#DWIWtDWML: 4 Times I Felt Like a Failure Most & How I Changed that Mindset

A summary of four intimate failures of what made me successful, or rather, on the way to success.

Andra Eugene
Aug 25, 2017 · 12 min read
For the days you can’t win…set aside the spectacles, drink some tea, and listen to music | Photo by Sabri Tuzcu on Unsplash

Failure is inevitable and it sucks. It’s like running to kick a soccer ball, missing it, and landing on your a** (this happened by the way, freshman year of high school). As humans, we aspire to become great things to make incredible contributions to society; whether it was influenced upon us or it was a decision made on our own. We begin to plan out the details and steps that we’re sure will lead us to the goal of our esteemed efforts. We may reach these goals, miss it by a mark, or change course entirely. Failure is inevitable, but our reaction to failure is what will make us succeed.

I never got to attend my first year of college because the two departments that were supposed to help me the most, failed when I needed them due to their lack of training, knowledge, and professionalism.

Failure #1: Missing Out on College

If I haven’t mentioned it before, the plan was to become an architect to help design and build vertical farms in highly-populated urban developments. That was what I had decided to accomplish in my life. I figured I’d go to a college with a curriculum that would closely match my learning style: part lecture, part hands-on, real-life experience; major in architecture; and begin my career as an architect at a rewarding firm that prided themselves on projects that focused on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) before my big break designing my first vertical farm in Boston, Massachusetts.

After finding and getting accepted to what I thought was the perfect school for me, I ran into multiple obstacles that eventually discouraged me from attending college:

  • My financial adviser put in her two weeks around the time I came to see her and was not so helpful on how to get settled into college financially, nor was she polite.
  • The representatives of the Student Services department were not properly trained enough to direct me to the correct department, nor did they seem to know what they were supposed to do themselves.
  • I received an email from the president of the institution inviting me for a day of “social programming with other colored students as part of our diversity and inclusion initiative” before the start of the semester. No, I’m not making this up.
  • Peers and administrators shrank, as if in fear, from me whenever I walked by; I was beginning to fear that everyone had Social Anxiety Disorder, or worse, they were intimidated by my Afro and melanated skin.
  • A meeting with an administrator who lacked complete respect and empathy when discussing my college career, because of my lack of funds.

I didn’t want to subject myself in an environment for four or more years where there are improperly-trained facilitators; standoffish, rude, and uncaring faculty and peers; and a president that thought they were doing me a favor by “recommending” a group to put all the “colored kids” in so they feel comfortable in a PWI. I mean, I already made the decision for myself to not stay in that type of environment, and stubbornly kept to my resolve.

However, I was disappointed about not attending college; mostly because my career goal didn’t seem worth obtaining anymore. I was more than ready to move on and explore my options since I knew that college isn’t the end all, be all. But, it was my parents, relatives, and friends that went to college that made me feel like a failure. My father, especially, made me feel worthless; he had a constant habit since I was twelve of saying that I would never become anything and would rather bring up everything I do wrong, instead of what I’m doing right with a bit of constructive criticism. I’ve had a few relatives talk down on me and try and put into my head that I wouldn’t get anywhere in life if I didn’t go to college, even after I told them, I had other plans in the process. I was even told by a “friend” that I would be broke for the rest of my life if I started a business instead of going to college.

I wanted to prove them wrong, but more importantly, I wanted to prove that I had balance. I decided I would work instead and start my business on the side by growing my blog into a profitable platform that I could be proud of. But it was kind of hard being unemployed more often than actually working.

Just wanted to say, my mom likes pineapples, carry on | Photo by Aurélien Sinte on Unsplash

Failure #2: Being Unemployed Multiple Times…Usually, Without a Plan

Okay, yes, we covered this, technically twice, if we’re really counting. But you guys only read how I powered through those times and how I was able to turn the situation in my favor. However, I’m going to be 100% real with you, I went through every single phase of turmoil, despair, and frustration that everyone goes through when looking for employment in between jobs.

Receiving yet another email stating that they’ve picked someone more qualified for the position; getting the side-eye from potential employers because I wasn’t attending college, nor did I have a clear plan to, but I was confident enough to do the job; bumping into friends from high school while running errands explaining to them how I’m not in college, employed, or any sort of training; telling my mother that unfortunately, I’m not going to school, nor can I help pay rent because the job I’m trying to apply for, requires some college; listening to my father’s broken record lecture for the umpteenth time that I would end up just like my older sister and be worth nothing since I’m not in college or working. I mean, I could go on with this.

