“Success is not overnight. It is when every day you get a little better than the day before.”
— Dwayne Johnson
Johnson tells this story in every major interview. Seven dollars became his symbol. Eviction, arrests, injury, being cut from the CFL. He turned his lowest moment into fuel. By fifty he was the highest-paid actor in the world and had built a business empire from nothing.
When I was fourteen we got evicted from our apartment in Hawaii. My mother cried. My father said nothing. I watched our stuff being carried onto the street. We had no money for food. I shoplifted. Not out of rebellion but because I was hungry. By seventeen I had been arrested several times. Then I got a football scholarship to Miami and thought that was my ticket. My shoulder got torn. No NFL contract. The Canadian league paid a hundred and seventy-five dollars a week. They cut me after two months. I was twenty-three with seven bucks in my pocket. Seven. I decided: if the world will not give me a chance, I will make my own. Every day at four in the morning.