[quotepress shorthand=”rock-bottom”]

J. K. Rowling

Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as “the biggest failure I knew.” Her marriage had failed, she was jobless with a dependent child, but she described her failure as liberating:
” 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. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
– J. K. Rowling, “The fringe benefits of failure”, 2008.

Joanne “Jo” Rowling, pen name J. K. Rowling,is a British novelist, best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies.They have become the best-selling book series in history,and been the basis for a series of films which has become the highest-grossing film series in history.

And now :

• In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world.
• In February 2013 she was assessed as the 13th most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4.

Any lessons there ?