All the best bits from our podcast
Have you listened to Simply the Worst, the podcast from the team behind Flounder? Over the last few months we’ve had the privilege of speaking to some incredibly wise and articulate guests, who have offered us some wonderful insights into failure and success. Read on for some of our favourite nuggets of wisdom or to listen to the podcast in full, just head over to our Soundcloud.
Take it as it comes
When Jackie Weaver became an instant social media celebrity overnight, it understandably came as a bit of a surprise.
âThe next morning I had filming vans outside, and reporters knocking on my door,â she told us, with characteristic understatement. âYou think, âwell, somethingâs happened!â”
âI canât even put it as strongly as shock. For shock, something has to resonate, or really hit you. It was like, Iâm just not believing that this is happening. It was like sailing through it.â
Try something new â and see where it takes you
In the last few years, so-called Insta-poets have proliferated across social media, to great success. To its fans, this poetry is minimalistic and direct; to its critics itâs simplistic and shallow. Among those critics was Andrew Lloyd, a freelance journalist, who came up with a novel response.
Andrew challenged himself to become a lauded Instagram poet with the worst possible work he could muster. Seeing this kind of poetry all over his social media feed, he noticed poems were often posted without an author, making anonymity easier.
âI certainly wouldnât have described myself as a poet until I started writing this kind of stuff myself and realised how easy it was,â he said.
âIt was very surreal, [I was] quite detached in a way. As I deliberately did this under a dramatic synonym of Raven, I was almost watching as a bystander myself. It was very surreal, almost like I had an insight into someone elseâs account.â
If success doesnât come straight away, donât fret
âThereâs an interesting relationship between what people try to do and what people succeed in doing,â Andrew said. âI got a lot of messages from people who were writing authentic poetry, asking me as Raven how I got so many likes. These were people who were trying to succeed as a bad poet and were failing, and I was trying to fail as a bad poet but was succeeding.â
You canât control how people will respond to you
âYou canât really control the failure or success of the outcome, you can only control the effort you put into it. You might even have delayed success⊠It depends what your own definition of failure or success is, but as long as you define failure or success by what you put into it, not what the outcome will be, I think thatâs OK. As soon as you start determining the value of what you do based on the reaction then youâre in trouble, because you canât control the reaction.â
When success does come, seize the moment
Faced with intense media attention, some would choose to shy away from the spotlight; others would let it go to their heads. But for Jackie it was simply an opportunity to talk about the work she has been doing for the last two decades.
She said, âColleagues said to me, âWhy did you say yes?â And my attitude was, âWhy would you say no?â If you spend 25 years trying to raise the profile of town and parish councils, and youâre offered this kind of attention, why would you say no?â
âWe are seeing town and parish council websites getting more hits.âŠThe longer we can keep the attention going, hopefully the more people we will involve.â
Cliché it may be, but failure can work out for the best
Working in television, Emma Tindall knew that it would be competitive. But when she got to the last 12 people for a popular grad scheme â out of 700 applicants â and fell at the last hurdle, she was devastated. Then it happened again a week later. And then again, a month later.
She told us, âI just thought to myself, âhow is this fair?â I had done everything, Iâd worked so hard at uni and gotten a good grade. That took me a really long time to get over, a year on I was still bitter.
âNow I look back I think, âoh my god, I didnât even want to do that stuff I was applying forâ. I know itâs such a cliche but you do learn so much from your failures, if I hadnât of failed at that Iâd probably be doing something now that I donât even enjoy.â
Failure and success arenât opposites â theyâre almost the same
Growing up, Emma said she was terrified of failure, having been taught to see life as black and white â you either succeed or fail, with no room for shades of grey.
âI hated the way it made me feel,â she said. âIn school there is a huge dichotomy between success and failure, we are taught to believe they are the complete opposite of one another.â
She cited a famous quote: âThe path to success and the path to failure are exactly the same; they just fork off at the ends.â
She explained, âWhen you think of it like that it makes the whole process of dealing with it a lot easier. It doesnât mean the whole thing is a failure, it means that one cog in that particular journey didnât work.â
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