Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2014, and its figures are from that year, including more than 111,000 email subscribers and an Alexa ranking of about 11,000. Alexa rankings were discontinued in 2022. The comment that the book must be close to being a bestseller is also from 2014.
Steve Jobs used to say that, at some point along the way, the dots connect when you look back. Where we end up depends on the decisions we make and the circumstances we meet. Some of those circumstances may not have been what we hoped for at the time. That is where many people sink, while others decide to face their new situation.
This series of true stories shows how what looked like a string of failures opened up new opportunities to feel fulfilled in life, and even to succeed.
1. Rejected by 7 universities
Marc Chernoff, who runs Marcandangel.com, says that when he was 18 he wanted to study computer science. He applied to 7 American universities, and every one of them turned him down.
His dream was falling apart until a counsellor told him to go to a university in Orlando, Florida, to do an engineering programme. Out of desperation, he decided to go. He was accepted there, and he was even given a scholarship.
At that university he met a professor who advised him to learn coding and web design, two skills that would later help him run his own projects.
And at that university he also met the woman who is now his wife.
What would have happened if his first search had succeeded? Nobody knows, but he would probably never have met the woman who makes him happy today on this journey called life. At the time he felt frustrated. Today he is truly glad about those rejections.
2. “Your writing isn’t good enough”
Marc had a clear passion. He wanted to write and inspire others with motivational pieces. He wrote 5 articles with great enthusiasm and sent them to different publications. Then he received an email telling him that his writing did not live up to readers’ expectations.
He says his ego was bruised that evening. He told his wife what had happened, and she hugged him and said: “Don’t worry about what they tell you. If you enjoy writing, keep writing. That’s what writers do.”
So Marc switched on his computer and started writing. He bought a domain, set up his blog and began writing the way he liked to write. In the next point you’ll see where that writing took him.
3. Fired for doing the right thing
Marc’s wife worked as a manager at a store belonging to a major retail chain. She was 20 at the time.
One Friday night, one of her bosses ended up in jail and called her to ask her to bring him $600 for bail. She did. When the regional executives found out about the incident, they fired them both.
So she was left without a job and with plenty of free time. She was practically a social media expert, so she decided to use that time to promote her husband’s blog on social networks.
Now let’s put the loose pieces together and see where they lead:
Marc is rejected by 7 universities and ends up at one where he meets his wife. Several newspapers reject his articles, telling him he lacks writing talent, which pushes him to start his own blog so he can write.
Angel, Marc’s wife, is fired and decides to help her husband grow his blog. And that is how Marc and Angel was born: probably one of the best blogs in the world, one that a great many media outlets draw on, because its articles are simply brilliant.
Together they also wrote the book 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently, which, if it isn’t a bestseller yet, must be close, and which other authors have mined for all sorts of material.
They have more than 111,000 email subscribers, and their blog ranks around 11,000th on Alexa, which measures websites worldwide.
If that series of failures had never happened, the tens of thousands of readers who say this couple’s advice has changed their lives would never have been inspired by the writing and advice of this unusually talented pair.
A few years ago, they both had dreams. Today they are living their dream, and it is not the one they used to aspire to.
So don’t dwell on what you leave behind. It isn’t a cliché. Everything that ends is not the end, but a new chance to start again.
The same happens in relationships. How many people suffer because they won’t let go of a toxic partner? How many fall into a kind of depression because their partner has left them? In both cases you are missing a new opportunity that will, without a doubt, be different.
And when it comes to failure, we’ll leave you with the closing idea of Cast Away: when you feel you have lost everything, don’t lose hope, because tomorrow the sun will rise again, and you don’t know what the tide might bring.
Further reading
Featured image: Original image by whitney waller , red lines added, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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