It's not defeat, it is the expected outcome. Out of 20 or so of my projects two have been break-out successes and the rest (commercially) complete failures, and I'm
very lucky to have two out of those 20, with very small variations in timing it would have been a big fat zero. So don't beat yourself up about it, some people win the lottery and the majority don't. There is absolutely no recipe that will work every time, not even one that will work most of the time or a significant fraction of the times you try to apply it. Luck, luck, luck and timing.
One problem is not just the influencers peddling their books and their bullshit, it's also the eco-system that sells the dream itself. This site is part of that and you should take the success stories with a large grain of salt, usually things are not as easy as they are made out to be and for every success there are 100 failures. And those are rarely talked about.
Best of luck with the recovery, I can see it weighs heavily on you.
One problem is not just the influencers peddling their books and their bullshit, it's also the eco-system that sells the dream itself. This site is part of that and you should take the success stories with a large grain of salt, usually things are not as easy as they are made out to be and for every success there are 100 failures. And those are rarely talked about.
Best of luck with the recovery, I can see it weighs heavily on you.