Have you ever gotten up on stage in front of a group of strangers and shared the story of your biggest failure? Does the mere idea instill you with fear and dread?
Well, for Carlos Zimbrón, founder of F***up Nights, it's something more people should be doing. Because the act of sharing our darkest moments with others can have surprising, even amazing effects on our lives.
Today you'll learn the story of an organization built around a … unique event model, and how Carlos and the other founders went from attracting five people at their first event, to expanding to thirty-five locations within a year, to quickly losing some of those locations as they tried to monetize their side project.
But as you'll also learn, peaks and valleys like that are baked into the ethos of F***up Nights. As Carlos explains, the mission of the organization is to help eliminate the stigma around failure. It's to change the culture. The trajectory of the company, the business, is kind of secondary.
The through-line of this episode is that any community can benefit from creating the space for its members to share their challenges and failures.
You could probably tell from the title, but this one contains some spicy language. Jill and Tony and Charlie even explore how profanity can be a bonding mechanism across cultures. (We're academic about this stuff, okay?!)
Today's Guest
Carlos Zimbrón
Co-founder and CEO at F***up Inc. Also Co-founder of WE ARE TODOS (Cultural space). Architect, art lover, history enthusiast and plant charmer. Always curious.
F***upNights.com
Instagram.com/f***upnights
In This Episode
- How F***up Nights went from a latenight, fireside idea to 35 locations in the first year, and beyond
- The value of vulnerability and the power of catharsis
- How a community built around failure can change lives
- Why Carlos's goal with F***up Nights is to “disappear”
- Stigma, and why we build our careers around failure
- Carlos's own story of failure
Resources
- Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico by Juan Villoro [Amazon affiliate link]
- Flops 008: The Museum of Failure
The CX 035: Failure Is Your Friend with Carlos Zimbrón of F***up Nights
Jillian: Hey, everybody, Jillian here. And just a heads up that this episode contains “enthusiastic” language, also known as some explicit language. So it may not be appropriate for the younger audiences. Grab those headphones. And thanks for listening.
Carlos Zimbrón: He was like, "I don't know, my brain just shut down. I'm not sure. I don't want to share this. I invest all my money. I invest all my effort and everything."
And at the end of his talk, he was crying first. And then he started hugging one of my partners that is his friend. And he was like, "Thank you very much for inviting me. And for convincing me to come here."
Tony: What is a better way to connect people? Is it through talking about successes or failures? In this conversation, we are going to talk with Charlie Zimbrón, founder of Fuckup Nights, who would argue in favor of the latter.
I'm Tony Bacigalupo, it's the Community Experience Podcast. And I've got Jillian B here with me as well.
Jillian: I am also here, hello. Let's talk failure.
Tony: Let's talk failure. Carlos' story is amazing because it's something that started as a very simple conversation among friends. Now spread to 35 locations within a year, it's all over the world. And it's all about failure, Jill.
Jillian: Something we all know all too well for some reason or another. So why don't we ever talk about it? Why do we pretend it's a shame and it's something to put in the closet? Why not get around a bonfire with some Mezcal and talk failures and deepen relationships in the process?
Tony: Absolutely. In truth, the big takeaways here. Number one, play with that stigma for yourself. If you have a failure or shortcoming. Something that has not worked out for you. How can you make sure that you've properly processed it and shared it with others, in a way that helps you release it and maybe bonded with people over it?
And then two, how can you facilitate the sharing of failure in your community? How can you maybe create deeper bonds by inviting your members of your community to share their failures?
So Carlos is going to give you a lot of really great tips on both of these things as you hear his story in this conversation.
Jillian: We also call him Charlie and Carlos. He goes by both. And just be aware.
And also if you haven't figured it out, a lot of cursey words this episode.
All right. Let's get into it with Charlie/Carlos, of Fuckup Nights.
Tony: Charlie, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you on the program.
Carlos:: And thank you very much for inviting me. I'm really happy to be here.
Tony: Can you just start us off. Tell us a little bit about why you call it Fuckup Nights? What is the origin of this delightfully named project?
Jillian: What kind of fuck up happened to inspire Fuckup Nights?
Carlos:: Well, it's crazy because all the founders, we are from Mexico. So for us it's not a strong word as it is for other countries, English speaking countries. But we use it a lot. The word fuck. And here in Mexico because we are very close to the US.
And in that moment, we were in a barbecue having fun and drinking some beer and Mezcal. Because we have barbecues here in Mexico with Mezcal, not with any other thing. So we were kind of drunk one moment of the barbecue. And we start talking about why we are very attached to these kind of events. Or these talks that are more oriented to success.
Like Ted or PechaKucha. Or any kind of conferences or talks of that kind. In that moment, there were a lot of formats happening. And we say like, "What's the most important thing about that story of success?" And we concluded that, the most important thing was the failure.
But we didn't like any other name with the failure worth, because failure is not that simple. It is more strong. It's very direct. And of my partners say, "What about fuck up?" Fuck up is like something that, it sounds more like a failure, that's strong and it's a hard work.
In that exact moment, all of us were like, "We like that. And it sounds great. And it could be really underground and punk and that kind of project that we like to do." And also it's a combination of our personalities. And, I don't know, it happens like a serendipity moment, but with a lot of philosophical conversation in the middle.
Jillian: There's something very, relatable. We know exactly, like, "Oops! I fucked up." And it's a learning experience. It's playful. It's playful in a way that I think takes the pressure off, because, like, business failure feels awful. But then to turn it and make it a learning experience is really interesting. I'm curious, so you're all based in Mexico, your website, at least the website I see it's in English. So how do you say it in Spanish?
Carlos:: I don't know. In Spanish, the actual translation is … it's like a shitty a moment.
Jillian: Like a shitshow?
Carlos:: Yeah.
Jillian: Okay.
Carlos:: But it's not like that common. And we cannot make up pair off, with that. Like a catchy. So we don't use it that much. And, we use more [foreign language]. That is nights about failure or something like that. But we don't use the actual translation of fuck up. Yeah.
Jillian: The literal translation, that's fair. This is a total side tangent, but when I took Spanish in high school, which I didn't do a great job, because I'm still terrible at Spanish, but there was a book we found that had all the curse words and slang in Spanish. And we're like, "Yes! Now we can actually talk how people talk." Versus like, [foreign language]. The very formal way you learn, at least in American schools, learning a language, it's all very formal and not useful language that you learn.
Carlos:: We have a long, a long list of curse words here in Mexico.
Jillian: Yeah. See, I dig it. I think I must be Mexican at heart then because I love curse words. Profanities.
Tony: It's so funny. Because, we want to talk about failure and we're going to talk a lot about that as we get into the episode. But profanity as a bonding mechanism across cultures, there's something really beautiful about it, right?
Carlos:: Yeah. We didn't think about that at the beginning, because it was a small project in Mexico City. About 20 people attending. But at the end it works a lot. Everybody understands the word around the world.
Jillian: So Mezcal at a barbecue, have an idea. How did that turn into what it has become? Did you organize your first event locally to just be like, "You should do this thing?"
Carlos:: Yeah, exactly. At the beginning, it was like, "Let's try." After the barbecue, we were hung over. And we text each other and so we are like, "We have a good idea, right? That thing that we were talking about yesterday, it was a good idea?"
And then we try out for the first time between the five of us and talk about our biggest failure. Where it was something that I never shared before that day. And it was a great conversation and it was a really nice evening. And we have a really good time.
And we decide to do it in the same space where the barbecue was. And we invite, I don't know, we are five co-founders. And we invite everyone, all of us invite five people. That's it, that was the first Fuckup Nights. And three speakers.
And one of us was the first one in the story. In the history of Fuckup Nights. And three speakers, 25 attendees, beers and that was a projector. And that was the first Fuckup Nights.
