Don’t Fear the Fail

What do Michael Jordan, Stephen Spielberg and Walt Disney have in common? They’ve all failed– dismally. Michael Jordan didn’t make it on his high school basketball team. Stephen Spielberg dropped out of high school and had to apply three times to make it into a film school. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for not having original ideas. But what made the difference? They did not give up. Failure is uncomfortable, sometimes even gut-wrenching. But fear and failure are useful. Failure teaches us what didn’t work and points us in a direction that does work, thereby building character, perseverance and resilience.

At Everybody Up! we celebrate failure. We take fear out of the issue. While there are three most frequent kinds of fear—fear of being judged, fear of starting and fear of the unknown, we like to think of the word FAIL a bit differently: First Attempt In Learning. The use of applied improv at Everybody Up! helps you step out of your comfort zone, be present in the moment and builds courage and confidence to express yourself. The next time you feel like you’ve failed, quickly take a bow and then give us a call and we’ll celebrate your failure, and your courage, by chanting your name, clapping our hands and stomping our feet. You can then brush yourself off and get right back to it!