On Monday 6th March 2023 PropelHer’s Book Club discussed How To Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day.
In this summary of How To Fail by Elizabeth Day, I’ll be briefly summarising the book to help you to make a decision about whether you should buy a copy of the book for yourself.
Elizabeth starts How To Fail with an introduction where she shares her first memory of failure, a list of her failures, why it is important to talk about failing and her definition of what it means to fail.
Then there are 13 chapters and each chapter is dedicated to a different topic. Then Elizabeth shares how she failed in relation to that topic. The topics are:
- Fitting In
- Tests
- Your Twenties
- Dating
- Sport
- Relationships
- Being Gwyneth Paltrow
- Work
- Friendship
- Babies
- Families
- Anger
- Success
In each chapter Elizabeth shares why she classed herself as failing in relation to that area, but also shares the lessons she learned from the said failure. The book is predominately memoir and filled to the brim with stories from throughout her life.
Elizabeth is very open throughout the book and the stories range from her sharing her experiences including being an English girl in Ireland, spending a month in Russia, trying to play tennis, going through IVF, experiencing a miscarriage, feeling like the odd one out in a group of three, never asking for a raise, going freelance, moving to LA, living in Clapham, boyfriends, a one-night stand and more.
That is then combined with some experiences from the people she has interviewed on her podcast – How to Fail with Elizabeth Day. This brings another layer and at times shows how in many ways although our exact experiences may be different the feeling they generate make us more alike than you’d imagine.
The reality is everyone has ‘failed’ at something. The point is to learn the lesson and not let it define you.
That’s it! You now have an idea about what you can expect to find inside of How To Fail by Elizabeth Day
Like the sound of How To Fail? Why not buy a copy of the book and have a read?
How to Fail by Elizabeth Day was read as part of PropelHer’s Book Club. PropelHer’s Book Club is an online non-fiction book club for ambitious women that meet monthly. Every month PropelHer’s Book Club reads a different book to help ambitious women concentrate on their personal development and professional success. You can see what else we have read so far here. If you would like to join PropelHer’s Book Club you can find full details here.
And don’t forget to share your book pictures! Tag @Propelherorg.
