Did you know that the first billionaire author contemplated suicide in her early twenties? Before the author was a billion dollar women, she was penniless. Rejected by 12 publishers, J.K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter was asked to seek a day job because children’s books were not a money spinner by any means in the early nineties. Jobless, depressed, bankrupt and a single parent, J.K. Rowling had a rocky start in her mid-life. Living in a small apartment and pushing through failures, her life never went as planned. Her mother’s death and an unsteady marriage that lasted for only 13 months simply added fuel to fire. Too poor to even feed two mouths, she lived off meager unemployment benefits for years. In her own words she says,” I was the biggest failure I knew.”
Despite endless failures, she found solace in writing, her childhood ambition. She worked on her book in cafes, when her daughter went asleep. At some point, it appeared that the host of misfortunes and the life of poverty would never cease to end. However, this did not stop J.K. Rowling from pursuing her childhood ambition for writing. The rest is history. Today, Harry Potter exists in numerous books and movies that have all hit the bestsellers list. A runaway success story that proves that one big victory has the power to override all the failures along the way.
Can you hang in there?
Keep in mind, life has a way of pushing our dreams down the drain. The road to success will be filled with personal and professional struggles, which might test the spirit of even the most hardcore amongst us. With more than a few f-bombs, life will show us that we suck at anything and everything. The key is to not give up in the face of struggles. As long as you are not doing anything poorly, you should not take failures personally. Remember, failure will teach you more lessons than success. So, don’t look at failure as a misfortune. It’s a natural process. That being said, it’s okay to spare a day or two to mourn a failure when it gets overwhelming because the ups and downs will always exist.
There are bunch loads of famous people out there who had failed before succeeding. We have all heard their names time and again. When we think of them, we picture their success but little do we realize that these individuals had to absorb a lot of failures for the personification of success in their respective fields. Apart from a few isolated examples, most of them were veterans of failure. There were none who were born with zero fear of failure. Almost everyone had to tame their fear by giving life to the brave little person that exist inside each one of us. People, who stop at nothing, succeed because at the end of struggle, lies victory. When it’s all over, you will realize that the sum has more good than bad. Remember, success starts with failure.
One today can change all your tomorrow
Failures are hardly documented in history books. Even our society rewards only successful people. But, failure is the only route to steal victory from the jaws of defeat. So, it’s imperative to use failures as stepping stones to later success. In the case of author Stephen King, wrinkled pages were pulled out of trash by his wife when he was ready to throw in the towel. But, one day, it all changed. Those pages pulled out from the trash paved the way for a successful writing career that netted him $400 million. So, don’t let failure destroy success. As J.K. Rowling said, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”