The Inevitable Anatomy of Failure

I feel like I’m at a standstill?

Waiting for you to tell me I’m okay

If time heals, tell me why do I kill myself

Trying to show you I’m not a mistake?

I’ve got qualities that I’m not proud of

I’ve made promises that I walked out on

I’ve had days I feel I don’t deserve love

So think what you think, just don’t call me…

…a Mistake

Might have made some,

Can't argue with that, but I ain't one…

So don’t call me a Mistake…..

• Mistake,?by hip-hop rapper NF, (Hope, 2023)

I was called to an emergency a few months ago. This patient I’ll call James had a severe groin infection and it was a sight for sore eyes. Smelly pus was pouring out from his groin onto a makeshift dressing he had used to patch up the gaping hole. And he was in excruciating pain.

This was clearly beyond my capabilities as a pharmacist, and we had to call an ambulance. He flatly refused and instead left the premises and limped home. Eventually, an ambulance was called, and I saw him a week later. The wound had been dressed and he was looking much better.?

Later on, he explained to me why he refused the ambulance on the premises. He was a drug addict and completely addicted to heroin. He went home to have another hit in the other side of his groin before the ambulance turned up.?

I couldn’t believe it.

As a healthcare professional with over 2 decades of experience, this was a new phenomenon for me, and believe me, I had seen almost everything first-hand regarding substance misuse, having worked for a decade in one of the UK’s most deprived suburbs.?

He had lost 2 of his children to circumstances beyond his control, and he had never been able to forgive himself. The pain had been so great, that it affected his self-esteem, led him to believe he was a failure, and that he had no purpose on this earth.?

I spoke to him just yesterday almost a year after the incident. He?was still?injecting just as he had?before.

He couldn’t care less if he lost his life and left behind his 4-year-old son and his lifelong partner. Life had no meaning for him.?

If losing 2 daughters, the risk of losing his son and long-term partner and almost dying from sepsis and going to prison multiple times couldn’t stop him from using heroin, nothing else would.?

At least that was what he had kept telling himself.?

Just an hour before writing this newsletter, I had a long face-to-face chat with an old friend and a single parent. We hadn’t met properly for over 20 years.?

His only child had dropped out of university, got involved with the wrong crowd and had?fallen out of a window three floors high and landed on hard concrete. He had ended up with 27 face fractures, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and numerous other injuries. For weeks, it was touch and go.?

But somehow he survived the physical wounds.?

But not the emotional scars.?

He suffered from PTSD, and suicidal thoughts, and had to drink and use other substances to numb the pain. All efforts by the parent to get him back on track were failing. And he talked to me about the guilt, the internal suffering, the feeling of failure at being a parent.?

But what struck me after listening to him speak after almost an hour was the hope he held for his son, and also more than that, the acknowledgement that his son was a distinct human being, separate from his dad, and responsible for his own decisions, and consequences thereof.

Despite the fact?they lived in the same city, he had not seen his son for over 3 months.?

So despite the unimaginable pain, guilt and emotional scars, my friend faces daily, he had learned two things.?

The failures of his son were not his failures.?

And all the worrying, stress, crying, cajoling, and nagging hadn’t worked to get his son back home.?

The decision had to come from the son himself.?

In the meantime, he had to get on with his life and make the right choices.?

He is taking counselling lessons, studying to get a promotion at work, taking time off to pursue his hobbies, - cycling and running and still working at his promotion, whilst doing all he could to still get his son back home.?

The anatomy of failure.?

According to Dr Henry Cloud, failure is categorised in three ways:

1. Personal:?‘’I am a failure’’?
2. Pervasive:?‘’Nothing ever works out for me’’ or as we say here in the UK, ‘typical’ or?‘'the story of my life"
3. Permanent:?‘’I will never be a success again, I am doomed’’

I went through this same cycle in 2018 when I had failed continuously for a decade.?

I write about this in Pay The Price:?

I remember it well – it was 4:30 am and I was downstairs, crying on the sofa.?

I was alone.?

I was penniless, ￡60,000 in debt, embroiled in toxic business relationships and riddled with humiliating sickness and moral failure.

There were stacks of letters from credit card companies, the Inland Revenue Service, utility companies and bills left unpaid.?

The company I had formed with so much promise was dead in the water…. The thing I loved most was also responsible for my business death.?

My entrepreneurial company, BlueCloud Health, which I had?founded in 2013 had?failed for 9 years straight.?

I took it very personally – I felt I was a failure because the company had failed.

Then the failure became pervasive – I began to feel a failure as a husband, a father, and a pharmacist.?

I was lucky I was rescued before it became permanent – lucky I had a firm anchor of friends, family and my faith.?

I developed a mantra after that.?

You are not what you do.?

You may fail at some things, and stuff may happen that’s got nothing to do with you, but you’re not a failure.?

Not till you decide to become one.?

Not till you allow yourself to take it?personally, make it?pervasive,?and then allow it to become?permanent.?

That’s the difference between the (true) stories I give above – the dad who lost two daughters and ended up as a drug addict, and my friend who went through a torrid time but came to the realisation years afterwards that his son, a 30-year-old, was responsible for his own decisions, the parent.?

The first had fallen victim to three categories of failure.

So to rephrase NF’s song above:

You may have qualities that you’re not proud of

You may have made promises that you walked out on

You may have had days where you feel you don’t deserve love

So let people think what they think, but?don’t let anyone call you a mistake.?

You may have failed, but that does not make you a failure.

Three things to share:?

1. Thank you to all of you that responded to the Gofundme fundraising to build a roof for entrepreneur Mrs Bernice Atubra, featured in my book, Pay The Price. The response so far has been brilliant, and the roof is half complete.??We still need some funds pouring in, and every penny counts! A percentage of the profits of this book also go to the fund- please click here to give…..?https://gofund.me/15a989f2. Click on ‘updates’ to see the progress! I’m excited – this is real entrepreneurship!
2. The Midlands Economic Summit, on 7 June, which furthers the government’s levelling up agenda, focuses on the UK Midlands and promises to be a fantastic event, with brilliant speakers. I've been invited to participate and tickets are still available!
3. Some things are worth watching twice!! Watch my deeply personal interview with Omu Obilor with her award-winning podcast, Networkingdom on YouTube:?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuBsc_AiLAU

And finally, Pay The Price is still on offer on Amazon with 15% off. Not too late to grab a copy for you and a loved one, and please leave me a review!

UK Amazon store: https://amzn.eu/d/4Uml0uq

US Amazon store: https://a.co/d/7a4xbcn

Rooting for you,?

Steven.?