Episode
Why We Need a Party for Our Failures with Jess Manuszak
- Published
- Aug 27, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2684
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://aggressivelyhuman.substack.com/p/83-the-failure-ball
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Summary
[A note before you listen: This episode includes candid discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation, mental health crisis, psychiatric hospitalization, addiction, and chronic illness. Please take care of yourself — skip it, save it for later, or listen with someone.] Failure is one of the only universal experiences in business, and it’s also the one we’re least willing to say out loud. Most of the time when failure does get talked about publicly, it’s been sanded down into a tidy redemption arc or it’s behind a paywall. Jess Manuszak decided to throw a party instead. In this episode, we talk with Jess Manuszak, owner of the Denver copywriting studio Verve and Vigour and founder of The Failure Ball, a biannual black-tie event where people get on stage in gowns and crowns and tell the truth about how they failed. The Ball started in 2020 with a goal of 30 attendees, sold out at 78, and last year filled a Victorian mansion with 200 people. All profits go to To Write Love On Her Arms, because the connection between shame and suicide is exactly why the event exists. The next one is September 19, 2026 in Denver. We talk about the difference between the failures we actually caused and the ones the online business world decided to call failures, why the format has to be in-person (and glamorous, and not under fluorescent lights), and how to know when your story belongs on a stage versus in your therapist’s office. * Why shame festers when failure gets left in the dark * The rule that a failure has to be one you actually caused * Getting a job isn’t a business failure — but the industry treats it like one * Why the format is a ball, not a summit, a conference, or a podcast * The failure behind the failure: what speaker coaching actually uncovers * “You don’t have to turn your trau…