WE NEED WORDS FOR OUR JOURNEY – Encouragement

 My agent, Natasha Kern, is always encouraging me. And she recently pointed out the following:

Creative and imaginative people are often not recognized by their contemporaries.  In fact, often they are not recognized in school by their teachers either.  History is full of illustrations.  Consider these:

 Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. He was turned down for a number of jobs in physics.   And is brilliant wife, Mileva, was rejected even more as a woman aspiring to work in physics.

Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.”

 As a boy, Thomas Edison was told by his teachers he was too stupid to learn anything.

 F. W. Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21, but his employers would not let him wait on a customer because he, “Didn’t have enough sense.”

 A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he, “had no good ideas.”

 Caruso’s music teacher told him, “you can’t sing, you have no voice at all.”

 Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college, Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade, Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school, and Wernher von Braun flunked 9th grade algebra.

 Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been retired from the Navy, as “unfit for service” until he flew over both poles.

 Louis Pasteur was rated mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College .

  Louisa May Alcott was told by an editor she could never write anything that had popular appeal.

  Abraham Lincoln, our nation’s greatest leader, knew defeat throughout his life. His path to success looked like this: 1831 Failed in Business. 1832 Defeated for legislature. 1833 Second business failure. 1836 Suffered nervous breakdown. 1838 Defeated for speaker. 1840 Defeated for elector.  1843 Defeated for Congress.  1848 Defeated for Congress. 1855 Defeatd for Senate. 1856 Defeated for vice president.  1858 Defeated for Senate. 1860 ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

 There are hundreds of similar stories that writers could tell about their paths to success in  publishing. Don’t give up on achieving your goals. Be encouraged.