SHARE YOUR STORY

A Failure Lab story features a successful individual who is willing to courageously share a candid story of personal failure. The willingness of a Failure Lab storyteller to publicly share their failure story is inherently a groundbreaking display of bravery and vulnerability. It flies in the face of the “Instagram-culture” and “highlight reel” public personas of modern social-media-saturated life. Failure Lab is the makeup-free selfie of the storytelling world. It is the Pinterest-fail of sharing.

But don’t be fooled by the name, Failure Lab stories are inherently uplifting and humanizing. They are told by successful humans that are by all accounts crushing life, despite (or we would argue, in part, because of their failures). The ultimate message is a confirmation of the normalcy, necessity, and dare we say, the aching human beauty of life’s failure experiences.   

By sharing your personal story of failure, you join Failure Lab’s global mission to eliminate the fear, stigma, and isolation around failure — which in turn, helps remove roadblocks to communication, innovation, and community.

 

WHY BECOME A STORYTELLER?

Failure Lab has featured: Artists, writers, rappers, actors, CEO’s, musicians, entrepreneurs, designers, and professional athletes from around the world. You’ve been invited because you’re a progressive innovator who has faced adversity and bounced back. By taking our stage the story you’re really sharing is: I am resilient.

Additionally, the process of preparing and presenting your story is a concentrated exercise of self-reflection and growth in itself. The overwhelming majority of past storytellers speak to how meaningful, challenging, and impactful the experience of being a storyteller was for them.

WHAT IS THE EVENT FORMAT?

Failure Lab is a minimally produced, dimly lit, story showcase. There aren’t big introductions, MC’s, or panel discussions. Each event blends individual stories with artistic performances (musicians, dancers, entertainers), and crowdsourced lessons.  

After each story the audience will have a quiet moment to contemplate their personal takeaways from the story.

ThE NUTS & BOLTS

What are you actually committing to when you agree to be a storyteller?

  • The Format: The crafting and preparation of an 8-minute personal story. The story will be shared without any power points or presentation materials. Just a human talking to humans about being human.

  • The Story Coach: Because of the very specific structure of a Failure Lab story (outlined below), each storyteller is paired with a Failure Lab story coach. The coaching looks different for every storyteller and our coaches are available to support you as little or as much as you need to make your story amazing and to make you as comfortable as possible with the story and the process. Expect a minimum of 2-3 meetings with your coach. Typically, storytellers meet with their coach 3-5 times as they craft their story.

  • The Role of the Story Coach: Your story coach will help you select a relevant and poignant story (every one of us has lots of failures to pick from). They will work with you through the questions that inevitably come up in this type of pointed self-reflection exercise. They will help you turn your lived experience into a compelling and impactful presentation. A Failure Lab story is not a telling of your life story. It is a sharing of a specific event/time in your life. Your coach will help you to keep your story succinct, relevant, and cohesive for the audience.

The Failure Lab Story Formula

Failure isn’t enough to make a Failure Lab Story. The magic is in the Story Formula. The secret sauce of Failure Lab. All Failure Lab stories are formulated in a very specific manner.   

The Failure Lab Story Formula is simple and impactful:

Personal Failure Story + No Judgement or Blame + NO LESSONS 

 

  1. The Personal Failure Story - A Failure Lab story must be about the journey of the storyteller. While the story might not be about an Earth-shattering monumental event, it is an event that impacted the storyteller in a profound way and is a part of who they are in the present day. It must be told in first person, narrating the emotional journey through their eyes/brain/heart. It is not a story in which the storyteller happens to make an appearance. It is the storyteller’s story. The storyteller is the main character. It is a telling of their own experience. The storyteller must OWN their story.

  2. No Judgement or Blame - A Failure Lab story is not about pity or martyrdom and it is definitely not about shifting blame onto others. It is a straight up telling of events through the experience of the storyteller.

  3. NO LESSONS - This is the part of the equation that people have a hard time wrapping their brains around. No lessons. No morals. No uplifting underdog story.  


Why the Failure Lab Formula Works

Upon first glance, the Failure Lab Story Formula might seem the opposite of inspiring; however, this careful formula is a deliberate framework designed to facilitate self-reflection and human connection. The lack of resolution invites the listener into a space of self-inquiry and empathy. They can’t help but wonder, “What would I have done in that situation? When have I felt the feelings of the storyteller?” And that is the power of the Failure Lab Story Formula - it takes one person’s story and it turns it into an infinite number of experiences. Every person that listens to the story is invited into its emotional depths. Every person that listens to the story adds to it their own experiences, identity, and meaning-making. A single story becomes a magical tool of human connection.

The candid delivery of the stories, told by successful humans, works to dispel the illusion of isolation and stigma around failure by fostering empathy and elevating universal human experience. We might not like to talk about it, but we ALL fail. Every. Single. Day. Big fails. Little fails. Fails of action. Fails of inaction.

As Thor’s mother, Frigga, told him in the Avengers: Endgame, “Everyone fails at who they are supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are.” True for the god of thunder. True for us too.      

The lack of lessons, morals, or conclusions not only invites the listener into personal reflection and meaning-making, it also embeds the story in the mind of the listener. This phenomenon is known as the Zeigarnik effect, named after the Soviet psychologist Blumar Zeigarnik. The Zeigarnik effect postulates that an interrupted or incomplete event embeds itself into our consciousness & memory more effectively than a resolved event. First described by Zeigarnik in the 1900s, the phenomenon has been replicated in many studies since then. “In a 1982 study, Kenneth McGraw and Jirina Fiala interrupted participants before they could complete a spatial reasoning task. Yet, even after the experiment was over, 86% of participants who were given no incentive for their participation decided to stay and continue working on the task until they could finish it.” (Cynthia Vinney, Thoughtco.com) 

Failure Lab stories burrow into your conscious and subconscious mind, inviting empathy, inquiry, conversation, and connection.