Credidbility

You may also struggle with credibility. You may ask yourself, what makes me special that I can do this. What credentials do I have that allows me to do this thing that I so desperately want. The fact that you are a uniquely created human being with a brain, a will and a capacity to learn gives you the badge of approval to move forward with whatever your hearts desire. You don’t have to have any sort of background, education or finances to start with. Just the decision of what you want.

To give support to this you only need to look at the lives of a few people who have faced defeat or have come from so very little in education and background but still found abundance.

John Lasseter is a hero of mine and his story is really inspiring to me... 

John Alan Lasseter (born January 12, 1957) is an American animator, film director, screenwriter, producer and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.[1]

John was a young man who fell in love with animation and Walt Disney. He began his working career at Disney theme park.s Lasseter joined The Walt Disney Company, and was promoted quickly up the ranks to a Jungle Cruise skipper at Disneyland in Anaheim. Eventually he got a job at the Disney animation studio 1982. John had an exciting passion and vision for Disney storytelling and new computer animation technology. This challenged the belief systems of some at the studio and he was eventually let go from the studio. He was working on a project to tell the story with computer animation being the centerpiece of the story telling. The project was expensive and the executives were looking to technology to make animation less expensive. John presented a demo to the executives and it seems it was not well received. That very same day he was let go from Disney. This could have been it for him, he could have saw this as something that wasn’t right for him and went into real estate instead. John took what he learned and continued his quest and vision for computer animated story telling. He made contacts, at a computer graphics conference, with a few people at Lucasfilm in their computer graphics division. John’s passion and vision for his project must have made an impression as he was able to get into Lucasfilm Computer Graphics division to continue making his computer animated short. The short was “The Adventures of André and Wally B”. It was a groundbreaking film using techniques unseen before in CGI. This short helped them develop another ground breaking film “Toy Story”.
Lucasfilm Computer Graphics was eventually sold off to another visionary, Steve Jobs. The company was renamed Pixar. Now the story could end there with the huge success that Pixar is today.
In April of 2006 Disney purchased Pixar. In the transition Lasseter was named chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He also became principal creative advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he helps design attractions for Disney's theme parks. This is a story of someone who expressed their love and passion for something through persistence. In the end arriving in a place where that love can be expressed to millions at the Disney theme parks and through Disney animation. He had a love for the DIsney legacy and in turn is creating his own legacy.

Henry Ford

As a young man had a knack for engineering and figuring out how things worked. His father gave him a pocket watch as a young teen. He would dismantle and reassemble it many times to understand its workings. He became known as the watch repairman to people in his community as he worked on his friends and neighbors watches.  About the age of 18 he moved to Detroit to learn and become a machinist. At 21 he moved back to his family’s farm where he operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. His knowledge of the engine grew ,which eventually led to a position with Westinghouse servicing their engines. Ford sought and gained knowledge on his own, despite only finishing the 8th grade. Ten years later he went to work at the  Edison Illuminating Company. Within two years became chief engineer. This allowed him time and money to continue experiments with gasoline engines. A couple years after that he was alble to meet Thomas Edison. That meeting helped encourage Ford to continue on and appeared to give him more energy to pursue his dreams. From those experiments he created what Ford called the “Ford Quadricycle”. He refined the design over the course of six years eventually resigning from Edison Illuminating Company.He then formed his own company,  the “Detroit Automobile Company” on August 5, 1899, with the backing of other wealthy industrialists. Although this was the direction Ford wanted to go it wasn’t entirely what he had envisioned, affordable cars for the common man. The cars his company produced were higher priced than Ford had wanted and the company dissolved eleven years later in 1901. This had to have been a signifigant moment in Fords life. This could have been the moment he decided to turn away from his dream and return back to the work he hated, working on the family farm. The company reformed under the name of the Henry Ford Motor company. One year later Ford left the company that bared his name over differences with his partners.

As a man with an engineer's mind, he looked at the problem and studied it for what did and did not work. Went back to the design board. He produced an 80+ horsepower car that won a race in 1902 that helped him gain new investors. He formed a partnership with a few of his investors which eventually lead to the founding of “Ford Motor Company”. From there Ford not only created an affordable car but a way of life. Ford ensured almost every news paper carried ads for his new Model T and at it’s affordable price most people could afford one. He helped create a network of dealers who encouraged the lifestyle of motoring and exploring the land in their new automobile. Always looking for improvement he pioneered the assembly line. This helped him to continue to drop the price on his cars. He also believed in fair wages for fair talent and paid top dollar for the best minds in engineering. He termed it the 5 dollar workday, equivalent to about 120 dollars today.This put pressure on other automobile companies to raise their pay or face losing their best talent. Ford had many challenges but kept moving forward, staying focused on his vision. He didn’t come from a family of means or money but went on to reinvent the auto industry, create an empire and build a legacy that endures today.

Oprah Winfrey

When someone looks at another persons life they see them how they are today and draw conclusions on how they got there. We don’t consider the struggle they had to reach where they are at. Oprah had many of lifes obstacles stacked against her. In her mind she didn’t see things as against her but that she could do anything. In her words she says that she was told she was a child of God and could do anything. God was her father, in the absence of a biological father. With a belief in something larger than herself and a belief in a power that could create the universe she became a person that could influence a nation. She is one of the most powerful and influential women in the world. Many news organizations have reported that her endorsement of Barack Obama brought nearly 1 million votes alone. She is able to declare bestselling books by just mentioning them or recommending them.

Oprah's life story is well known. Growing up she was poor, really poor. Her Grandmother made her clothes out of burlap bags. She was told she was ugly by many people, including family. Her success and fulfillment is not a fluke or luck. She didn't come from wealth or privilege. Her belief system allowed her to achieve so much and help so many. It's all in our mind.
"All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth" - Napoleon Hill