4 Things I Wish I Knew In My Darkest Time

Warwick Fairfax

April 24, 2023

Early 1991 was a dark time for me.

In December 1990, we had declared bankruptcy for John Fairfax Ltd., after a failed $2.25 billion takeover bid for my family’s media company in Australia.

I felt like I had let my family down, causing rifts in the family after my takeover bid.  I felt like I had let my parents down, including my father who died in early 1987.  I felt like I had let the four thousand plus employees down of the family business.  I felt like I had let the legacy of my great great grandfather John Fairfax (the founder of the company) down.  I being a person of faith like my great great grandfather, even felt like I had let God down.  I was not in a good place.

I was in the pit of despair. 

My whole life, I had prepared myself to take a leading role in the family business; undergraduate degree at Oxford, working on Wall Street, an MBA from Harvard Business School.  But after the failed takeover I wondered, “How would I ever have the kind of impact that I could have had at John Fairfax Ltd. for good?”

I was lost. I had a purpose before, to carry on the legacy of my great-great-grandfather and ensure the company was aligned to that legacy. “How would I find my way?” “What was my purpose now?” 

Crucible experiences are setbacks and failures that fundamentally alter the course of our lives.  They are defining moments.  We have our lives before our crucible moment and our lives after it.  We are not the same.

While crucibles can lead to good and can lead to a place of clarity and of service to others, that is not a given.  For me as for many, the pain when you are in the bottom of the pit is excruciating.  There does not feel like there is any end to the pit. Hope seems illusory.

How do you get out of the pit?  How did I get out of the pit?  For me, it was a long process that lasted years and it wasn’t easy. But, knowing these insights may have helped.

Here are four things I wish I knew when I was at the bottom of the pit…

1. Give yourself permission to grieve.

When you have something traumatic and life altering happen to you, it is going to hurt.

There will be waves of intense feelings.

While I did have some thoughts around how difficult it was navigating the dynamics and relationships in a family business, most of my feelings were directed at myself.  How could I have made such crucial ill-advised assumptions and decisions?  I had an Oxford degree and a Harvard MBA.  How could I have been so dumb?

I needed to realize that grieving is a natural part of the process when you face trauma.  Understanding what happened, the part you played in it, forgiving others, and forgiving yourself is critical and can help you move forward.

2. Feeling broken does not mean you are worthless.

Feeling broken does not mean you are broken forever.  There may be scars, even lifelong scars, but healing can happen.  At the bottom of the pit, the thought that healing is possible or that the waves of despair can lessen and become manageable seems illusory at best.

For me, a key part of my healing was realizing that God loved me unconditionally.  Whether my takeover succeeded or failed, God would still love me.  His love did not depend on what I was going to do for him, or would do.  I came to believe that God did have a plan for my life, just not the one I thought he had for me.

I believe as children of God we all have inherent value.  We are valuable.  We are worthy. Our worth does not depend on our failures or successes or what others may think about us.  We have inherent worth and value as human beings.

3. We are not defined by our worst day. 

We all make mistakes.  We all have setbacks and failures.  Some are our fault.  Some are not.

Even on our worst day, we need to try to realize that as painful as our life may be, there can be another day; a day filled with hope and possibility.  That thought that our lives could have purpose and meaning, that we could contribute to others and in some way to our world, seems hard to believe on our worst day.  While in the pit, we need to make a choice. We need to choose to believe that our life can have purpose.

4. A small step forward can be a defining moment.

In the pit of despair, it is hard to believe that a small step could have any meaning.  But it does.  A small step forward gives hope.  It gives the glimmer of a faint thought that our tomorrows could be better, could improve.  One small step gives the greatest gift we need.  Hope.

For me, that one small step during those early months was a decision my wife and I made to move to Annapolis Maryland in the Fall of 1991 with our then small family.

We had a few month-old son at the time.  We moved to a new environment where we knew some people amid the beauty of Annapolis.  We began to raise our new family.  During the decade of the 1990’s we were to have three kids; two boys and a girl.

That new family gave me hope as I saw the promise of new life.  I eventually found meaningful work using my skills and abilities.  I became a certified executive coach and was on two nonprofit boards whose missions I deeply cared about.  Ultimately those small steps led to the writing of my book, Crucible Leadership, Embrace Your Trials to Lead a Life of Significance.

That led to what I do now with the mission of Beyond the Crucible, to help people realize that their worst day does not define them.  That they can indeed lead a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others.

But it all began with that one small step, to move to Annapolis.

It began with the thought that I may be broken but I was not worthless, that God indeed loved me for who I was despite my mistakes.  And it also began with the thought that while that seemingly grand purpose to lead a large media company in Australia may be gone, I still had a purpose.  And from my perspective, that purpose is as important as the seemingly grand purpose I grew up with.

Any purpose that is on our hearts, that will help and serve others, is important, valuable and worthwhile.