After that, it was crazy because, those five friends that we invited at the beginning, invited other five friends. And it was an exponential process, word of mouth. We didn't have social media or nothing, anything.
And then out of nowhere, someone from Spain wrote us and said, "I heard about your format, I want to bring the format to Spain." And in that moment, we realized we have something interesting and something bigger than we thought we had.
We start creating a manual and very improvising. But we did that. We shared the format with her, it was a girl. And she started there. And after that, we opened social media. And we opened all the possible channels. And at the ending of the first year, we were around 35 cities around the world. It was a really big step and crazy year, the first one.
Jillian: That's amazing. 35 locations within a year. And so you created that manual for the first person in Spain. And then where you just was able to just keep emulating that process. Of if someone approached you, you'd say, "Great. Here's how you do it."
Carlos:: Yeah. Every day we changed the manual. We learn a lot of things after every event. And we didn't know that, it's difficult to be conscious about the size of the project, when you are not in all the cities. When you are just one city and you don't see the impact. But we were trying to improve all the documents or the materials.
And then we designed the logo. And then after the logo, the poster and the flyer. And the flyer, it was the same flyer for everyone around the world. And you start adding things to something that it wasn't supposed to be a project that big.
And the most important thing is that we keeping do it, even, we didn't have a business model or something designed to grow. But we keep it doing it as the best we can in that moment. And with all we have. We were young also.
Jillian: That always helps.
Carlos:: Exactly.
Jillian: A little bit of youth. The ignorance of youth can be very helpful, because you're not scared of things, you just do it. I mean, it really says a lot that, a group of five friends had this idea, just did it slow growth. Just word of mouth. And then obviously it was a great idea, because 35 locations in a year without actually planning to do that, it just organically happening over time.
What about that was hard? I mean, I imagine you were all working other jobs and having to manage the growth of this. The surprise growth. Were there growing pains or challenges in that first year with this growth?
Carlos:: That one is the first challenge. We didn't have a business model and we cannot leave our paycheck jobs just because we have a great cool project.
So the first that we did, that was Lady Leticia, one of our partners. And she said, "Fuck it, I'm going to leave my job." And we decide to, between the other four, pay her paycheck for several months.
And after that, we start understanding how to get money from this, just to pay Lety. First to pay her and then to understand if we can grow a team.
And our first idea was charging, at the beginning, we grow a lot because all the memberships around the world were for free.
And we start charging the membership, because that was our first, the logical thought that what we have about how to grow. We are making all this work for that people that are having the memberships and organizing Fuckup Nights. Charging the brands, everything we need. Like, the knowhow and everything they need to organize Fuckup Nights in their city.
And that was challenging also, because when you are not charging and then you start charging, and the business model change, the people weren't ready to pay. And we lost a lot of cities in that process. But a lot of them understood that it was important to monetize the project. And that was our first step.
And then we find another one. It was also a learning process. A lot of people that attend to Fuckup Nights, were part of corporations. They just attend Fuckup Nights because they like it.
But they are working, they have a job in a corporation. And they start asking us if they can bring that format to their companies. So then we say, "Okay. We can do that." And we start doing it for free. And then it was like, "Okay, we need to charge for this, because it's have a lot of value. And we are investing our team is investing a lot of time."
So that was in the process that we had from a couple of cities and just one person to understanding and then finding the business model to have a team.
Tony: So there's a lot I want to follow up on. But maybe you can tell us a little bit about the value of vulnerability? And why does this particular event resonate? Why is this event different from other events?
Carlos:: Yeah, I think the first story that comes to my mind is the first event we had. The very first one. One of the speaker was, he wasn't really convinced about speaking at Fuckup Nights. He was like, "I don't know, my brain just shut down. I'm not sure. I don't want to share this. I invest all my money. I invest all my effort and everything."
