People of Success
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah is one of the most successful and inspirational women alive today. Oprah’s dealt with a lot throughout her public life—criticism about her weight, racism, intrusive questions about her sexuality, just to name a few—but she never let it get in the way of her ambition and drive. When you look at her childhood, her personal triumphs are cast in an even more remarkable light.
Growing up, Oprah was reportedly a victim of sexual abuse and was repeatedly molested by her cousin, an uncle, and a family friend. Later, she became pregnant and gave birth to a child at age 14, who passed away just two weeks later. But Oprah persevered, going on to finish high school as an honors student, earning a full scholarship to college, and working her way up through the ranks of television, from a local network anchor in Nashville to an international superstar and creator of her OWN network (we couldn’t help ourselves). - Themuse
Tyler Perry
Perry had a rough childhood. He was physically and sexually abused growing up, got kicked out of high school, and tried to commit suicide twice—once as a preteen and again at 22. At 23 he moved to Atlanta and took up odd jobs as he started working on his stage career.
In 1992 he wrote, produced, and starred in his first theater production, I Know I’ve Been Changed, somewhat informed by his difficult upbringing. Perry put all his savings into the show and it failed miserably; the run lasted just one weekend and only 30 people came to watch. He kept up with the production, working more odd jobs and often slept in his car to get by. Six years later, Perry finally broke through when, on its seventh run, the show became a success. He’s since gone on to have an extremely successful career as a director, writer, and actor. In fact, Perry was named Forbes’ highest paid man in entertainment in 2011. - Themuse
J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling had just gotten a divorce, was on government aid, and could barely afford to feed her baby in 1994, just three years before the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, was published. When she was shopping it out, she was so poor she couldn’t afford a computer or even the cost of photocopying the 90,000-word novel, so she manually typed out each version to send to publishers. It was rejected dozens of times until finally Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, gave it a second chance after the CEO’s eight year-old daughter fell in love with it. - Themuse
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg founded the social network in 2004 when he was 19 and dropped out of Harvard to move the company to Silicon Valley. Since launching its Internet.org initiative in July 2014, Facebook has given free basic Internet services to more than a billion people in 19 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In May Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were among the funders who invested a combined $100 million in AltSchool, a new company working to promote high-tech personalized education. In June the couple also donated $5 million to a college scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants. - Forbes
Stephen Covey
“The 7 Habits” is an outstanding book to build positive habits that really improve your life. It is like a framework for success and for building character and integrity, with Stephen Covey being the exceptional personality who really walked his talk. The book has two parts: private victory and public victory. In the first part, the private victory of the 7 Habits, you’ll learn the 3 habits to personal effectiveness: Proactivity, Begin with the end in mind, First things first. In the second part, the public victory, you’ll learn the qualities to be effective with other people: Think win-win, Understanding others, Synergize. The last of the 7 habits is Personal Renewal. You also learn a lot about personal vision, goals, time-management and communication.