Bouncing Back Stronger: How Top Performers Turn Setbacks into Success

Journalist Elizabeth Day has crafted an extraordinary career by exploring her own and others’ failures. She shares why openly discussing failure is a genuine source of strength and helps people feel less alone.

The Myth of Perfection

“I don’t do failure.” Many of us have said these words at some point, including myself. For high achievers, especially women making strides in the corporate world, this sentiment is all too familiar. The belief that hard work and success equal happiness has been a common mantra, particularly since the 1980s. However, times are changing. Today, we are more inclined to cut ourselves some slack, be content with our achievements, and view failures as learning experiences rather than something to avoid.

Elizabeth Day’s Journey

Leading this shift in perspective is Elizabeth Day, an author, journalist, and popular podcast host. Her podcast, How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, launched nearly three years ago, explores the concept of failure through conversations with well-known, successful individuals. “The idea is to make listeners who are scared of failure in their own lives feel less alone,” she says from London.

Elizabeth has since written a bestselling book titled How to Fail and followed it up with Failosophy: A Handbook for When Things Go Wrong. She has distilled seven “failure principles” based on insights shared by guests like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Nigel Slater, Marian Keyes, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The Podcast Phenomenon

The premise of the podcast, which has attracted millions of listeners and is now in its tenth series, is that each guest must discuss three failures in their life. Elizabeth started the podcast on her own, even designing her own logo with felt-tip pens and selling her wedding dress to fund the first few episodes. “I honestly didn’t know what I was doing, so I developed an entirely unique way of launching a podcast, doing it by myself and not using a podcasting hosting platform,” she recalls.

Personal Failures and Public Success

Through the podcast, listeners have learned about Elizabeth’s own failures, including a failed marriage, struggles with infertility, and the realization that her desire to people-please was making her unhappy. Her story of miscarriage and infertility is something she is determined to keep talking about, believing that women who are not mothers are underrepresented in mainstream media.

Sharing her life issues has catapulted Elizabeth from a good jobbing journalist and novelist to somewhat of a superstar, with a constant stream of A-list guests lining up to be on her podcast. However, it wasn’t always like this. Initially, she found it difficult to find men who would admit to having failures.

Gender and Failure

“During the first season of the podcast, every single man I approached, apart from one person, said: ‘I don’t think I have failed. I’m not sure I’m right for this podcast.’ Whereas every single woman I approached said: ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve failed so many times I’m not sure I can whittle it down to just three,’” Elizabeth explains. She believes this disparity stems from the fact that women and marginalized people, who are born into a world not made in their image, are more likely to view failure as a verdict on themselves.

Elizabeth notes that as the podcast has become more popular, more men have been willing to be interviewed. She attributes this to a greater understanding of the podcast’s purpose and the growing acceptance of discussing failure openly.

Personal Heartache and Growth

Elizabeth’s own story is one of heartache, particularly her struggles with infertility. Throughout her thirties, she tried and failed to have children. In one particularly bleak year, she underwent two back-to-back cycles of IVF, both of which failed. A few months later, a naturally occurring pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 12 weeks. By the end of the year, she realized that her marriage had broken down.

“I had always believed that I would be a mother, but as I headed into my late thirties, any hope I had of having a biological child dwindled into a sliver of vanishing possibility,” she shares. After another pregnancy and miscarriage, Elizabeth had to work hard to realize that this failure was something that happened to her rather than defining her entirely.

The Power of Openness

Talking about this openly in her writing and on her podcast means that Elizabeth can sometimes be accused of oversharing or not having suffered enough. However, she believes that the antidote to shame is openness. “I have an amazing therapist who talks about the ‘shitty committee’ which she uses in reference to the voices in your head that say, ‘Oh you shouldn’t be doing that.’ I do worry that it feels like there’s this judge and jury out there who are telling us whether our experiences are valid enough to share,” she says.

Failosophy: A Handbook for Life

Elizabeth wrote Failosophy because she realized she had spent two and a half years of her life thinking about failure, researching failure, and asking questions about failure. She wanted a place to put all of that knowledge and make it accessible to others. The book is a short read, something you can read in one sitting or pick up at specific periods of your life to help you through tough times.

She realized there were recurring themes and pieces of advice from her podcast guests. Eventually, those insights inspired Failosophy and were organized into her seven “failure principles.”

Conclusion

Elizabeth Day’s journey and her exploration of failure remind us that failure is not the opposite of success but a part of it. By embracing our failures, we can learn, grow, and ultimately find success in ways we never imagined.

For further insights, you can visit Elizabeth Day’s official website.