponsorships. Extracted from The Jasmine Star Show.
Core principles
- 01Persistence keeps future opportunities open.
- 02Missing knowledge can be acquired.
- 03Failure supplies information rather than a final verdict.
- 04Adversity can prepare you for a stronger opportunity.
How to run it
- 1
Commit to Staying in the Game
Decide in advance that criticism, slow progress, or an unsuccessful attempt will not automatically make you quit. Preserve the opportunity to improve through another iteration.
Pro tip Define the conditions under which you will reassess the approach without abandoning the underlying goal.
Watch out Do not confuse persistence with repeating an ineffective tactic unchanged.
- 2
Name the Knowledge Gap
Identify the specific skill, system, or information you lack instead of treating inexperience as proof that you cannot succeed.
Pro tip Convert “I don't know how” into a focused learning question.
Watch out Trying to learn everything before acting recreates the planning trap.
- 3
Run a Scrappy Attempt
Create the smallest practical version, put it into the world, and observe what happens. Let action expose what must be learned next.
Pro tip Favor an imperfect test that produces evidence over prolonged private preparation.
Watch out A scrappy attempt still needs to deliver an honest, usable result.
- 4
Reframe the Setback
Ask how the event could be preparing you, redirecting you, or revealing a better opportunity. Separate the failed attempt from your identity.
Pro tip Write down one lesson and one possible advantage created by the setback.
Watch out Reframing should not deny genuine harm or eliminate accountability.
- 5
Apply the Lesson
Change the next attempt using the information you gained. Continue the cycle of action, feedback, learning, and iteration.
Pro tip Track what changed between attempts so improvement remains deliberate.
Watch out Failure has little value when its lesson is never applied.
In the wild
After leaving law school, Star began photography without owning a camera or having formal training. Online critics called her talentless, uneducated, and wrong. Instead of treating those judgments as a stopping point, she continued working, learned over time, and reported earning more than $100,000 in her first year.
→ Persistence created enough time and experience for skill and commercial results to develop.
After losing contracts and sponsorships during a difficult 2014, Star reframed the disruption as something happening for her. She created a $197 Instagram-for-business course, reported earning $255,000 in five days, and continued launching it until the business exceeded $1 million that year.
→ A damaging setback became the catalyst for a more scalable revenue stream.
Common mistakes
Repeating Without Learning
Persistence alone does not create progress. Each attempt should reveal information that changes the next one.
Waiting Until You Know Everything
Excessive preparation prevents the real-world feedback needed to discover important gaps.
Using Reframing to Avoid Responsibility
Saying everything is happening for you should support learning, not excuse poor decisions or dismiss consequences.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for entrepreneurs navigating a new field, a failed launch, public criticism, or an uncertain growth period.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when persistence would ignore serious ethical, financial, health, or product-safety risks.
From the transcript
“Agreement number one if I don't quit, I can't lose.”
“I don't know everything, but I can figure out anything.”
“Everything is happening for me, even when it feels like it isn't.”
From the episode
3 Money Beliefs That Made Me Millions