Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Careers, Workplace and Religion
Sharing stories of failure can give people the power to succeed

Sharing stories of failure can give people the power to succeed

Last updated on: September 2, 2015 at 5:21 pm by Guest Contributor

Sharing stories of failure can give people the power to succeed 2015-09-02T17:21:52-05:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Honest conversations about failure help people realize that they are not alone in their struggles, and that can give them the encouragement to succeed, says a founding partner of Failure:Lab. This post was first published in Faith and Leadership.

By showcasing personal stories of failure, Failure:Lab helps people “pave the way for change” by realizing they are not alone in their struggles, says one of the company’s founding partners, Jonathan Williams.

Located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Failure:Lab stages TED-like events at which successful people talk about their own failures and struggles. The storytellers offer no lessons or prescriptions for success, which frees their listeners to find their own meaning in the stories.

“It gives you hope when you see someone who looks so successful but the truth is, they’ve gone through all of these tough times just like you are,” Williams said. “It encourages you to say, ‘All right! If they can overcome it, I can overcome it.’”

Failure:Lab is not about failure but about resiliency, he said.

“In many ways, we’re exploring the difference between someone who goes through something and just quits and lies down versus someone who goes through something and gets back up, and continues to get back up,” Williams said.

Jonathan Williams Williams works primarily in business development and strategy for a digital agency called brightly. He’s also an entrepreneur, business growth consultant and TEDx alum. He spoke recently with Faith & Leadership. The following is an edited transcript.

Q: What is Failure:Lab?

Failure:Lab is an event company that showcases personal stories of failure. We take successful people and put them on a stage where they talk about a personal struggle or failure that they’ve gone through.

Basically, it shares the context — the back story — behind success, in order to help people learn from failure, grow from it, be more comfortable talking about it and ultimately get rid of some of the stigma and fear around failure.

Our format, as far as we know, is the only one in the world that shares failures without sharing a lesson. That’s our magic ingredient.

Usually, we have six pre-vetted and pre-coached storytellers, who each talk about 10 minutes. And the clincher is this kind of backward story crafting. They build up to the bottom — they build up to the lowest point of their story — and they leave the audience with that as a cliffhanger.

We then invite the audience to share the lessons that they took away from it or what it made them think about. What happens when you don’t justify or blame-shift what you did is that you get people being very introspective, and they’re thinking about how the story connected in their own lives.

Then we allow people to either tweet the hashtag #failure:lab or write their lessons in the program, and then all of this is published online, which then becomes a kind of growing, living conversation that is pushing back on the stigma and the fear.

Q: So at the actual event, there isn’t an audience discussion? It’s all just tweeted or posted online?

Yeah. After each story, a giant clock on the back wall counts down from 90 seconds, and that’s everyone’s time to reflect and tweet or write. But it’s not discussion. During the events, it feels very much like an intimate play.

The events are minimally produced. There’s not a host or an emcee or programming in between. It goes from storyteller to musician to storyteller, so it’s kind of this roller coaster of stories and music.

And then at the end, we always throw an after-party, where people can talk with the storytellers.

Our special ingredient is that when you don’t tell people what to think, you actually get to hear what they’re thinking. That’s our magic of leaving people with a cliffhanger, so that they really have to think about it themselves.

Q: So the storytellers don’t share any lessons. They don’t say, “Here’s what I learned.”

Yes. It’s very counterintuitive.

If you and I are sitting down and you’re telling me about your success and your accomplishments, sometimes that can shut people down. Maybe I’m going through a tough struggle, and I’m like, “Man! I am so far behind this person.”

But with our format, first, you’re being vulnerable. You’re being honest. You’re talking about some of the struggles that you’ve gone through.

That’s universal. All of us have struggles.

But what’s funny about humans is, more often than not when we’re going through a struggle, we feel like we’re alone. So that’s what we’re tapping into by not sharing those lessons — just leaving it out there. Instantly, that vulnerability goes around all of our defenses.

Whereas if [the storyteller] is instantly justifying or laying blame or getting angry or bitter, then we as listeners kind of have our defenses up. We’re saying, “Well, it wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?”

Well, we’re not talking about fault. We’re just talking about the actual situation, and it allows us to think of our own situations, and that’s where it’s really been very special and very impactful.

Again, it’s counterintuitive, and it’s unlike any event that I’ve ever been to. It opens people up where they want to share their own stuff. And that’s kind of the whole purpose of it. If you want to have honest conversations about success, you need to be able to have conversations about what isn’t going well.

Q: Does the storyteller, the one who went through the failure, often find new insights? Maybe the lesson wasn’t what he or she thought it was? (Click below to read more!)

Previous Post

August 31, 2015

5 kids' movies that teach us ALL things we really need to know

Next Post

September 3, 2015 NEWS: World-Renowned Artist Makoto Fujimura to Join Leadership of Fuller Seminary

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the prophet who pronounced doom on Jezebel and Ahab?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Elijah Elisha Hosea Isaiah