Persevere to the End
Today as I celebrate my 42nd birthday, I also reflect on my 15th birthday when an incident that happened so fast changed everything about my life.
And made me question if I would be successful.
What I learned in my journey, 26 years after becoming a mother, is that to be successful in life you must be willing to persevere to the end. No matter how gloomy, or devastating life might be, keep going. You never know the end of the story.
If I had let the beginning of my story stop me from pursuing my dreams, I may never have
- written a book which later became a curriculum
- created videos lessons to share my life lessons
- helped people from all over the world to deal with situations similar to mine
My business and foundation may not exist.
The S.O. What! brand would never have seen the light of day. But because I pushed through all the challenges of being a single teenage mother without all the help I wanted and many times needed, I came out on the other side stronger. I’ll be the first to admit that it hasn’t been great or fun all the time. My life wasn’t perfect. However, if you want to be successful in life, you need to also think about the person you are becoming as a result of life’s challenges.
The challenges I have been through made me a better person.
And gave me a story to share to encourage and inspire others facing similar circumstances in their live. Success is attainable, no matter how humble your beginnings or how huge the obstacles in your way look. Keep going – there is beauty and success at the other end of it.
The feeling of accomplishment after persevering to the end is indescribable. It’s been bigger than my life and my journey. To be successful in life, you may need to step outside of what’s comfortable and imagine how your undiluted opinion and zeal for God can be a blessing to the world, your kids and your family.
When I became a mother at the age of fifteen to a baby without a father, I thought my life was over. I even thought about ending it. I never imagined that I could have loved my baby so much or realized the dreams I had before getting pregnant. The same can be true for you.
Just don’t give up.
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I’m Summer Owens, and my passion is helping youth and young adults realize success no matter what obstacles they face. As an international resilience and leadership keynote speaker, author, S.O. What! Success Coach, and creator of the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum, I empower people to say, “So what!” to even their greatest challenges. provide a framework to help people see past their challenges and focus on solutions using the S.O. What! Success System (Overcome Obstacles + Eliminate Excuses + Calculate Choices = S.O. What! Success). Through keynotes, workshops, books, online courses, and workbooks, I use life’s challenges and my own story of resilience as a rape survivor and teen mom success story to help others confidently pursue their dreams.
Looking for an inspiring college motivational speaker? A high school literacy curriculum? A middle school life skills workbook? A great example for teen mothers? A women’s empowerment or single mother’s conference speaker? I’m your girl and will help any audience say, “S.O. What!”.
