21 Fantastic Failures

21 Fantastic Failures brings to you the real-life stories of icons from the fields of business, science, technology, politics, sports, literature, art, film, TV and music, highlighting the points in their lives where each of them failed but, undeterred, decided to pick themselves up and forge ahead. The decisions they made in those moments converted their setbacks into triumphs and etched their names in history.

Even the most well-known people have struggled to succeed! This follow-up to Fantastic Failures offers up a second dose of fascinating stories featuring flops that turned into triumphs. Kids today are under a lot of pressure to succeed, but failure has an important place in life as young people learn how to be a successful person. In his teaching career, Luke Reynolds saw the stress and anxiety his students suffered, whether it was over grades, fitting in, or simply getting things right the first time. Even More Fantastic Failures is a second installment in Luke Reynolds’s personal campaign to show kids it’s okay to fall down or make mistakes, just so long as you try, try again! Kids will read about a host of inspiring, courageous, and diverse people who have accomplished—or still are accomplishing—big things to make this world a better place. A wide range of stories about Barack Obama, Greta Thunberg, Nick Foles, Emma Gonzalez, Beyoncé, Ryan Coogler, John Cena, Socrates, and even the Jamaican national women’s soccer team, prove that the greatest mistakes and flops can turn into something amazing. In between these fun profiles, Reynolds features great scientists and other pivotal people whose game-changing discovery started as a failure. Readers will enjoy seeing stories they know highlighted in the new feature “Off the Page and On the Screen,” which showcases how failures and successes are presented in books and film. Each profile includes advice to readers on how to come back from their own flops and move forward to succeed.

Even the most well-known people have struggled to succeed! Find out what they learned and how they turned their failures into triumphs with this engaging and youthful guide on how to succeed long term. There is a lot of pressure in today’s society to succeed, but failing is a part of learning how to be a successful person. In his teaching career, Luke Reynolds saw the stress and anxiety his students suffered over grades, fitting in, and getting things right the first time. Fantastic Failures helps students learn that their mistakes and failures do not define their whole lives, but help them grow into their potential. Kids will love learning about some of the well-known people who failed before succeeding and will come to understand that failure is a large component of success. With stories from people like J. K. Rowling, Albert Einstein, Rosa Parks, Sonia Sotomayor, Vincent Van Gogh, Julia Child, Steven Spielberg, and Betsy Johnson, each profile proves that the greatest mistakes and flops can turn into something amazing. Intermixed throughout the fun profiles, Reynolds spotlights great inventors and scientists who discovered and created some of the most important medicines, devices, and concepts of all time, including lifesaving vaccines and medicines that were stumbled upon by mistake.

A book to help kids build resilience.

A powerful and original argument that traces the roots of our present crisis of authority to an unlikely source: the meritocracy. Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters. How did we get here? With Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it. Mixing deft political analysis, timely social commentary, and deep historical understanding, Twilight of the Elites describes how the society we have come to inhabit – utterly forgiving at the top and relentlessly punitive at the bottom – produces leaders who are out of touch with the people they have been trusted to govern. Hayes argues that the public's failure to trust the federal government, corporate America, and the media has led to a crisis of authority that threatens to engulf not just our politics but our day-to-day lives. Upending well-worn ideological and partisan categories, Hayes entirely reorients our perspective on our times. Twilight of the Elites is the defining work of social criticism for the post-bailout age.

Silver Medal Winner, Success and Motivation, 2012 Axiom Business Book Awards An essential guide for mastering failure in order to achieve your goals Success is often just a moment—a goal fulfilled, soon to be replaced with new goals. But failure is the ambitious person's constant companion, often dogging us for months, years or even decades before we finally reach our aim. In the groundbreaking book Why People Fail, Siimon Reynolds, one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, explores the main causes of failure, in any field, and reveals solutions for overcoming them and creating a successful personal and professional life. Why People Fail offers strategies and ideas for defeating the sixteen most common failure habits such as destructive thinking, low productivity, stress, fixed mindset, lack of daily rituals, and more. Outlines the common habits that lead to failure and shows how to overcome them Features dozens of tips and exercises to help increase business and personal success Written by Siimon Reynolds, an internationally recognized expert on high performance and business excellence Many people have changed their lives by mastering just one of the timeless principles in this book. Master five or ten and your life will rocket to a totally new level.

From the worlds of business, science, entertainment, sports, education, politics and the arts come inspirational, often humorous but always helpful, reflections from those who refused to let defeat stop them on their road to victory.

“Writing this funny requires immense talent.” —AV Club H. Jon Benjamin—the lead voice behind Archer and Bob's Burgers—helps us all feel a little better about our own failures by sharing his own in a hilarious memoir-ish chronicle of failure. Most people would consider H. Jon Benjamin a comedy show business success. But he'd like to remind everyone that as great as success can be, failure is also an option. And maybe the best option. In this book, he tells stories from his own life, from his early days ("wherein I'm unable to deliver a sizzling fajita") to his romantic life ("how I failed to quantify a threesome") to family ("wherein a trip to P.F. Chang's fractures a family") to career ("how I failed at launching a kid's show"). As Jon himself says, breaking down one's natural ability to succeed is not an easy task, but also not an insurmountable one. Society as we know it is, sadly, failure averse. But more acceptance of failure, as Jon sees it, will go a long way to making this world a different place . . . a kinder, gentler place, where gardens are overgrown and most people stay home with their pets. A vision of failure, but also a vision of freedom. With stories, examples of artistic and literary failure, and a powerful can't-do attitude, Failure Is an Option is the book the world doesn't need right now but will get regardless.