Introverts Unite - Events - Failure Fiesta

Dare to Laugh...At Yourself! Failure Fiesta

Laughing with Our Failure Ghosts

Failures can often feel like ghosts that will never stop haunting you. Anytime you think about trying something outside your comfort zone, one of those ghosts will jump up behind you, spooking you with all the bad things that happened last time you tried something new. Scaring you

back to your same old same old.

What if you could turn those spooky ghosts into friendly ones? Have a light-hearted chat with one or two of them.

What if it was ok to tell people about our failures? Maybe even laugh at them? Celebrate them?

Failure can make us want to hide away. Make us feel incapable of doing anything right. Ashamed that we allowed ourselves a moment to believe in bigger possibilities for ourselves.

You hear people say there's no such thing as failure. Only opportunities for growth. Bleck!

Failure hurts. It stings. And it often feels like it's keeping us stuck in place, not moving us forward.

Our event is meant to bring some levity to failure. You'll get to tap into your humorous side, bring your humor to something that feels serious and heavy.

Facing Our Ghosts

To start things off we'll be inviting one of our failure ghosts to come out of hiding. They're usually lurking under the surface, ready to pop out when we are at our most vulnerable. So instead we're going to call them out on our terms.

Bring to mind a past failure, one that isn't too scary. We can start with the smaller ghosts in our first attempt. You'll want to purposely remember the details of the failure. We need some specifics to make the ghost friendlier by the end.

Laughing with Our Ghosts

Next is the fun part where we get to play and create, using our failures as the starting points. I'll introduce you to my AI friend, Pi. He/she/it is a friendly AI that you can use to help craft your funny obituary or gravestone.

I know AI can be scary too. It's an unknown entity with the potential for amazing things and also destructive things. But it exists in our world and needs people with good hearts to direct it in good ways. To bring some fun and lightness to it.

We'll spend some time chatting with Pi, giving it some of the details of our small to medium sized failures. Then asking it to come up with a funny obituary or tombstone epitaph or anything else you'd like to create. It's your failure so it's up to you.

You're of course welcome to come up with your own funny story, without using AI. I just personally find it way easier to let Pi come up with the humorous side of things first, especially when dealing with a failure that I've been stuck in embarrassment about for a while.

Putting Our Ghosts to Rest

Then it's time to lay our failures to rest in a fun and light-hearted manner. You'll be invited to add your failure's monument to our failure graveyard. It could be a tombstone, an obituary, a dedication on a park bench. Whatever best works for you and your failure ghost.

Don't worry about your tech or graphic design skills. I'll be able to assist with that part.

To give you a glimpse of what AI and a human can do together, check out IU's failure graveyard from last year's event. Some of the failures are purely fictional, made up by Pi and me. Others are based on my own and IU members' personal failures. I'll let you know which are mine during the event :D

Meet Your Host, Angela Bennett

Last year around this time, I was really feeling the weight of failure. A bookkeeping client fired me and it brought up a lot of embarrassment and shame. I remember my cheeks flushing when I read the email that client sent. My chest felt tight, off and on, for about a week. I couldn't shake it off.

I did my usual meditating and breathwork and it did help somewhat. But I still felt defeated, like I would never figure out how to make money on my own terms, no matter what I did. I felt really low energetically, couldn’t find my spark.

At the same time, I was trying to come up with an event for IU’s "Dare to Suck…in Small, Non-Terrifying Ways" monthly theme. I got to playing with my AI friend, Pi. I “told” it about some of my past failures and asked it to make a funny story out of it.

I laughed so much at what it came up with. One failure, that was over 20 years old and that I still felt embarrassed and ashamed about, was made so much lighter for me. And the energy that had been sapped by getting fired was suddenly rekindled.

We held the failure fiesta event a few days later and it was one of my favorite events all year. Who knew it could feel so good to laugh at my failures? And with other people, not just AI.

Who This Event is For

This event is for you if you're an introverted woman who struggles with trying new things or pursuing your dreams because past failures haunt you. You may feel like you're stuck in place or can't get beyond old ways of doing things. That you'll never be able to figure out how to enjoy your life in this crazy world.

You are welcome to come if you're willing and able to:

engage in quiet, solo activity for a portion of the event
be open to playing with failure, AI, and humor
listen well to others in a way that gives them space and time to gather their thoughts

The event itself is designed to be introvert friendly. Meaning there will be time spent quietly and independently playing with your failure ghost and AI or on your own if you can tap into your humor without AI's help.

If there is a larger group, we'll use breakout rooms to give everyone a chance to chat with other participants after the quiet activity, if you want to and only if you want to. If it's a small group, then everyone will be given a chance to speak, again only if you want to.

You're welcome to come and silently participate on your own, with your camera on or off. Though if the group is really small or if it's just you and me, it is helpful to me as the host for you to share your experience.

The event will not be recorded so that everyone, including me, can feel more at ease and comfortable. Facing our failures and talking about them with others is hard enough. No need to record it for posterity :) The failure graveyard can be the way we leave our mark and that can be done anonymously.

If you think someone you know would like to attend, please do share this link with them so they can check it out and register if they want to come - http://www.introverts-unite.net/events-failure-fiesta

Cost to Attend

The cost of the event is free or you can donate an amount of your choosing. Everyone is welcome no matter your financial situation.

If you are struggling financially, then please come for free. Your participation and insights are a big part of what will make this event come alive.

If you are doing ok financially, donations are welcome and completely optional. How much you donate is up to you. You can donate when you sign up or wait until the event is over.

Hopefully, you'll have a great time and feel much lighter about your past failure and better able to move forward. Waiting until after the event allows you to make a decision on donating based on how the experience actually was for you.

Money can be an area of great struggle and we often feel disempowered with it.

The option to attend for free or to make a donation is meant to bring more freedom and lightness to money and business, both for you as the participant and me as the business owner. To give us space to exchange money and services in a way that feels good to us.

So please decide what feels good to you and your heart. And know that you are welcome whatever you choose.

If you do choose to donate, click here to do so or I'll share the link again in an email after the event if you'd like to wait until the event is over. Enter your donation amount, choose your payment method, and submit. You're done! Thanks so much :)

If you run into any trouble, please let me know. You can email me at angela@introverts-unite.net. I'm just beginning to experiment with this, so it would help me out a lot to know if you have any issues.

Mark Your Calendar

This event has been postponed. You're welcome to sign up below to be notified of any future events. I've had a family emergency I need to attend to. I will be back :D

I hope you'll be able to join and we can have some fun with failure, something I never thought I'd say :D