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Successful Failure: Lessons Learned Flat on My Face

by Kevin Fredericks

A comic account of setbacks on the way to success

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Hardcover New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Bestseller

    New York Times bestseller

    The supplied metadata identifies this book as a New York Times bestseller.

  • Author recognition

    New York Times bestselling author

    The author bio describes Kevin Fredericks as a New York Times bestselling author.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A comic account of setbacks on the way to success

Kevin Fredericks recounts episodes from his efforts to build a life in comedy, from balancing performance with a day job to mishaps onstage and a clothing venture that did not sell. The essays treat failure as part of an uneven route toward ambition, pairing comic anecdotes with reflections on trying again and on the expectations attached to success. The book also takes aim at hustle culture, placing personal setbacks against familiar ideals of fame and achievement. Its central subject is less a smooth ascent than the detours, embarrassments, and experiments that shaped Fredericks’s pursuit of performing.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in personal essays about pursuing a creative career and handling setbacks.
  • Fans of Kevin Fredericks’s comedy and autobiographical anecdotes.
  • Readers curious about comic perspectives on ambition and hustle culture.

Themes

Failure and persistenceCreative ambitionComedy and performanceHustle culture and success

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Being successful is no laughing matter . . . unless the road there is littered with flops, fool's errands, fizzles, and straight-up failures--from the New York Times bestselling co-author of Marriage Be Hard.

"I'm so happy Kev failed, because these stories will set so many free from perfection!"--Tabitha Brown, bestselling author of Feeding the Soul

Kevin Fredericks (aka KevOnStage) is a viral stand-up star, an NAACP Image Award-winning comedian, the founder of KevOnStage Studios, a New York Times bestselling author, and a superstar on social media. But his path to success wasn't always smooth. As a kid, Kevin noticed something useful: If he made people laugh, the grown-ups would let him stay up late. In church plays, his commitment to the role of Goliath led to a busted lip, and the audience couldn't get enough. He dreamed of becoming a performer, of finding that big break that would launch him into the bright lights of pop culture fame. But as he soon found, the road to the life we want is longer, weirder, more embarrassing, and more entertaining than we think it will be.

In Successful Failure, the comedian recounts hilarious stories and sincere insight from his adventures (and misadventures) trying to make it in life. From performing under an alias to avoid getting fired from his suit-and-tie day job to breaking a chair onstage and quitting stand-up for six months, from pooping his pants on a bus next to his future wife to starting a clothing line called Dreams Don't Die (they sure do if the merch doesn't sell), Kevin reminds readers that while we might not be The Rock, Warren Buffett, or Kevin Hart, we're all out here trying, and that's okay.

Laugh-out-loud in one moment and perceptive in the next, Successful Failure is a wild ride from one of America's funniest comics and a sendup of our ideals around hustle culture and success.
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