And at the end of his talk, he was crying first. And then he started hugging one of my partners that is his friend. And he was like, "Thank you very much for inviting me. And for convincing me to come here."
And I think that moment of catharsis that it's needed to make the next step in your life in general, in any failure in your life, that was represented there in that moment. Because, he started talking about business and numbers and everything, and at the end of the talk, he was sharing very personal things. Without understanding when he broke the limit of vulnerability.
And he passed from a business talk to a personal talk in seven minutes, because our format's really short. It's seven to 10 minutes.
And how? That doesn't happen when you are talking about your success. Because, when you're talking about your success, is going up and up and up. And then here, in the process of the storytelling, you have different, peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys.
And at the end, he end up in a valley, really down and vulnerable and crying and everything. And I'm going to go to a wedding next weekend, and he's going to be there, this guy. He text me, "I want to see you, Charlie. Because I remember the first time, the Fuckup Nights..."
He still have that memory very fresh in his life, because it was an important moment for him without a doubt. And for all of us, that Fuckup Nights, probably was the first time we share our failure ever. Or at least more than five people. And that's an important moment. It's our first. We are all first timers, most of the times.
Jillian: It takes a lot of vulnerability. But there's something magical about that, I think, if you're willing to share those stories. And none of us want to because we live in a success society. Where it's like, "Look at me. Look at all the things I've done. Check my LinkedIn."
To organize a event where people who we would all consider someone to look up to in some way in business. And then they share like, "Well actually, it's not all roses." And to be honest with the valleys and the failures, one, it makes us all feel better about ourselves.
But two, there's something about that, and having that environment to share, that I think establishes certain kinds of relationships with people. And to your point, with that guy that you're going to see soon. There's a camaraderie that comes out of that, that's really special.
Carlos:: Yeah. Well, the speakers connect with us because we invite them. And this is a thankful concept of that. But also with the audience. If you see someone that is crying a little bit during a conference, you are going to connect automatically, of someone that makes you laugh, like the standup.
Because, Fuckup Nights have this, in this peaks and valleys. You have, it's a lot of fun and laugh, and then probably down and sad moments. And those emotions are the ones that you connect with most of the time, when you are with a friend or with your couple, whatever, you're connecting through that. Through laughing and sad moments and problem moments.
And also, a lot of people in the audience said, "Okay, I'm not the only one that is passing through this moment, because I see this guy in the stage that is in the same context as me. And I understand him. I relay, I empathize with him or with her."
Tony: Can you say more about that? The attendees in the audience. Were there any specific moments similar to the one you mentioned with your speaker, where somebody came up to you or you overheard afterward that attending the event was really important to that person specifically?
Carlos:: We have a lot of emails about we, had one that was crazy at the beginning, I don't know, the second year or something like that. It was a guy that said, "I was really having suicidal thoughts through that period of my life, because I was really bad with my relationship with my family. And my business was failing really hard, a lot of money and everything. And I was really lost in my life. And somehow I end up in a Fuckup Nights event. And I decide to not do anything. Be more common after that."
And for us, it was like, I'm getting emotional right now. Because, it was crazy that someone changed his life in that level, just because they attend to an event that you, in my case, we create years ago.
So it's crazy. We don't know exactly how we change people life. And I think it happens. It happens. He wrote, and we tried to contact him back and be more in contact with him. He replies and we didn't never meet him. But it was nice. It is nice to know that people get a lot of value from what we do.
Jillian: Yeah. Absolutely.
Tony: It's incredible. You might never know. There's people whose lives you impact, you never even realize it. And then in this case, you played your role in his life. And you may never meet him, you haven't met him and that's part of the gig.
Carlos:: Exactly.
Jillian: How great that he contacted you though, so that you know that. And then even something as cool as Fuckup Nights, I'm sure as a business, you have the peaks and valleys just like all business. And to just remember the impact that the events are having on just everyday humans that find the events however they do.
And it's always nice. For every person that reaches out, there's probably 100 that have similar feelings that didn't reach out.
