J. K. Rowling - The Creator of the Harry Potter

While  speaking to a Graduating Class of Harvard in June 2008, J.K Rowling, the author of Harry Potter and the well-known first self-made billionaire female children’s book author,  didn’t talk about success. She talked about failures. Her own in particular. I absolutely love her quote. So posting her quote as it is…

“You might never fail on the scale I did, But 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.

She should know. The author didn’t magically become richer than the Queen of England overnight. Penniless, recently divorced, and raising a child on her own, she wrote the first Harry Potter book on an old manual typewriter. You know friends? Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript! that editors kept reminding her that children’s book won’t see big commercial success but she went on and kept writing. A year later she was given the green light by Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury (the thirteenth publisher), who agreed to publish the book but insisted she get a day job cause there was no money in children’s books.

What if she stopped at the first rejection? or The fifth? Or at the tenth?

The measure of success can be shown by how many times someone keeps going despite hearing only NO.