“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” — Winston Churchill
John’s two-year old son slept silently in the old beat-up car that he now called home. This is what his life had come to. Homeless. Penniless. Hopeless. But he refused to ask for help. He was too proud. So he suffered that plight on his own, watching his son sleep, replaying all his worst fears and nightmares across his mind.
Rubbing a tear from his eye, he shifted into survival mode. That evening, he headed out in search of glass Coke bottles he could cash in for their redemption value at the corner drugstore. That was his only means of survival. That was the only way we was able to feed the hungry soul that was relying on him.
It wasn’t much. But it was enough to keep them alive on a diet of rice, potatoes, lettuce, cereal, canned soup and macaroni and cheese. An odd job would spring up from time to time, giving him a little bit of extra cash to pad his pockets with. It didn’t matter what kind of work it was. He was willing to do anything from fixing bikes to pumping gas. Anything to make ends meet.
That evening, after returning to the car he called home, he wept inconsolably. He hadn’t seen it coming. He cupped his hand over his mouth in an effort not to wake his son but it was too little too late. His son’s eyes fluttered and his heart skipped a beat. He was a failure. A complete and utter failure and all hope was lost.
Thoughts of ending it all flashed across his mind. But he knew he couldn’t do it. He had to fight. He had to give it all he had. He couldn’t give up with a little life depending on him. He had to grit and bear it and that’s exactly what he did. He prayed that night harder than he had ever prayed before.
He wasn’t asking for anything fancy. All he wanted was enough to get by. All he wanted was a respectable life for himself. Not this. Not homelessness. Anything but that. He just wanted a place he could call home, some money to pay the bills and put food on the plate. That’s all.
He had no idea how he was going to go from a failure in life, to succeeding. He just knew that he was going to do it, no matter what the costs.
*****
This is the story of John Paul DeJoria, founder of Paul Mitchell Hair, a now-billion-dollar company. This is a story that depicts the sheer power of determination and resilient will that resides in the human spirit. When we fail, we discover new meaning to our lives, forcing us to reach deep to find solutions to the problems that have plagued us for ages.
As a result, we can achieve outlandish goals. DeJoria went from being a complete failure and feeling dejected in life, to attaining the wildest success that one could ever imagine, with a net worth surpassing $4 billion. But imagine how it felt for DeJoria that night in his car, struggling for survival, fearing for his two-year old son. Homeless with nearly no money in his pockets, the desperation to pull himself out of the gutter must have been intense.
But DeJoria’s story isn’t unique. Plenty of successful and famous people have succeeded after major amounts of failure. Clearly, failure isn’t fatal. If it was, then no person who ever failed before would succeed in their lives. And we all know that isn’t true whatsoever. But the same thing applies for success. Success isn’t final because it might not last. In fact, success is often fleeting, here one moment then gone the next.
Author and Credits: R.L. “Robert” Adams