- She's a British novelist
best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The books have gained
world wide attention, won multiple awards and have
sold over 400 million copies. In 2004, Forbes named her the first person to become a billionaire by writing books. She's JK Rowling and here are
her top 10 rules for success. - Failure gave me an inner
security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things
about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will and more discipline than I had suspected. I also found out that I
had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies. The knowledge that you have
emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that
you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know
yourself or the strength of your relationships,
until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won and it has been worth more
than any qualification I ever earned. I was on the train from
Manchester to London and it came, just came. - Had something like that
ever happened to you before? - Yes, truthfully. I mean, other ideas have just come to me, because I think, if you're a writer and that's what you spend a
huge amount of time doing, ideas do come to you. But nothing had ever
come, so, with such a, I felt God, I'd love to write that. When I got off the train,
I went straight home and I started writing. It is one of the amazing
and wonderful things about literature as
about film and music is, it's utterly subjective. - [Interviewer] It's somebodies opinion. - That's the point of it,
you know, that's the point. Of course, you move in that world. If you expect to just stand under a shower of perpetual praise, there's
something wrong with you. - [Interviewer] That's exactly right. - You will get criticism. I knew that going in
and the funny thing is, I'm not a particularly, I was never a very confident person and there are areas in my life in which I'm very thin-skinned. But not in this area. In this area, I think
it's right and proper I should be criticized
and that's literature. - [Interviewer] And can you learn-- - [Interviewer] Did you write in here? - Mm hmm, this is really
the room where I finished Philosopher's Stone in here. This is really where I turned
my life around, completely. I mean, my life changed
so much in this fact. I feel I really became myself here. And that everything stripped away. I've made such a mess of
things, but that was freeing. So I want to write, so I write
the book, I wrote the book. What is the worst that can happen? It gets turned down by
every publisher in Britain, big deal. So you know, it's really
back to the wool time here. The bedrooms are not, well, my bedroom, the bedroom is a lot tidier now. God. God, that's much-- The place was a tip when I lived here. Oh, there are Harry Potter books. Now that is really freaky. And for years now I felt
like, if it all disappeared, and some days I do feel
like that, is it real? Then this is where I would
come back to, you know. This would be my baseline. I'd be back in Neath. Obviously if I'd known that, well was it 10 years, yeah, 10 years on, I'd come
back here with a film crew and there would be my published
books in someone else's bookcase in this room. I mean, it's really incredible to me. Really, I mean, yes. Because it's such a well
worn part of my story now, its a big yawn to here how I wrote it as though it was all some sort of publicity stunt I did for a year. But it was my life and it was very hard. I didn't know there was going to be this fairy tale resolution. Coming back here is just full of ghosts. I remember once, and it was like, well, like I'm going to call
it a flash of clairvoyance. Now, obviously, if it hadn't come true, it would just be some round
and crazy thought I'd had, but I do remember one day,
writing Philosopher's Stone. I was walking away from the
cafe where I'd been working. - Philosopher's Stone which
became Sorcerer's Stone. - Which became Sorcerer's Stone, exactly. So that's the first novel. I had this moment where
I suddenly thought, it was like another voice speaking to me. The voice said, "the
difficult thing's going to be to get published." "If it's published, it will be huge." - [Oprah] Wow. - And that is exactly what it was. - So there was some hint that
the voice had said to you. - [JK Rowling] Well the thing
is, you've got to believe, haven't you? - Yes. - You know, I was not the
world's most secure person. I wasn't someone with an enormous amount, in fact, I'd say I was someone
with not much self belief at all and yet in this one
thing in my life, I believed. That was the one thing in my life, I felt, I can tell a story. There's always trepidation. I think that people might
be surprised to know that I felt trepidation every
time I produced a Potter book. You know, the weight of
expectation there was, I won't say crushing. It was extraordinary and
wonderful to have that weight of expectation. But at times-- - [Interviewer] You were
competing with yourself? Yeah and with the expectations,
a lattaly of millions of fans, all of whom were
very invested in the story and wanted to see what they wanted to see, and I knew where I was going. I had to put on mental
blinkers a lot and just think, I know where I'm going. I must not be influenced by this. Given a time turner, I would
tell my 21 year old self that personal happiness
lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of
acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your
CV, are not your life, though you will meet many
people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult and
complicated and beyond anyone's total control and the
humility to know that will enable you to
survive its vicissitudes. I often get asked by younger
readers what I would advise if you want to be a writer. This is the way I did it,
so that's the only advice I can give. You've got to read as
much as you possibly can, 'cause that's the best way
to recognize good writing and to learn what makes bad writing, and those are very good things. You'll probably go through
a phase where you imitate your favorite writers. That's perfectly okay. That's another learning process. You resign yourself to writing
lots and lots of rubbish. You've just got to write
that out of your system and sooner or later,
you'll hit what you really should be doing and what is your genre. And perseverance. You've got to persevere,
'cause it is a career with a lot of knock-backs,
but the rewards are huge. I don't mean, in the sense
that if that's what you really want to do, to be able to do it lifelong is the best thing in the world. Very rewarding. But it's not a career for people
who are easily discouraged, that's for sure. To their parents, don't tell them its unrealistic. Never say that. Because even if they're
not published, writing, well, writing is the
passion of my life, so, it's an important thing to do. I've always, always, always
wanted to be a writer. Obviously you want to be a writer. You want to, you dream
of supporting yourself through writing, definitely. But it is a bit of both
because I was very much aware that children's books, the
possibility of supporting yourself solely by writing
children's books is slim. That's the reality of it, which
I was fully aware of that. In that sense, this has all
come as a huge, enormous shock. I'm delighted, because
I always wanted to write and always have written,
but my realistic side had not allowed me to dream
of half of what's happened to me, truthfully. If you choose to use
your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf
of those who have no voice, if you choose to identify,
not only with the powerful, but with the powerless,
if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the
lives of those who do not have your advantages,
then it will not only be your proud families who
celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions
of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic
to transform our world. We carry all the power we
need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better. - Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because
Natasha asked me to, so if there's a famous
entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave
it in the comments below and we'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which
of JK Rowling's top 10 tips meant the most to you. Leave it in the comments. We're going to join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Have a great day. Continue to Believe
and we'll see you soon.
