It’s been a busy season of life and somewhat circular. I don’t enjoy the busy badge, it’s not something I wear or display with vigor. I love intentional interaction, personal conversations … I’m trying to find more of them, more often.

We had the pleasure of going to the very first Failure-Lab show this week.

Ummm. I’m a huge fan. The entire night felt like one epic poem all to the common theme of what failure brought the seven storytellers.

There was even Kazoo action, a harp, and dancing. At each seat there was a program – the format of the night was; Performance, Storyteller (7 minutes), one minute of silence to reflect/write a note or tweet, and repeat.

The idea of the Storytellers, from what I gathered, was for them to tell us of a failure but not the lesson they derived from it. That was up to us, and that’s what the one minute of silence was for. I’m an over thinker, so I’ll just go there – but it was like an intentional space to actually connect to these people beyond the words they were giving us. We were invited into their lives, often some of the most vulnerable moments of failure – and then we were asked to feel something, or better, learn something.

So, yeah. This is my thing. I loved everything about Failure Labs (and how much of a non-failure it was). I’m really excited to hear what they do and where they go from here.

Funny thing is, we were asked to hand in our programs (with notes) at the end of the show. I gave mine up after I took quick photos of my notes, I wanted to remember it too.

Here’s my take away:

What I learned at Failure-Lab

Asking for help can change everything … maybe for the first time ever.

Reality of a dream is sometimes the muddy ground you thought you were finally getting away from.

…

Take it as it comes, then go get it.

You can’t do it all. Unless you’re good at it.

Art, some times, needs more structure to reach the mass of abstract.

What are you guys learning lately?