Invicta Vlogs
Mrs Bui’s Blog
In 1994, a single mum in Edinburgh was struggling to get by with no job, no money and no hope. Five years later, she became a multi-millionaire, whose work is cherished by all the students I have spoken with this week. Her name is Joanne, but we know her as J K Rowling.
It has been a real privilege meeting and getting to know our new Year 7 cohort. They are full of enthusiasm, commitment and aspiration. I was delighted to know that they were all avid readers, whose list of favourite authors ranging from Morpurgo to Simon and from Walliams to Rowling.
I spoke with one student about the “chosen ones” in Harry Potter and was struck by the idea of how the “chosen ones” in life become successful.
Rowling was living on social benefit when she submitted the manuscript for her first book. She was rejected 12 times but kept trying until the 13th publisher accepted her. Twenty years later, over 400 million copies of her books have been sold. James Clear, an American author and entrepreneur, recently wrote that he believed there was one factor that made a huge impact on Rowling’s success. “When bad things happened in her life, Rowling saw it as her responsibility to do something about it.”
It is easy to attribute someone’s success to their family’s connections, the elite education that they received or their ‘being in the right place at the right time’. In reality, all those factors might help open doors, but it takes those people to actually step over the door threshold and seize the opportunities to become successful. If Rowling did not have the courage to carry on trying until her manuscript was accepted, Harry Potter would not have existed. This reminded me of a conversation I had with an ex-student recently. She told me that Invicta taught her to accept that she is not perfect, instead, she was taught to have strength to get up again when she was knocked down.
As James Clear put it, ‘the chosen ones choose themselves’. We look forward to seeing our girls take the responsibility for doing things and gaining success that way. One of the first steps might be through our Leadership Fair which took place last week, or alternatively, by engaging in Internationalism through our European Day of Languages this week!
