Adversity University: Engineering the Impossible

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First, an update on the status of the "Secrets of Dealing with Adversity" tagging project. It is quickly building momentum and has already afforded me a fascinating peek into the lives of several people whose careers and ambitions are totally different from mine. One of the participants is a single mom who is a screenwriter with a project now being considered by an A-list actress (Nicole Kidman) for a major motion picture. Imagine that! She wrote a wonderful story about overcoming adversity on the long road to success. Reading it lifted my spirits and confirmed that we are all in on this together. Of course, she will be among 500 people listed on a future post here at Adversity University and you will have an opportunity to be uplifted by her story too.

The title of today's article magically came to me last night while watching "Pay it Forward." Have you seen that movie? I highly recommend it - it moved me to tears because it was so heartfelt. It made me want to run out and "pay it forward." So I came up with an idea for today's article.

About a month ago, "Celebrate Your Defeats" was written in response to a major literary agent passing on my book proposal for THAT'S RIGHT, STEPHEN! A follow up article entitled "Inside the Mind of a Literary Agent" proved to be quite cathartic and hopefully inspired you because it surely put things in perspective for me.

Shortly after those two articles were written, I was faced with a decision - should I self-publish or continue the "traditional way"? One of the most powerful techniques of overcoming what other people perceive to be impossible is to make a firm decision, regardless of what it is, and then sticking with it. That's how I became a successful Merrill Lynch stockbroker, a deaf pilot who made aviation history, among other things.

My good friend Stephen Shapiro wrote a brief but fascinating rundown called "Sobering Statistics About the Book Industry." Despite the overwhelming odds of getting published, I've decided to go the traditional way. Here's my thinking on this: "If I can become the world's first deaf instrument rated pilot despite the FAA regulations to the contrary, why can't I defy the odds again?"

Engineering the impossible requires at least four things:

1. Belief in yourself

2. Finding someone (just one, only one) who also believes in you. All that needs to happen is that you will be divinely led to this person who is in a position to open doors for you (like that lady who helped me with the book proposal - even though I didn't get literary representation with her agent in the end, she did get my foot in the door of a powerful literary agency in NYC - if she believes in me, imagine who else might!).

3. Perseverance

4. Create the mindset that your time will come, just have faith in God's plan for you.

Once I made the decision to find myself a literary agent, I went out and got six books from the local library on how to write a better book proposal. Day by day I read, take notes and then go back to the computer to tweak things a little more. Taking action like that is a signal to the universe that I am serious about my intentions. This goes along with the H.E.A.R. Principle where "A" stands for "Take Action." ACTION speaks louder than words.

I am sharing this with you not because I want to portray myself as a mythic figure of gothic proportions who overcomes great odds but to hold myself accountable to you, my readers, and to the rest of the universe of my intentions. In essence, I've personally invited you along for the trip. By having you by my side in spirit, I know I have your love and support, which makes this journey all the more worthwhile. By the way, you already have an idea of what the book will be like because it's all in here, in this blog! In fact, I will be creating an e-book in the near future so that you can read it, for free, in an easy and accessible location.

My desire is to create a point of reference where I can bring future readers back to this post to show that I was at one time a person who had the dream of getting published. If you can learn to ignore so-called statistics or man-made rules, then you've got your work cut out for you. All that is required is a firm decision from the deepest part of your being and then moving forward from there. Henry Ford once said: