How to Fail With Elizabeth Day

Location: Southbank Centre

Date: Tuesday 22nd October 2019

Price: between £15 and £25

How to Fail, a much-loved podcast since its inception in 2018, is also the title of Elizabeth Day’s new bestselling book – How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong. In October, as part of the Southbank Centre’s Literature Festival, Elizabeth Day took her podcast live for a special show.

 Following the introduction from the Literature Director at the Southbank Centre and a rather long – and slightly awkward – musical interlude, Elizabeth Day came strutting out in a gorgeous gold two-piece suit to the chorus of a quirky and subdued cover of Destiny’s Chid’s ‘Survivor’. The awkward pause was explained by Day commenting that she wanted to wait for the chorus as it was very apt to the themes of the evening, and upon reflection we agree.

Day started by taking the audience through her ‘Seven Failure Principles’ which were essentially the key lessons and learnings that she had taken from some of her most poignant guests on How to Fail, including Alain de Botton and Mo Gawdat. These men’s stories clearly struck a chord with Day, and whilst we could list these ‘Failure Principles’ for you here, instead we encourage you to take a listen to these episodes of the podcast yourself and see what you take from it.

Vulnerability and honesty are some of the most respected and beautiful qualities to see in a person, but often they are the hardest to show in yourself. Elizabeth Day has a rare quality in this sense, as she continually breaks down her own walls and leaves herself exposed and vulnerable. Her honesty is powerful and similarly to both her writing and podcast, she delivered a raw and exposing speech of her own failures in life. Day has experienced relationships breaking down, divorce and multiple miscarriages all of which has left her at some of her lowest points. After voicing each of her ‘failures’ to the audience Day repeated her mantra of the evening “these things pass, they always do”.

Day began the evening standing powerfully in front of two armchairs and a small bookshelf, so it was obvious that we were to be presented with a guest at some point. After a short while she welcomed, Karl Lokko, former gang leader turned activist, poet, public speaker, adventurer and personal advisor to HRH Prince Harry to the stage. In keeping with the How to Fail podcast, Lokko had already devised his three failures and Day took him through them carefully. He described his former gang-centric life, his family life, his education (and what it was like being a child genius) and how he failed to take part in the final stage of the Matterhorn Challenge – which was essentially because he had been involved in a car crash and hurt his wrist, so physically couldn’t climb the mountain.

Similarly to Day, Lokko had his own mantra that he repeated a few times and felt particularly poignant after hearing his story – “every setback is a setup for a comeback”. At just 29 years old Lokko’s wisdom seems to stretch well beyond his years, perhaps as most adults will never experience as much in a lifetime. At 12 years old, Karl was witness to his first shooting. He went on to be shot at, stabbed, cut in the face and witnessed many of his close friends’ murders.

Following the discussion of Lokko’s three prominent failures, a Q&A session was opened up, with audience members being encouraged to ask anything on their mind. This session revealed that most of us are anxious, worried and fearful of our own failures, but most also want to learn to deal with this in a positive way. Day was already a highly-decorated journalist and author, but now she is on a mission to help us frame our failures in a positive way.

#FLODown: If you get the chance to see Elizabeth Day in the flesh, you will be blown away by her eloquent, articulate and honest conversation, and we couldn’t recommend her more – and if you can’t find any live dates, just give her podcast a listen and you will be equally as enthralled.

Location:

Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

Nearest Station:

Waterloo Station

Words by Mollie Kate Cohen