Inspirations

Have you ever had a bad hair day?  No matter how you try, a dark raining cloud just keeps following you.  Such days can just zap out your energy.  When these days happen, I would just sit down and reflect on my inspirations.

 

These men and women went through several trials but were able to conquer and achieve their dreams.  For their exploits, I am truly grateful as they give me inspirations to face my own trials and tribulations.

 

Steve Jobs willingly took enormous risks.  He could have disappeared from history books after leaving Apple amidst dissention with his colleagues.  He however turned his adversity into an opportunity; thus, making him an innovator of entrepreneurial business model.

 

The first black president of the United States was raised by a single mother.  Like any normal kid, he had issues growing up without a father but this did not stop him from excelling in academics and politics.

 

Stevie Wonder has been blind since birth.  This physical handicap did not deter him from becoming a world renowned singer and song writer.  He received 22 Grammy awards during his 51 year music career; this being the most number of awards received by a single male recording artist.

 

Superman, Christopher Reeve, after being thrown from a horse was paralyzed from the neck down.  Though his initial reaction was depression to the point of contemplating suicide, he found inspiration while undergoing physical and occupation rehabilitation.  This inspiration lead him to found the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and resulted to him being named TIME Person of the Year.

 

Though deft by the age of 26, Ludwig van Beethoven composed influential pieces, most notable of which is the Ninth Symphony.  The Ninth Symphony is regarded as one of the greatest works of music ever written.

 

Another deaf inspiration is Marlee Matlin.  An actress, she appeared in popular television shows like The West Wing, Desperate Housewives, Law and Order and ER.  She received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the movie Children of a Lesser God.  She was also awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2009.  This deaf actress shattered people’s preconceived notions of what deafness must mean for a person’s future.  She inspired people with physical challenges to dream like any normal human being.

 

Do you think it is all laughter for Jim Carrey, the comedian?  Think again… when Jim was 12 years old, his father lost his job.  They lived in a van for a number of years.  Jim took a job, working 8 hour shift after school. 

 

One of the richest persons in the United Kingdom who owns the Virgin group of brands, including a record label, an airline and the mobile company struggled with dyslexia.  He performed poorly on tests and specialists assumed that he will not go far in his career. Richard Branson proved them all wrong, as street smarts can conquer the world of business.

 

One inspiration very close to my heart is Oprah Winfrey.  She was born to a teenage single mother in impoverished rural Mississippi.  From utter poverty, Oprah rose to be one of the most influential women in the world.

 

Another inspiration very close to my heart is J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter. Rowling confessed that seven years after graduating from Exeter, she felt like the world’s biggest failure -- no job, no money, no marriage and no real hope of anything changing. Her first Harry Potter novel was rejected by a dozen publishers before finding one that paid her a small advance and agreed to publish it. The rest is history. I am deeply inspired by what she said, “Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged.”

 

There you have it… my inspirations when gloomy days cloud my being.