Hero (3 page)

MICHAEL ACTON SMITH –
FROM ENGLAND

After graduating university, Michael Acton Smith found himself virtually unemployable. He decided to go into business, but couldn’t raise any financing from the bank, so his mother loaned him £1,000. Several failed enterprises later, he was on the brink of bankruptcy, but Michael knew without a doubt his latest idea was something very special. Sure enough, Moshi Monsters took England by storm, and became a global phenomenon in kids’ entertainment.

LAYNE BEACHLEY –
FROM AUSTRALIA

Layne Beachley’s mother died tragically when she was just seven years of age. Not long afterward, Layne discovered she had been adopted as a baby. Layne dealt with her feelings of loss and abandonment by setting a goal for herself that would prove her worth to the world – become a world-champion surfer. Layne Beachley achieved her goal, winning the world title not once but a record seven times, making her the world’s greatest female surfer.

JOHN PAUL DEJORIA –
FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

John Paul DeJoria and his brother spent four and a half years of their childhood in a foster home because their ill mother could not work and take care of them at the same time. They both ended up in a kids’ street gang in East Los Angeles, and a high school teacher predicted John Paul would never amount to anything. When John Paul was in his twenties and he and his infant son were living in a car and John Paul was collecting bottles to survive, it seemed the prediction had come true. But John Paul was determined to make something of his life. After being fired three times in a row, John Paul partnered with Paul Mitchell, and with just $700 they started their own hair-product company. John Paul Mitchell Systems would go on to earn revenues in excess of $1 billion a year.

PETER FOYO –
FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Peter Foyo was a child of hardworking immigrants to the United States. As a child, he dreamed of a technological future where cities ran on solar power and telephones were mobile. When he got older, he dreamed of having a business so huge and successful that he would be the best executive in Latin America. Anyone would have said these were impossible dreams, but Peter realized his dream when he became president of telecommunications giant Nextel Communications Mexico at just thirty-three years of age.

As for me, I was born into a humble working-class family in Australia. I didn’t have any big aspirations in my early years because I didn’t think big dreams were possible for me. But in 2004, my life changed forever when I discovered a secret, and a huge dream took over me – to share the secret I had discovered with the world. In 2006,
The Secret
film and book were released, and they swept the globe, reaching tens of millions of people.

If you are like I once was and you’ve never considered having big dreams because you didn’t think they could happen, know that on the journey you’re about to take you will discover everything you need to make your dreams – however impossible they may seem – come true.

This is your story. This is your purpose. This is why you are here on planet Earth – to take the Hero’s Journey and to discover the hero within you. With the invaluable wisdom you’re about to receive, and armed with your powerful abilities, you will be able to fulfill your dream and find the true and lasting happiness that every one of us so desperately seeks. No matter where you are in your life, no matter what age you are, it is never too late to follow your dream.

Against All Odds

No one is born into a perfect life. If you were, you wouldn’t have anything to strive for, and you wouldn’t have the urge to create something with your life. You wouldn’t have any dreams at all. Whatever circumstances you were born into, whatever family life and education you had or didn’t have, you came here to make your dreams come true, and no matter where you are now, you are fully equipped with everything you need to do it!

ANASTASIA SOARE

FOUNDER – ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS

I started from nothing. I really, really started from nothing. We had no money. I didn’t speak the language. I had no idea how a Western country worked – the mentality, the financial system. I didn’t even know how to write a check, because we didn’t have that in Romania. I started literally learning the alphabet.

PAUL ORFALEA

FOUNDER – KINKO’S

Not many kids manage to flunk the second grade, but I did. I couldn’t learn the alphabet. I couldn’t read. I was always in trouble. I couldn’t control myself. I was just so impulsive. I was finally expelled from high school at sixteen.

The tougher the circumstances are in our life and the more the odds are stacked against us, often the more of a catalyst those circumstances will be in propelling us to find our dream.

PETER FOYO

PRESIDENT – NEXTEL COMMUNICATIONS MEXICO

My parents were immigrants to the United States, and we started with nothing. I remember having my pants above my ankles. My father was a general in the country he came from, and when he got to the United States he ended up being a chimney sweeper.