Carlos:: Yeah. That's true, totally.
Jillian: It's nice to think you're positively impacting the world, by having people share very real human experiences that they might otherwise not share. That's special.
Carlos:: Yeah. And sometimes because in the position that I am, I'm trying to, I'm working every day, and you're really full on the operation of the project, business things. And these messages or moments remind you, "Why are you doing that, really?" The real importance of what are you doing.
And that makes me keep on, see the big picture and keep more distance from the business. Because we are not a business. We are not selling tacos. And just because we want to have money and live from it. We create something that became movement, and then we put a business model on top, just to make it viable.
But we thought this one more like a change of culture. And then sometimes you forget that, at least happen to me. You forget that you are trying to change the culture in general, in the world, about that specific topic that is failure.
Tony: Is that what you're trying to do, is to change the culture of the world?
Carlos:: Yeah. Change the culture in terms of eliminate the stigma about failure. Or the path line that we create before about failure and success at the same time. It's relative totally, and it's correlated.
And we don't want to eliminate failure from the face of the earth. We want to change as much as possible, the concept that we have about it. At the level, we don't have to exist as Fuckup Nights. My main goal is to disappear, as a organization, because the world doesn't need us anymore.
So sometimes we don't believe in competitors, because if there is another concept similar to the one we have, for example, they are helping to do that. They're helping to change the concept of failure. And it's like, "Perfect. Let's work, not together, but at the same time."
Jillian: Alongside each other.
Carlos:: Yeah, exactly.
Jillian: Well, and that's such a great point. Especially when you're mission driven, like Fuckup Nights is, to embrace that other people might be trying with the same mission. And I've always believed there's enough business for everyone. We can all find our way in the way we want to or close to the way we want to anyways.
And so that further just shows that you are invested in that mission, because someone else doing it, it's like, "Cool. Let's both work on this. Let's both get humans to accept that this is a very real part of the human experience, which is failure." And they're all learning experiences, failures.
Tony: Carlos, talk to me about the stigma. You mentioned a stigma. You mentioned why it's important to you. You've put a lot of effort into this. This isn't just for fun. Although it sounds like it's been a lot of fun. Why is this so important? Why is there a stigma around failure? And how has that been for you? Have you experienced that stigma coming up?
Carlos:: Yeah. I don't know. I think, we come from Mexico. And Mexico have been living in a constant failure for a long time, in general. At least we think that. Lots of Mexicans think that all the time. And you are always working to be better and to show the world how good you are.
I was talking with important writer here in Mexico from [Juan]. He said that it's logical. That it makes sense that a project as Fuckup Nights, came from Mexico. Because, we are always experimenting the stigma of how you fail. And how you feel bad. And how you have to became better than the other. And that kind of competition that we always have here.
And I think it's a more structural thing at least for me. But when you propose the idea of talking about failure or learning about failure. Or just sharing failure, everyone's related with it, because everyone's have a little story, a small story or a bigger story, about how the fear of failure affect them.
Or trying to share an idea in a meeting. Or that little moments or bigger moments of fear to fail, affect you all the time. How you decide things in your life. Or I don't know, we have a lot of stories about life. Like, your career, how you choose your career in base of how not to fail on. Instead, on how you want to do or how it makes you happier, really.
For example, in my case, my dad, he was for a long time trying to convince me to became a civil engineer. Is that what you say?
Jillian: Mm-hmm.
Carlos:: And I wanted to be an architect.
I wanted to be an architect, not a civil engineer, but he said, "No. Because an engineer is going to be more successful and it's easy to get a job. And everything. That Classic things that-
Carlos:: Exactly. And at the last time I changed my application to the university to architecture. And now I am a failed architect. But I am an architect. I decide to became an architect and study that. And that makes me super happy. And I was really happy during university. And it was a right choice.
But I was super pressured about, "You have to become an engineer, because engineers are more successful than architects, for example."
