I love hearing stories of the twisted routes creative people take towards achieving their goals.  In my TV and podcast radio interview programs and Making Opportunity Knock book, I’ve shared their “failures” and successes. The overriding message loud and clear is, “Don’t give up…you never know how one thing with lead to another…” It’s about going with the flow…

I’ve had plenty of my own failures.

When I attended high school, if we chose the general rather than commercial (secretarial) track, we were not allowed to take typing. I always felt typing was a necessary skill, so years later I took an adult typing class offered by our city’s Continuing Education program. This was before computers. I’d forgotten that I don’t like competition – and speed typing in a classroom of ‘competitors’ didn’t suit me. When I ‘failed’ typing. I was ashamed. However, my second name is Perseverance: I practiced on my own, first on a typewriter, then on a computer. I’ve managed to write/type books, scripts, essays, articles and blogs. Who knew back when that all of these would come about?

As a child growing up, I attended 13 schools in Toronto when my immigrant parents moved around according to circumstances. I became an elementary school teacher, leaving when I gave birth to the first of four kids. Returning to university, I took note of the profs in addition to my kids’ teachers. What made them good instructors? Subsequently, because of problematic issues I was identifying in the school system, I wrote the draft to an article which I submitted to a newspaper editor – who rejected it. Who knew that a chain of events arising from that rejection would lead to a manuscript my agent sent out that would be itself be rejected by 29 publishers before being picked up by Penguin Books Canada? Who knew that all those positive and negative school experiences from childhood through adulthood would contribute to Grading the Teacher: A Parent/Teacher Guide, a book that became a bestseller featured nationwide by media and sold worldwide? Not I.

What’s your story? What failures led up to your success? What roads did you travel to achieve your goals?

The updated 2017 print edition of Grading the Teacher: A Parent/Teacher Guide will soon be available. To be notified of publication date, contact me to add your name to the list.