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She was newly divorced, living on welfare, caring for a small child, and having to live with her sister and brother-in-law because she couldn’t afford a place of her own. She wrote a book in longhand, retyped it on a manual typewriter, and then snuck into a computer lounge of a local college and retyped it on a computer, terrified that she would be discovered as a nonstudent. After a year of rejections from publishers, Bloomsbury bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Philosopher was changed to Sorcerer for the US market) and the rest is history. Now, after selling over 600 million books and having several successful movies based on those books, J.K. Rowling is one of the richest women in the world.
I can give you example after example of people who OVERCAME incredible odds to finally make it. Go check out the stories of Rachel Ray, Shania Twain, Winston Churchill, Dr. Phil McGraw, Kurt Warner, Ted Turner, and Mary Kay Ash. You will be amazed by what these people overcame to become successful.
Sometimes things don’t work out according to our own timetable or expectations. World famous author, Theodor Seuss Geisel (you would know him best as Dr. Seuss), who has sold over one hundred million copies of his books, was no overnight success. Forty-three publishers rejected his first book until a friend published it. There were no great accolades, incredible reviews, or any fanfare made over the book; it did okay. It wasn’t until seventeen years later that his career took off because he filled a need.
The magazine publishing giant Life Magazine had published a report that schoolchildren were having difficulty learning how to read because all the books they were reading were boring. Dr. Seuss’s publisher friend challenged him to write a kids book with less than 250 words that wouldn’t be boring; that challenge produced The Cat in the Hat. It took him seventeen years from writing a mediocre book to become world famous.
Life is full of setbacks, bad surprises, unwanted obstacles, and unfair difficulties. I have heard it said countless times, “Life Sucks.” Well, just because life sucks sometimes, doesn’t mean you need to let it suck the life out of you.
Dr. Seuss was a seventeen-year OVERNIGHT success; there is nothing wrong with that. Sure, we would all like it to happen immediately, but that usually isn’t the case. If you knew that by hanging-in-there just a little longer you would be successful … then you would stay the course? When things get tough, remind yourself that Ms. Rowling went from welfare to a billionaire. Just as books have many chapters, so does your life. The beauty of writing a book and living your life is you get to make the decisions as to how you want them both to turn out.
Persistence and Courage
Can Take You
Anywhere You Want to Go.
So, decide today where
you want to go
and let your journey begin.