And I think all of us have stories that in different levels, that at the end, are part of our fears. These fictional fears that are created by other people. And we buy that peers from other people. Probably from the society, from the system, et cetera.
Jillian: There's such a common thread with the pressures. Whether it's society or dads or whoever put on us, and avoiding what society considers failure. We're also afraid to fail or be viewed as failures. And so we'll do whatever we can to avoid it. Which even would even include considering a totally different career path, to avoid the fear of like, "I won't make as much money and then therefore I'm a failure.
When in reality, choosing your own path and not worrying about that, can lead to great success in that same frame of success versus failure. It's an interesting thought. Architecture School also sounds more fun because you can create buildings. I've actually heard it's very stressful.
Jillian: Our content team actually did a entire season of a podcast called Flops. And every episode is a failure story. So it's very, very similar. And I think it's episode 8, is it Dr. Samuel West?
But actually, part of how we found your organization, was because he was a speaker at one of the Fuckup Nights. Dr. Samuel West, with The Museum of Failure. He was one of the big episodes for the Flops Podcast. So anybody listening can go check that out if you want. Even more failure in your life.
Carlos:: That's a good example of projects that are cool to exist. That we love that exist on Museum of Failure.
Jillian: I feel the ultimate event would be a Fuckup Nights, hosted at the Museum of Failure. Maybe it's happened. I don't know, but that would be-
Carlos:: Genius idea.
Jillian: Yeah. That's the ultimate. We can all meet there.
All right, Charlie, I'm going to ask you a series of questions and the goal is rapid fire. So one word to one sentence answers to my questions. Okay. Let's start right off with, when you were a boy, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Carlos:: Again? Football player. Soccer player.
Jillian: Football player. Okay. How do you define community?
Carlos:: I'm going to use a word, it's love.
Jillian: I love that. Okay. Do you know what a bucket list is? Having a bucket list?
Carlos:: Yeah.
Jillian: Okay, cool. What is something that's on your bucket list that you have done?
Carlos:: That I have done actually?
Jillian: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carlos:: Well, first of all, I don't have a bucket list. But, if I had it, I bought a foldable bike, a Brompton one. And I travel a couple of times through Europe with a foldable bike.
Jillian: Oh, fun. Somebody is-
Carlos:: I want to, do more of that, much more than I can, but yeah.
Jillian: Yeah. Soon enough. Okay.
And then I know you don't have a bucket list, but if you did, what's something you really want to do that you haven't done yet?
Carlos:: I want to build my own house in the forest, with my hands. In the forest, I don't know, in the woods. No, in the forest, not in the woods.
Jillian: Yeah, in the forest.
Okay. What is a book that you really love, that you could share with your audience?
Carlos:: It's one that I am actually reading right now. It's about it's a chronic. I don't know if that is a word in English.
Jillian: Chronical?
Carlos:: Yeah. Chronical stories about Mexico City. And I love the city. And it's about this, actually that I mentioned before, Juan Villoro. And the name is [foreign language]. I can send you the words. And it's about stories of the city.
And you can relate a lot because when you live here, you understand like, "That happened to me. That's crazy."
Jillian: That's awesome. All right.
If you could live anywhere else besides Mexico City in the world, where would you want to live?
Carlos:: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
There's a lot of options. But, three years ago, I visited Hawaii. The big Island of Hawaii. And it was crazy. I love it. The idea of snorkel every day, if you want. And very connected with nature. Its a great place to do that.
Jillian: The island life. All right.
And final question. How do you want to be remembered?
Carlos:: I don't know, as a good person that listens. I think someone that it's easy to be with. I think nowadays it's very difficult to find someone that it's easy to be with, and I want to be that person.
Jillian: I love that. Well, Charlie, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure. We love what you're doing. Where can our audience find you on the internet?
Carlos:: At Fuckup Nights.
Jillian: Whoever you wish to share, both?
Tony: Both.
