In a society geared toward success and achieving perfection, mistakes or failure are not expected: we tell and value glorious stories of goals achieved or surpassed, stories of success and profit. And if we fail, we react with aversion, sometimes excluding those who failed. Yet, failure is a very important source of learning and growth.

Wealth, celebrity, professional success, private happiness: we hear all the time about heroic stories, mistakes do not exist, and if they happen it is always the fault of others – those who do not succeed.

But how many admit that they have made a real “fuckup” and take responsibility for it? Who overcomes their shame and talks about it openly in front of a large audience, consisting almost exclusively of strangers?

Answer: quite a few people, all over the world, for almost 10 years. They do this to present their experience and share what they have learned from their personal failures, so that the mistake need not be repeated. Often, talking about one’s failure in front of an interested and friendly audience is also cathartic. All this happens during a “Fuckup Night Lugano!”

Since then, FuckUp Nights have become very popular and spread all over the world. At each meeting three speakers, from varied backgrounds and experiences, tell in 7 minutes each what they have learned from their small and large professional and entrepreneurial failures. Following each story is space for questions from the audience, and at the conclusion to the more formal part of the event is followed by a time for networking.