(Video) 4 People Who Found Their Ultimate Potential Despite Overwhelming Setbacks
After studying many successful people and hearing the advice they give others, I have seen a very common thread. “Don’t give up”
For many of these people they spent years to decades working up to the place they are today. Below is a quick video outlining some of these stories of people you all have heard of but may not have known had to struggle before getting to their ultimate potential.
Video Summary
It is easy for us to think, “if only we had a rich old relative to pass down their wealth, then I’d be rich like 99% of the billionaires out there”. What most people don’t know is that of the world’s 946+ billionaires, about two-thirds of them made their fortune from scratch.
In fact, it is very eye opening to see the kind of success many people achieve despite overwhelming setbacks. Today, we will look at three success stories from people who didn’t have the easiest journey.
The Wizard on Welfare
Joane Rowling, more familiarly known as J. K. Rowling grew up in a modest setting. Her mother passed away when she was just a young adult. Joane just started to write at the time of her mom’s passing, but in order to make a living moved to Portugal where she could teach English.
It was here where she married and had a daughter named Jessica, only to separate from her husband a year later. Now a single mother on teacher’s wages, Joane had to move back to the U.K. near her sister in order to balance raising her daughter and making a living. J.K. Rowling’s income level was terribly low, qualifying her for welfare. In the time she found between Jessica’s naps, she was able to write by hand the manuscript for Harry Potter. Later, she applied for a grant which helped her afford a typewriter to produce a draft of the manuscript she could present to publishers.
We all know how successful her books became and now she is estimated at a net worth of over $1 billion dollars.
J.K. Rowling could have settled for a simpler life and people around her would probably think nothing less of her. As a single parent and teacher, she stuck to her passions and saw remarkable success.
From Bankrupt Retailer to Billionaire
Tommy Hilfiger wasn’t always a house hold name. In fact, one of the most talked about advertising campaigns to this day came from Tommy Hilfiger when he was first starting out. A big billboard over time square shouted,
THE 4 GREATEST AMERICAN DESIGNERS FOR MEN ARE:
R _ _ _ _ L _ _ _ _ _
P _ _ _ E _ _ _ _
C _ _ _ _ _ K_ _ _ _
T _ _ _ _ H _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Then the Tommy Hilfiger logo
So what is the story behind the Tommy Hilfiger name? He grew up in a simple, Irish American family. As a child, Hilfiger was encouraged to become an engineer, but he had different dreams.
After graduating from high school, he started working in retail instead of furthering his education. It was here that his fashion sense began developing, as he would travel into New York City to buy jeans, then come back to his home in Elmira and alter them. After making some alterations he would then sell them for a profit.
After some time of doing this he decided to open his own store called The People’s Place being just 18 years old. His store became a popular hang out, but didn’t see sales. As a result, the company went bankrupt 7 years later when Tommy was just 25 years old.
Despite these setbacks, he had developed a name for himself among other designers and both Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis offered him a job. Tommy was dead broke, but still turned down the offers. He stuck to his dream of running his own designer company and plowed ahead.
In 1984 Tommy Hilfiger Corporation was born. 8 years later it went public. 20 years later they had 5,400 employees and revenues over 1.8 billion. By 2006, Tommy Hilfiger was able to sell his company for 1.6 billion dollars.
Who Needs Arms and Legs?
The previous two stories deal with people who had ups and downs in the circumstances of their lives, but what about those of us who have a permanent condition or disability. Setbacks like burns across 90% of the body, paralysis, or cancer, surely those are different? Yet, even those setbacks can be overcome with great success.
Nick Vujicic demonstrates this perfectly. He was born with no arms or legs.
His story is both heartfelt and amazing.
Nick starts the personal account of his life with his mother. He shared that most mothers when they give birth are excited, eager, and overwhelmed with desire to hold their child for the first time. When he was given to his mother for the first time, she told the nurse to take him away.
Growing up was tough, his parents helped him eat, drink, go to the bathroom, and pretty much everything everyone else takes for granted. It became a depressing feeling for him to think about his future and who would take care of him after his parents could no longer. He would often wonder “How could anyone want to marry me, how could I have a family, what was the point of my life? By the age of 10 he wanted to end his life.
Nick shared that the turning point in his life came when he was 15 years old. He was reading in church about the blind man who Jesus approaches. Jesus rubs clay in his eyes and tells him to go wash it at the river, when the man does this he no longer is blind, and serves as a follower of Christ from then on. Nick added, that the account didn’t share the reactions of the crowd that witnessed this, but he felt that at least one of the people who saw that had to have been changed by that single event.
The story inspired him to try to make a deal with God that if he would give him back his arms and legs he would be God’s missionary for the rest of his life and everyone would follow him after hearing his story. Later, when his first request wasn’t granted, he understood another way he could inspire others. He would achieve what others said was impossible for him and use his personal story as a tool for inspiring others who feel they have limitations placed on them by the world.
Nick stayed true to his commitment. He is one of the few people in the world without arms and legs that can write with a pen or pencil. He can type 43 words per minute. He can swim on his own without a life jacket. He earned a double degree in Accounting and Financial Planning. He also travels around the world speaking to millions of people. He owned two homes before the age of 25. In summary, he’s accomplished exactly what the world would never expect.
If someone in Nick’s circumstances can find a way to succeed, than we all can think twice before we let an excuse hold us back from achieving our dreams.
Our Own Stories of Success
No one goes through a perfectly smooth life, one time or another; we are going to have to face challenges and obstacles.
For me, my obstacles have included going through cancer on two separate occasions, chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant. I graduated at an extremely tough time to find a job in my career and saw the effects of the recession just like many others.
However, I too have seen success along the way. I have had immense pleasure in giving back to the community through bone marrow drives, radio commercials, and hospital donation campaigns. After high school I received a full ride scholarship to ASU where I would graduate with a Marketing Degree from W. P. Carey, all-expense paid. I helped serve as a missionary for two years in Texas, and had the opportunity to help many of the people affected by hurricane Katrina. I’m now developing my career in a direction that’s in line with my passions. My family is amazing.
What’s Your Story? Share in the comments below.
We always appreciate hearing the stories of our readers and clients. What set-backs have you overcome? What advice would you give?
