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What has been your biggest disappointment?
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What most recently made you cry?
Identity & self
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Not keeping off the last 5lbs.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 August 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 369 →
Florence Welch
British singer
Never getting the lead in the musical at school.
Not to have been joined by more Green MPs … yet.
Lena Headey
British actress
Realising that people are not always who they claim to be.
More from Stockard Channing
View profile →A dress designer.
At the election of Joe Biden, thinking we were out of the woods. Wrong.
Climate change.
Fifteen years ago, I totally forgot my lines on stage and was mortified. We skipped two pages of dialogue and took three minutes off the play – to the delight of the audience!
Don’t answer every question you’re asked.
“Let’s face it, you’re not Ingrid Bergman.” I was 19 and he was a potential boyfriend. My only thought at the time was: “I’m not?”
More on failure & regret
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 205 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 124 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 124 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 77 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 39 answers
Also answered this
Joanna Scanlan, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Zack Polanski, Hugh Dennis, George H. W. Bush, Sebastian Coe
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Explore further
- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject