“Don’t wait for the right opportunity. Create it.” – George Bernard Shaw, Playwright, Critic and Polemicist
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing.” – Pelé, Brazilian Soccer Player
“When something goes wrong in your life, just yell, ‘PLOT TWIST!’ and move on.” – Unknown
All the best stories start with “once upon a time,” don’t they?
So, climb upon a comfy couch and get ready for the story of a young girl who had always thought she had to wait until she was older to achieve her dreams. This story is full of twists and turns, good and bad scenarios, successes and failures – even amazing and devastating news! It’s a story of suspense, ofplot twists, and of close calls.
This is the story of my continuing trek to success.
Once upon a time,a young girl, AKA me, was sound asleep in her (er, my) bedroom. It was late 2016, and I was resting on the pillow as the fan gently blew behind me.
The door slowly creaked open, revealing the faces of my daddy and mommy.
They entered with smiles as they cooed, “Good morning,” and after I woke up, we launched into chatting as I started my daily morning routine.
As we were casually chatting, my daddy’s eyes widened, a new idea surging through his mind as he asked, “What if you become a motivational speaker, and speak to kids about how to succeed, and influence them to achieve their dreams while they’re young?”
And my immediate answer was, “YES.”
Ever since I was extremely young, I’ve always had a passion for two main things – writing, and inspiring people. I’ve always wanted to inspire people when I was younger, but I never knew just quite how to do it. When my parents suggested the idea of becoming an inspirational speaker, I couldn’t help but say “YES” in a very passionate tone and with an ecstatic grin.
Yes, I thought. This is it! This is how I can inspire people!
And I was right.
But the journey to get to the current success I have now wasn’t quite as easy as one would think.
That period of time wasn’t the best time to start an inspirational speaking business due to complications with our house and forcedly moving to a new house. So we put the idea on hold until a little while, after the dust of moving had settled.
Finally, the dust had, in fact, settled. We started a business called “Big Ideas Kid Coaching,” and my daddy crafted the website and the first logo. Things were going extremely well, and I couldn’t wait to speak at my first location.
But it took a while of my parents looking for speaking event locations, us asking so many different staffs, hoping to get an opportunity for me to speak– until finally, we found a daycare that was excited for me to speak to the kids.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
We spent months going over the script, changing things, studying, researching, and worst of all – memorizing. Was it painful? Yes. Did we spend literal sweat and tears on the entire process? Yes. But the event was such a success, and I was so excited for Big Ideas Kid Coaching and where other roads may lead me as well.
Things seemed to go quite well for the time being. I published my first book – a book that I had written when I was only six years old but it took years to get the illustrations done. It was a children’s book called The Princess Chronicles, and I published it in April 2017. It’s about princesses that are learning kindness, friendship, trust, teamwork, honesty, forgiveness, and more important qualities. I sold books very quickly in book signings, and I excelled in speaking more and more – but the processes behind those speaking events were painful as ever, particularly memorizing.
Then, I started writing another book.
Long story short, we went through the entire grueling process – yet again, spending literal sweat, tears, focus, and energy – of editing the book to be good enough for publishing, when the publisher we were using just dropped the book at the very end of all the edits.
At the time, we were all extremely discouraged, and I particularly was devastated. I felt like the entire grueling, painstaking and painful process of editing was all for nothing. But in truth, it wasn’t. And that book, False Awakening, was self-published on November 1st, 2018 – and I couldn’t have been happier when I finally had the book in my hand.
But that wasn’t the end of it. False Awakening – which is a novel about a man who’s in a dream within a dream within a dream – was republished and reedited in August 2020 by the incredible Ron Mumford and Ian Gorman with 3rd Coast Books. I was able to reedit the book myself in addition, and felt so proud of the finished product, not to mention the fact that it hit Amazon bestseller. And then… Well, then, our dreams came true.
My book, False Awakening, is now in contract to become a movie with 360 Studios.
Since the original publishing of my book, I have been speaking at many other locations, featured in newspaper articles, and even was the Red Carpet Hostess for the ExCEL Honors Awards Gala. But it’s all because of hard work.
You may be thinking, “So now what? Is this where the story ends?”
Not even close, dear reader, not even close. This is simply where the story begins.
You might also be thinking to yourself, “Why did you share all of this? What’s your point?”
My point is that everything that I’ve done and am doing is because of hard work. It’s because of working to the point of exhaustion and then some. It’s because of “the grind” – it really is true, and it really is necessary! It’s because of my amazing parents, who helped me and supported me with each and every step of the journey.My point is that you too can achieve success.
This is article not just about me by any stretch of the imagination – it’s about you; about the fact that you can achieve whatever you want to achieve. If I can achieve my goals, you can achieve your goals too!
But if you take anything away from this article, it’s that success takes hard work. Success is not an accident. Success is not just something that “happens.” Success is something you must work for, something you must sacrifice for, something you must fight for.
And when you do work, when you do sacrifice, when you do fight – I guarantee you that you will succeed! As I like to say in my inspirational speaking events, You Rock, Dream Big and You Got This!
– Arianna Fox, 14-Year-Old Girlpreneur, Author & Motivational Speaker