No success is absent of rejection.

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Last night on LIMHI.LIVE, I shared the story of American author Jack London.

Best known for his works “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang,” London lived at the end of 1800s and into the early 1900s. He was one of the first authors to be internationally celebrated for his works and to profit greatly from his writings. In a sense, he was the J.K. Rowling of his time.

But before becoming a rich and famous author, London’s writings were rejected…a lot. He wrote 1,000 words almost every day for years. Week after week he mailed articles, essays, poems, and short stories. Publishers rejected all.

Each rejection letter he received was impaled to a spindle in his writing room, until finally he had a stack of rejection letters that was four feet high. Despite having a growing physical reminder of how much he’d been rejected, London continued to write. He was rejected over 600 times before a publisher finally decided to print one of his articles.

Once that first article was published, success started to materialize.

London’s example of perseverance is inspiring because it shows that success is not absent of “rejection”. Rather, rejection must come before achieving success. In some cases, a lot of rejection. In the pursuit of your own success, how much rejection are you willing to face?

Don’t give up on your dream just because you’ve been rejected. Keep working at it. Keep getting rejected. If you continue to persevere, you will eventually find the success you seek.

Featured Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash.

For more inspiration like this, visit the blog or watch my new talk show streaming live over at LIMHI.LIVE.