kristofferR
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Madam C.J Walker
First, she was born in Louisiana.
On a farm.
In 1865.
Not really an ideal time and place to be born if you’re:
A woman.
African American.
But she had plenty of additional challenges to face.
She was an orphan at age seven.
At age 14, she got married …reportedly to escape the abuse that she was suffering at the hands of her brother-in-law.
She became a mother at age 17, and a widow at age 20.
She supported herself and her daughter by picking cotton on a farm, by being a laundress, and by working in a barber shop. From what I can tell, the most she ever made during that time was $1.50 a day.
But It Got Worse
At around 25 years old, she began to develop a a condition that caused her to start balding.
Can you imagine? As if she didn’t have enough to deal with …now the poor lady’s hair is falling out.
(And we whine when our cell phone drops a call every now and then… kind of embarrassing.)
Anyway …
Here’s Where It Gets Good
It shouldn’t surprise you that she quickly became a student of “how to fix this damned balding problem”.
In fact, she researched all kinds of treatments, and eventually discovered that sulfur could abolish the scalp disease that was causing people to lose their hair.
(Apparently, people lost their hair a lot back then because they didn’t bathe as much. They would get some nasty scalp infection and their hair would fall out. But if you treated the problem with sulfur, you could knock it out.)
So she did the only logical thing to do, which was to start her own business …selling a product called “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower”.
Keep in mind, she was just starting out and didn’t have a big budget (probably NO budget at all) so she had no choice but to …
Go Out, Grab The World By The Balls, And Bend It To Her Will!
And the first thing she did was to go door to door, selling her product.
Listen – nobody really embraces a door to door sales person with open arms these days, you know?
But imagine what it must have been like for Madam Walker in the racist and male dominated environment she was working in back then.
…That took some cojones.
How many times do you think she was rejected?
How many doors do you think were slammed in her face?
How many insults did she hear?
I’m willing to bet she even was threatened …regularly.
But did that stop her?
Hell No!
Not only did she survive …she thrived.
Mrs Walker hung in there and sold more products, developed new ones, and finally opened up a factory in Indianapolis.
By 1913, she was traveling around the world training other women to sell her products.
…And by the time she died in 1919 at age 51, she had become
The World’s First Female Self-Made Millionare!
Against incredible odds, wouldn’t you say?
Man – what a story.
Did I mention that her parents were former slaves? I don’t think I did.
So her story is amazing, and I think her success is largely due to one critical characteristic:
The Amazing Ability To Get Off Of One’s a$$ And Get To WORK.
Seems we have a lack of that ability these days.
Think about it.
The real secret to success is to get out there and work like hell.
And when we think about Madam C.J. Walker, it’s painfully obvious that …
We Have Absolutely NO Excuse For Failure!
First, she was born in Louisiana.
On a farm.
In 1865.
Not really an ideal time and place to be born if you’re:
A woman.
African American.
But she had plenty of additional challenges to face.
She was an orphan at age seven.
At age 14, she got married …reportedly to escape the abuse that she was suffering at the hands of her brother-in-law.
She became a mother at age 17, and a widow at age 20.
She supported herself and her daughter by picking cotton on a farm, by being a laundress, and by working in a barber shop. From what I can tell, the most she ever made during that time was $1.50 a day.
But It Got Worse
At around 25 years old, she began to develop a a condition that caused her to start balding.
Can you imagine? As if she didn’t have enough to deal with …now the poor lady’s hair is falling out.
(And we whine when our cell phone drops a call every now and then… kind of embarrassing.)
Anyway …
Here’s Where It Gets Good
It shouldn’t surprise you that she quickly became a student of “how to fix this damned balding problem”.
In fact, she researched all kinds of treatments, and eventually discovered that sulfur could abolish the scalp disease that was causing people to lose their hair.
(Apparently, people lost their hair a lot back then because they didn’t bathe as much. They would get some nasty scalp infection and their hair would fall out. But if you treated the problem with sulfur, you could knock it out.)
So she did the only logical thing to do, which was to start her own business …selling a product called “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower”.
Keep in mind, she was just starting out and didn’t have a big budget (probably NO budget at all) so she had no choice but to …
Go Out, Grab The World By The Balls, And Bend It To Her Will!
And the first thing she did was to go door to door, selling her product.
Listen – nobody really embraces a door to door sales person with open arms these days, you know?
But imagine what it must have been like for Madam Walker in the racist and male dominated environment she was working in back then.
…That took some cojones.
How many times do you think she was rejected?
How many doors do you think were slammed in her face?
How many insults did she hear?
I’m willing to bet she even was threatened …regularly.
But did that stop her?
Hell No!
Not only did she survive …she thrived.
Mrs Walker hung in there and sold more products, developed new ones, and finally opened up a factory in Indianapolis.
By 1913, she was traveling around the world training other women to sell her products.
…And by the time she died in 1919 at age 51, she had become
The World’s First Female Self-Made Millionare!
Against incredible odds, wouldn’t you say?
Man – what a story.
Did I mention that her parents were former slaves? I don’t think I did.
So her story is amazing, and I think her success is largely due to one critical characteristic:
The Amazing Ability To Get Off Of One’s a$$ And Get To WORK.
Seems we have a lack of that ability these days.
Think about it.
The real secret to success is to get out there and work like hell.
And when we think about Madam C.J. Walker, it’s painfully obvious that …
We Have Absolutely NO Excuse For Failure!
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