Persistence is the Path to Success

I wanted a better life and I knew only education could provide this. My family supported me but I disconnected with my old friends due to a values and interests clash. I had to create a new academic behavior and study habits.

Attaining my GED certificate has already opened tremendous doors for me. I am a GED success story. I want to take this opportunity to share my story of success with you as a way of being featured as an inspiration to your subscribers. First off, I am an avid subscriber of self-help philosophies and personal development practices. My entire life revolves around this form of thinking and my brain takes to it very easily in terms of measured improvements in my personal and professional life. I am a published author of two self-help books. I am a successful faculty facilitator at a local college in New York City, a trained life coach with a growing practice and I recently was accepted to a PhD program for Information Studies with Long Island University. The beauty of all this is that many years ago, I started out with a GED after dropping out of high school in the mid 80s.

Finally, at the tender age of 47, I am in the greatest shape of my life having adopted the weight lifting and fitness lifestyle for more than 14 years now. My health, stamina, focus and body have never been better, weighing 182 pounds of muscle while boasting a 32 inch waist. I am routinely mistaken for at least 10 years younger than my biological age and possess infinitely higher levels of energy than any of my peers or supervises.

I was born very poor to a single parent house hold in the black ghetto section of Boston, Massachusetts, and was raised on welfare. I was one of three children, and growing up was indeed a struggle because my father was an uneducated womanizing hustler who barely had a presence in my life and my mother was a chronically unemployed parent who scapegoated all of her misfortunes in life on her children. Later my youngest brother and I confidently concluded that my mother suffered from a form of mental illness called ’Dissociative Disorder’ which includes symptoms of mental blocks and memory repression of periods in one’s life, hyper sensitivity and personalizing negative interactions. It was very difficult growing up under these conditions and I even took to a brief life of crime during my teenage years which was a blessing in disguise because it lead me to my first positive male role model in the form of a corrections officer. On his positive influence, I took and passed the GED exam and was on my way to a four-year college by the age of 20. However my academic success did not come easy and in fact was downright challenging at times. Nonetheless, I did indeed graduate from college and attained a Master’s degree by the year 2000 in Political Science.

There is obviously much more to my story which includes the death of my oldest brother in 2002 from AIDS and how my family and I dealt with that. What I am sharing now is an inspirational American story of perseverance from a difficult childhood to a successful married parent and academic professional. I believe that we are co-creators of our lives with the universe to achieve success and can be a source of inspiration to others. Through the skills I learned I look forward to the opportunity to change the perpetual negative mindset of many inner city individuals and replacing it with a positive high self-esteem, goal-affirming mindset.