#failurelab

What is it?

Failure:Lab is an event. More appropriately it is an experience. A single night wherein individuals share their personal stories of failure. It is an unfiltered, raw, and intimate experience whose power lies not just in what is shared…but what is left unknown. No result. No resolve. Just the failure itself. Brief interims of reflection and entertainment allow the audience to react to the story.

Failure:Lab challenges. It provokes. It inspires one to think of their failure in an unconventional way. To embrace it. To learn from it. And to build on it.

What is this?

The sum of my experience. My personal reaction to the experience of persons sharing their stories of personal failures. So yes. Synopsis of a few storytellers and their stories. Key points from the story. And reaction to the story. Maximum effort.

Jamiel Robinson

Founder/CEO of Grabb Local. Urban Innovator. Community Builder. Entrepreneur. Basically, on the forefront of many awesome things. Jamiel's story was the failure of a non-profit. An after school program for Grand Rapids Public Schools aimed at increasing student's GPA's. Jamiel wanted to give students the opportunity to have the life that they choose, not the life that is chosen for them. Academics gave students this freedom and Jamiel helped these students to see that. It failed. For many reasons, the entirety of the non-profit was put on Jamiel. He walked away from the program. 

He walked away. His actual concluding statement. Powerful. Jamiel started this non-profit because of the perpetual failure of the educational system; specifically, in the lives of African American and Latino students. Broken systems. Jamie wanted to be the exception. To create a consistent system that did not fail it's students. Did this fear of being a program that would fail it's students manifest into it's own self-fulfilling prophecy? If the fear of failure did not exist, would the program still have failed? Or did it fail simply because it was too much work for too few people? 

Holly Honig

Senior Manager for Human Dynamics + Work at Herman Miller Inc. Holly's story was the failure of an opportunity in a friendship. This relationship was one of two inherently opposite individuals representing an illogically strong friendship. However, the reality of life post-college took the two on very different paths. Yet, when they reconnected years later was when this opportunity arose. The friend shared feelings unhappiness. A short time after this opportunity, Holly's friend stepped in front of a train, killing herself. In tears, Holly shared what represented the failure, "I failed to love her alone while sitting with her alone". 

I think this is where the failure lives...not in the prediction or prevention of what came after the conversation, but in the capacity to, in that moment, love. To love alone. Not just the situation that the individual is struggling with...but to love the individual, alone. Honestly, I would not have recognized this as a failure prior to seeing the hurt and ramifications of it's reality in it's telling. Thank you Holly, truly. 

David Abbott

Five time cancer survivor. Fashion Guru. Philanthropic Advocate. David's story of failure was of survival. Obviously, he did not fail to survive...he is very much so alive. Rather, the failure lies in the resulting ramifications of a state of perpetual survival. A life defined in survival's success. Specifically, David touched on a romantic relationship that failed as a direct result of this. When he survived cancer, the relationship could not survive without it. The relationship had been defined in the roles fulfilled as a result of a survival need.

It was moving. You could feel this of wall survival David had put up breaking down on stage. It hurt him. He told this story with humorous additions told in tears. Am I just surviving? Are my relationships surviving? What am I trying to survive? 

Paul Moore

Communicator at Start Garden and overall hilariously expressive human being. Paul's story of failure was failing to recognize the true gift of a friendship in life. Paul described a captivating friendship. An individual who freely gave love. An individual who loved you. Not hindered by the idea of conformity to their idea of life or comfort. True unrestricted love. Paul was gifted by a friendship with this individual. As life often requires, their lives grew apart. When their paths crossed once again, it was in death. Paul's friend had died because of heart complications. Initially, the loss was not detrimental. But, the hurt manifested in a deep sorrow at the loss a gift.  

He felt he had missed out on this gift. This life. What are gifts in my relationships that I may be overseeing? What are my gifts? Am I utilizing these gifts? Do I embrace or seek to fix people? 

What Are You Trying To Say?

I'm not sure. Failure:Lab left me provoked without words. In every possible way, I was moved. I was moved by the raw intimacy of tales that would traditionally be disregarded and guarded as a result of a pervasive negative cultural stigma. I was moved because I felt that experiencing this broke down walls. It allowed me the opportunity to dream without restraint. With a rational fear of failure. Which may be more aptly termed as caution?