A New Year's Blueprint for Success
Here is a blueprint for success that anyone can follow (with appropriate modifications):
Move to another country at 26.
Fall in love and get married.
Get pregnant.
Give birth.
Get divorced. Probably didn't see that one coming, did ya?
Make sure and do all of this within the span of a couple of years.
All the while, keep writing (or training or educating yourself or practicing guitar, whatever the dream)
This was the blueprint followed by an aspiring author who spent several years living in near poverty while penning pages and chapters of a book that would be turned down by twelve publishers. After a year and half of rejections, a small publisher picked up the book with plans to print 500 copies, a meager offering but a dangling carrot nonetheless.
After years of turmoil and late nights and early mornings, all while changing diapers and feeding a baby, the author’s initial advance for the book was a whopping $1800.
Even then, the publisher wanted the author to use a pen name because they suspected boys wouldn’t want to read a book written by a woman. Given that she didn’t have a middle name, the author borrowed a K from her grandmother Kathleen, hence Joanne Rowling's immortalized moniker, JK Rowling.
The secret sauce of Rowling's success
While most of us would have complained about a delayed train ride, Rowling used it as a catalyst to create a story that would eventually make her a billionaire. In fact, herein lies the secret of Rowling's success. Opposition transformed into opportunity.
Those creepy dementors that terrorize wizards and muggles alike? They were birthed out of Rowling’s own dark nights of depression following her mom’s death from multiple sclerosis at only 45 - Rowling herself was just 25 at the time. This was also the impetus for Harry's parents dying in the story (if that’s a spoiler I’m sorry but you’re 25 years behind.)
Death is a disappointment unlike any other, but so too is a failed marriage, losing a promotion to your colleague, the investment going south, or not getting into your program of choice.
Pay attention, though, because every disappointment exposes a deeper desire. Being the sleuth you are, it is identifying and naming the desire that can motivate or inspire you to carry on, to try again, to push past the barrier.
Failure and disappointment lead the way
Rowling spoke about failure and disappointment in a commencement address at Harvard University.
Here is my favorite snippet:
“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’ve failed by default.”
This willingness to risk and learn from failure and grow through opposition is why we know the name JK Rowling. It is those difficulties we'd likely erase if given the chance that may well be exactly what's needed to achieve the success that comes only when we carry on.
What did you fail at in 2023?
What disappointments did you experience?
Where did you expend too much energy? Not enough?
As you look back on '23 and ahead at '24, the rearview mirror will make the desired destination clearer.
A new year means trying new things. Some of them will work. Some won't. Keep pressing and moving and learning and growing. Name the desires and use the disappointments. Risk failure because it means you're putting forth the effort.
Here we go!