Carlos:: Both in the Interwebs. Well, I use Instagram personally. And you can find me as Carlos:. And then I'll leave you my account probably. And as Fuckup Nights, also in Instagram. At Fuckup Nights, in Facebook also. Slash Fuckup Nights. Those are our accounts.
Jillian: Those are the handles. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here.
Carlos:: Thank you very much. It was fun.
Tony: Thanks, Carlos.
Carlos:: It was fun. Thank you.
Tony: Okay. That was Charlie Zimbrón, AKA Carlos:. What a good dude. I just love him. He's legit.
Jillian: I mean, and an architect. A previous architect. A failed architect as he called himself, living in Mexico City. When can we visit? I bet the architecture in Mexico City is just gorgeous.
I'd love to walk around the city with him. Be like, "Tell me all about the buildings." But that is a conversation for another day, because today it's all about fucking up.
Tony: And what a great encapsulation of the importance of, first of all, recognizing failure is stigmatized, for many of us. It maybe isn't as much so in some cultures, I don't know. If you know of a culture where it isn't stigmatized, please let me know. I want to interview someone from there.
Jillian: You want to go to there?
Tony: But failure stigmatized and again, we come back to this Jill, where there is stigma, there is opportunity for community and connection.
Jillian: Yeah. I mean, there's so much there. There's so much about the power of vulnerability and embracing it. And by and by doing so, you can accelerate the building of relationships. Because, radical candor. Just being willing to share things that our society has deemed something you don't.
And even looking back in history and what people used to, like mental health. I'm sure all of our great grandparents and stuff, everyone always says like, "There's something wrong with them."
But the there's such a stigma about talking about it or getting help for the sake of everyone. And we've come a long way with that. And it's sad that so many people had to live their lives in the closet in some way, I guess.
And so failure is very much, I think one of those things. And there is something beautiful about feeling safe enough and in the right environment to say, "Look, you see me as this super successful person," not me personally, the person in my mind's eye, "but guess what? I have a story to tell that you will be surprised by. And I can also tell you how I learned from it."
And we can all learn from it now. Being able to do that is brave. But it shouldn't have to be. So I love what Charlie is doing, and his group, and how they're helping address that.
Tony: And actually, there's a bit of a nuance there about what stage you're at, post failure. He mentioned the story of the guy who did not know if he was ready for it, ended up crying afterward. His experience of sharing his failure was about processing it and coming to terms with it.
Jillian: And it's healing work. And it's processing. And it's all things that, especially with failure, we just want to shove to the side and be like, "Ladi da, I changed direction."
When in reality, there's trauma there that you have to address. And to know that you're not alone. To your point, the guy who he failed, but then he learned, he launched something new and it was successful. To realize, that is the cycle and it's okay. It's okay.
It's all just give ourselves a break.
Tony: The value of the clever name, certainly. You could call it the failure meetup or something. But when you see that name, Fuckup Nights, and it's like, "Wow, these guys, they have a sense of humor about it. This is interesting. I want in."
Jillian: Yeah.
Tony: So go check out a Fuckup Night in your city.
Jillian: They're everywhere.
Tony: If there isn't one, go sign up to run one in your community. If you have one existing, maybe be you can run one within your community. But you could probably learn a lot from it. And maybe just have a really good time while you're at it.
Jillian: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for tuning in. We will see you next Tuesday.
Tony: This has been the Community Experience. For more information on this episode, including links and show notes, head over to smartpassiveincome.com/listen.
You can find Charlie AKA Carlos Zimbrón at _C-A-L-I-X-T-O, C-A-L-I-X-T-O_, on Instagram and also on Twitter.
You can find Fuckup Nights at FuckupNights.com.
Our Executive Producer is Matt Gartland.
Our Series Producers are David Grabowski, and Senior Producer Sara Jane Hess.
Editing and Sound Design by Duncan Brown. Music by David Grabowski.
Jillian: See you next time!