Formats Unpacked: How to Fail With Elizabeth Day

Hey,

Today’s format is an excellent example of how vulnerability brings people closer. Leaders fear showing vulnerability but according to DDI's Global Leadership Forecast in 2023, leaders who regularly display vulnerability are 5.3x more likely to be trusted by their employees. As for connecting with audiences, it creates the kind of human connection that makes brands more human. Thought leadership’s lack of humanity is something we’ve spoken a lot about on recently. Hit that button below if you’d like to talk about how we can help you STAY HUMAN in the age of the algorithm.

OK. On with the format. Making her return is Anna Faherty. Anna is a writer and trainer, and the author of Writing Online & Audio Stories. Anna previously unpacked A Place in the Sun for us. When she’s not binge-listening her favourite format she can be found collaborating with some of the world’s best-known museums.

Over to Anna…

What’s it called?

How to Fail With Elizabeth Day (podcast)

What’s the format?

Journalist and novelist Elizabeth Day asks a well-known guest to share three failures and what they learned from them. Each episode begins with an extensively researched biography, before Day poses insightful questions that delve deep into what went wrong and why.

If you’re expecting macho, bro-culture chat or “fail fast, fail better” mantras, you may be surprised. Guests on How To Fail are far more likely to explore issues like failing to silence your inner critic, failing to fit in or failing to say no. That’s because Day’s broad definition of failure is simply, “what happens when something doesn’t go to plan”. But what if that plan was wrong in the first place? It’s a question that might make a more accurate title for the podcast, because Day’s not so hidden agenda is to dismantle any idea that life should follow a prescribed path.

What’s the magic that makes it special?

Ironically, How To Fail was an overnight success, shooting to no 3 in the iTunes chart after just two episodes. Seven years and 20 series later, it’s racked up tens of millions of downloads.

In a world of curated perfection, Day attributes the show’s success to its celebration of failure. After all, we all experience failure in some form and framing an interview around failure immediately sets the scene for honest, reflective conversation. This is only half the story though, because Day plays a vital role too. Without her, I doubt many of her seemingly successful guests would reveal so much of themselves.

For starters, Day records every episode as live and gives her interviewees free rein to select the failures they want to talk about. They therefore retain control of what they share and there’s no risk their words will be edited after the fact – something that can’t be said for a traditional journalistic interview.

More importantly, Day deliberately steps away from the at-a-distance viewpoint drilled into professional journalists. Her girlish enthusiasm and curious queries demonstrate a genuine interest in her guests, while she builds connection by sharing her own insecurities and failures – from perfectionism and people-pleasing to dating the wrong people and “failing” (Day’s word, not mine) to have children.

Because Day turns up as her authentic self, so do her guests. They aren’t there just to plug their latest book, show or film. They’re there to acknowledge troubling emotions or reveal innermost fears. Some even cry. As a result, the format never fails (ahem...) to show guests in an unexpected light, which is why it’s such fascinating listening.

Of course, being vulnerable on air isn’t easy, so Day supports and encourages guests through that process. She gives people space to talk, reflects back what she hears and validates everyone’s experience – just like a therapist might. If someone shares a painful story – like abuse or loss – Day pauses to acknowledge what they’ve been through. If they raise a rarely discussed issue – like a fitness influencer talking about her stoma or a hunky actor sharing his anxiety in the gym – Day thanks them for their honesty. And if they put themselves down, Day respectfully points out how much they’ve achieved or how strong they’ve been.

Though the format stays consistent in every episode, the conversations meander far away from the failures that prompt them. It makes me think that the ‘share three failures’ structure is simply a MacGuffin – a device that sparks discussions we’d never hear otherwise. In Day’s capable hands, How To Fail is less about failure and more about navigating the complex, unexpected reality of life. And it’s all thanks to being vulnerable...

Favourite Episode?

The interview with Mel B, subtitled “I was a Spice Girl shouting about girl power, but I was girl powerless”. It’s a tough listen because it explores coercive and controlling relationships, but a good example of how Day gently cajoles guests to reveal their true selves.

Similar Formats?

Though they seem quite different on first listen, two shows that inspired How To Fail deliver similar outcomes. Desert Island Discs follows a similar structure, but uses music as its MacGuffin. The Where Shall We Begin? podcast lets us eavesdrop on real couples during a therapy session. Day says she was gripped by how host Esther Perel encourages her clients to reveal “their most vulnerable and intimate selves”, just as Day now does on How To Fail.

Thanks Anna.

Make sure you follow Anna on LinkedIn, and check out her excellent book.

As mentioned earlier, over on our other newsletter Attention Matters, we’ve been writing about how to STAY HUMAN and how to avoid the B2B zombie apocalypse. It’s full of fun and incredibly useful tips on how to stand out when all your competitors are sounding the same. Subscribe and avoid the looming zombiedom!

If you want to talk to Storythings about how we can help you develop a campaign that connects with humans, book a call by hitting the button above.

Here are two simple ways to get started working with Storythings:

• Our Formats Unpacked workshop will help you come up with lots of format ideas to prototype.

• Our 15-day story-finding sprint will help you find compelling stories about your company that will make you stand out and help your customers make better buying choices.

Both approaches have been tried and tested with some of the biggest brands, foundations, and arts organisations on the planet.

Thanks for reading. See y’all next time,

Hugh

If you need more creative or strategic inspiration, please sign up for our other newsletters Attention Matters and the Storythings Newsletter. Join our network of over 12,000 creative explorers!