I’m on day five Post Pink Slip, and I’m happy to say I’m out of the sweat pants phase (wearing jeans today!) and starting to look at things in a better light. If you asked me earlier this week, I’d say when one door closes, it gets very dark. Now I’m warming up to the old adage, “When a door closes, a window opens.” Well folks, I’m window shopping. And to get myself in the spirit of things, I found some new muses. Insanely successful women who were at one point in their careers and lives even downer in the dumps than I am now. If they can do it, so can I!

Great Women Who First Didn’t Succeed (via onlinecollege.org):

Oprah Winfrey: Most people know Oprah as one of the most iconic faces on TV as well as one of the richest and mostsuccessful women in the world. Oprah faced a hard road to get to that position, however, enduring a rough and often abusive childhood as well as numerous career setbacks including being fired from her job as a television reporter because she was “unfit for tv.”

Emily Dickinson: Recluse and poet Emily Dickinson is a commonly read and loved writer. Yet in her lifetime she was all but ignored, having fewer than a dozen poems published out of her almost 1,800 completed works.

J. K. Rowling: Rowling may be rolling in a lot of Harry Potter dough today, but before she published the series of novels she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination