Hero (34 page)

LAYNE BEACHLEY

You do have to hit rock bottom and you have to go through your challenges to bounce back up.

You will have seen the Supreme Ordeal in movies, where the hero has overcome every obstacle on his quest, and just when he’s about to rescue the princess or seize the Holy Grail there is one final challenge he has to overcome to seize the ultimate prize.

MASTIN KIPP

Every hero almost dies, or does die and is reborn. And that idea, of psychological, emotional, spiritual, or physical, literal death, is terrifying for people. But we have to walk into that, like Christ on the cross, his arms wide open.

“Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena 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

Author of the Harry Potter books

JOHN PAUL DEJORIA

I worked for a company and ran two full positions for them. Even though they were up, they said I wasn’t their type of manager and fired me. I went to work for another company. After one year they fired me because I didn’t hang out with them on the weekends. Next company I worked for I tripled their sales, and one day the owner of the company said, “I’m sorry, but we have to let you go because we have someone that could do your job for half the money.” And then I started John Paul Mitchell Systems. Two years into John Paul Mitchell Systems I realized something; had I not worked for those three companies that fired me, it would have been virtually impossible to start John Paul Mitchell Systems, because each company taught me something. Even though I was fired, it was like the Universe was moving me on, teaching me various things along the way, whether I knew it or not.

When John Paul DeJoria and his business partner Paul Mitchell were just about to launch their hair care products, an investor who had agreed to provide money for their business suddenly withdrew all funds. John Paul and his partner were left with massive commitments, no way of paying their bills, and no way of surviving the next forty-five days until their clients paid their accounts. They appeared to be doomed. But then John Paul was struck with a brilliant idea – to offer discounts for cash payments on delivery. Almost every client took the offer, and John Paul Mitchell Systems was saved.

LAYNE BEACHLEY

In 1995, I was rated second in the world and I was in contention for my first world title. I was pushing myself quite hard, and then in 1996 I got struck down with chronic fatigue. Physically there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you’ve hit rock bottom. I hit rock bottom to the point where I had suicidal tendencies; for someone who was such a lover of life, it was really disconcerting. I wanted to quit, but I still had something to live for; I chose to focus on my love of surfing. I didn’t have the physical strength to do that thing I love, but I now had the mental strength to work toward doing it again. I committed to going to Hawaii to compete even though I knew I didn’t have the strength to do so. I thought, “I’m just going to go over there and enjoy it.” I won every event in Hawaii that year, and that was the year before I won my first world title. That experience of chronic fatigue was a really valuable lesson. I’m really glad I didn’t give up.

PETE CARROLL

Through the course of my coaching I had been fired a few times. When you get fired in my business everybody in the sporting world knows about it. It’s in the newspaper. It’s on the news. It’s a big deal. It’s not like you get fired and you have to go home and just deal with your wife. You have to deal with everybody else. It’s a tremendous challenge. But okay, this happened, and there must be something in this that’s going to help me be better and stronger down the road. That’s where the epiphany hit, that I had worked a long time but I hadn’t dug deep enough to really get in touch with what was important to me so I could bring it out in my next program. My back was to the wall and I didn’t know if I was going to get another chance, but if it did happen I was going to be ready. The opportunity arose to go to USC, and we set out with this vision that we were going to do things better than it’s ever been done before.

MASTIN KIPP

When things go wrong and we get uprooted, what if that’s not life being against you, or life being harsh? What if those moments are a divine storm? And what if those moments are happening because all the things that don’t serve our greatest potential and our spiritual path are being uprooted not to punish you, but for your best interests? What if your worst week or your worst day was divinely sent, and actually your greatest day?

Anastasia Soare was on the brink of releasing her eyebrow product range when her key investor pulled out. Suddenly Anastasia needed $2 million to market, sell, and distribute a warehouse full of her product, and had just seven days to either find the money, or abandon her dream. Rather than quit, Anastasia taught herself everything about the business of marketing, sales, and distribution. Due to her ingenuity and tenaciousness, Anastasia’s eyebrow products left the warehouse and went on to become a phenomenal success across the United States and throughout the world.

MICHAEL ACTON SMITH

I launched this games company, Mind Candy, in 2004, and the first game we created was very creative but it was a commercial disaster. Moshi Monsters was our last roll of the dice, our last chance to build a successful game. We built it, but it used up all the money we had, so at the end of 2008 we basically ran out of cash. My gut instinct was screaming at me that there was some magic here and something really special with this product, but we couldn’t find anyone to invest. That period was the biggest obstacle and the craziest time, because I had a team of people that I needed to pay, and we came within a hairsbreadth of having to declare bankruptcy and shut the business down. All those long dark nights, waking up at 4 a.m. in the morning tossing and turning not knowing how you solve these awful problems. Luckily I found another angel investor that put in some money, and just before Christmas we had enough money to pay the staff salaries and to keep the lights on, and the very next month we launched our subscription service, and we have been profitable ever since.

PAUL ORFALEA

The Chinese have a saying: “Crisis is opportunity.” It’s a truism that every failure contains the seeds of a new opportunity.

My dream for
The Secret
film was that it would be released in every country in the world simultaneously. I had convinced myself that the only way to do that would be through multiple television networks across the planet airing it within a 24-hour period. In the beginning, when the idea of
The Secret
was first born, international television networks had shown real interest in the project. However once the film had been completed, without ever seeing it, one by one the international networks withdrew their interest. We had completed the film, I was $3 million in debt, and we had no visible way to release our film to the world.