Most days, I didn’t have a plan; it was tough to be motivated to work on my blog and I just wanted to lay in bed all day in a burrito blanket because my stress and depression was physically affecting me from actually getting anything done. Plus, the blog wasn’t doing so well, and never really quite was.

Rest your eyes on simplistic composition a bit before continuing. | Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Failure #3: My Blog Never Became the Success I Imagined It to Be

Again, I mentioned before that I invested time and money into a blog that wasn’t gaining any profit, mainly because I didn’t quite know how. I know exactly what I did wrong and I know exactly what I would do if I were to relaunch that brand in the exact same niche. Take a look at (almost) everything I did wrong:

  • Name my brand without checking if the search terms would be appropriate, especially for my audience.
  • Proceeding to buy a domain with full knowledge of point above.
  • Ignoring my intuition to change the name to avoid problems in the future.
  • Going with a platform that was evolving too slowly and when it finally did, became too mismatched for my needs.
  • Failing to finish my business plan with the important stuff, yet investing time and money in almost everything needed (i.e. business cards, a printed poster of my brand design style guidelines, posting guidelines, etc) to make my business look official.
  • Operating as if I was an official sole prop, without actually having any paperwork done (hoping that the IRS doesn’t have some questions)
  • Having no direct strategy for marketing and growing, just experiments; not following through with any strategies I did come up with because, “What if it didn’t work?” or “What do you know? You’re not studying business in college so how can it be legit?”
  • Not having a clear or consistent content model or business model, for that matter.

There’s a lot more mistakes that I did, but those are the main ones that spiraled down to where I’m currently at now. I stunted my growth by listening to what people around me (who, frankly, had no idea about running or managing a blog) where saying, instead of going with my gut and trying things out without fearing the consequences. Instead of simply applying my ideas and things I learned, I thought I had to become a blogger’s assistant or apprentice in order to really get it. I thought if I did one more project helping someone else, I could figure out what exactly I needed to apply for my business. But when I finally did, it wasn’t anything that I bargained for.

Almost done, promise | Photo by Roman Bozhko on Unsplash

Failure #4: Projects that Didn’t Merit My Desired Results

So, I did a lot of projects, either for free or minimum wage. Some I did while I was unemployed because I thought it would help me get the right gig. I was wrong. I got disrespect from the some of the people I was helping, of course that’s what you should expect to get when you don’t charge what you’re worth. I also misdirected a few clients because they weren’t ready for what I could do and I failed to gauge that and I also let my doubts get in the way of whether or not I was capable of actually helping them. Both scenarios drained me of my energy and deflated my confidence.

My last project that I vaguely mentioned before, was a low-compensation project that originally started out as an internship. I got the internship from my local youth agency, this is the same internship that resulted in my termination from my warehouse job. It was with a small business with a team of two, a husband and wife. The wife was the owner and head of operations and her husband carried out the graphic and web design. During the interview, I was under the impression that I would finally become a blogger’s/online business’s apprentice and I would finally learn everything I needed to know about online business or blogging. I was wrong. In the first two days, I was highly aware of the lack of organization and could no longer ignore it. Red flag: I was restricted from being on my phone all the time, but my boss is on theirs the entire shift. How sway? So I spoke up. Not about the phone issue, but how it seemed like there wasn’t much organization. After a few questions about their branding and business model, it became clear that if I didn’t help this company and fast, it would become sinking ship, threatening to take my inflated dream of a blogger’s assistant with it. I decided not to let that happen and proposed a solution.

Nothing went well in that project. I didn’t even know what I was doing half the time, I knew what needed to be done and the end goal of the project, but the in-between steps didn’t come to me easily. These were the main obstacles behind-the-scenes of the project:

  • Since my “client” was my boss, her decisions were the ultimatum, not my expertise.
  • For someone that supposedly went and graduated college with a major in business administration, it didn’t seem she knew about the dos and don’ts of defining a target customer or related customer segments.
  • Since my boss went to school for business and was at least a decade older than me, she, like everyone else, thought I was just a nineteen-year-old high school graduate who didn’t go to college; to her, my insight didn’t matter because “I wasn’t educated enough to understand business”.
  • Everything I suggested as a solution to dire problems in her business model was met with long lectures of excuses of why the situation was what it is currently and why it should stay that way, with a subtly implied gaslight with the point above included, “you’ll know someday when you have a business of your own”.
  • When present, her husband knew I was right, but did not speak up 80% of the time because he was too chicken. On the 20% occasion of speaking up for me, he was immediately shut down by his wife. Also, most of his suggestions and design expertise were scrutinized and admonished harshly.
  • My boss’s mannerisms didn’t match at all with her brand statement, which was the important missing link and cause of everything wrong with her business. She was simply presenting the brand, not living and breathing it. That’s what also made her a follower of her own idea and business, instead of a leader. Unfortunately, I never got that message through to her properly because of her inflated ego.
  • My boss lacked the ability to envision realistically and envision what’s necessary. For example, it was easy for her to imagine a 100 year plan of her business, without regarding the fact that if she wasn’t willing to fix her main problems now, her business wouldn’t even make it till year 5. But somehow, it was too difficult to envision the navigation of her website.
  • Despite everything I coached her through, she took nothing of what I had given her and went with the ideas she was touting about that were so great. I sadly found this out, when I took a look at the new website design.

It was one of the toughest ten weeks of my life, yet in the same amount of time as a college semester, I learned so much, overcame a lot of challenges, and applied things I learned, to the best of my ability. I didn’t learn how to manage my own blog or any online business, but I learned everything to not do when managing one either.

Despite everything positive I managed to walk out of the internship from, I still felt like I failed. The challenges that I went through, especially the ones that my boss put me through affected me not because I took everything personally, but because I could easily become her in the future. And that scared me. As someone who’s struggled with depression and a very rough past, how could I possibly build a brand that could give my audience an implication of hope and be completely unable to stand behind those words? Would I ever put my ego before my business? I was beginning to think that maybe I wasn’t fit to become an entrepreneur. Then, I flipped what I thought with what I know.

Changing that Mindset

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, which were heavily influenced by the people around me, I decided to put on blinders and focused on the things I did know, things I can observe and confirm as fact:

  • I did a motherfreaking case study, and although I couldn’t link much to show my results because my boss didn’t go through with most of my suggestions, I still had photos and other forms of evidence that I completed a project that most people my age rarely get the opportunity to complete in a real-life scenario on their own.
  • I have a bunch of content that I created during that project that can be repurposed into products or more helpful content.
  • After digging up a bunch of old files on my Google Drive, I realized I had created a lot of hidden gems from helping past clients that I could definitely share with the rest of the world after some much needed tweaks.
  • I have a ton of support from my mother, a few close friends, and a Facebook group filled with some of the warmest, encouraging like-minded humans alive.

I didn’t make it to college, but I wasn’t going to determine my success on the fact I never attended. I’ve brought up the point several times that very successful people never went to or finished college during conversations; yet, people wanted to limit me because I’m a woman and they simply thought I could never pull it off. I fired those people from my life.

I was unemployed so many times, usually without a clear plan, but being unemployed so much gave me time to focus on what I wanted to make out of my career, gave me time to focus on personal projects geared toward applying new skills, and most importantly, taught me why it’s important to have an emergency fund.

I failed at blogging because I couldn’t apply what I learned about successful blogging. Also, I wasn’t creating and publishing with the right content model. I failed at blogging because I wanted to make money, yet didn’t want to take the time to learn how to start and grow a business. But now, I’m more than ready and willing to learn what it takes to seriously be an entrepreneur, my career depends on it.

I had a lot of botched projects because I ignored all the signs of working with the wrong types of client, just so I could get experience under my belt. Doing so, stunted my growth more than not doing projects at all. Still, I learned from my mistakes and I’m using what I know now to help creatives do well in business.

Failing in all these areas allowed me to realize where exactly I went wrong and develop a strategy to turn my situation around. Failure nourished me with truth and reality to grow me into the person I am today. Hitting rock bottom with failure allowed me to envision and build my rise to success.

And I am 100% grateful for it.

Signing off.

P.S. Dear reader, it’s totally okay to stalk me on social media, I might get vocal about social issues or geek about music and design, there is no in-between. You can also check out my website. And hey, it was nice meeting you. Oh wait, read the first post of this series, here.

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Andra Eugene

Written by

Web Design Strategist of Afromiga Web Design Strategy afromiga.com

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