When life gives you lemons, say "Thank You" because...

What life throws at you is never fully in your control.

What you make out of that which gets thrown at you is 100 percent in your control.

Between stimulus and response, there is always a choice.

Seven lemon recipients you may have heard about

7 | Twenty Seven Years In Prison And Then First Black President

Nelson Mandela was born in a small village in South Africa during the apartheid era, where he faced racial discrimination and oppression throughout his childhood, teenage years, and youth.

For his protests against apartheid, he was imprisoned for 27 years.

In prison, he was put to hard labour in a lime quarry, given very little food, and only allowed one visitor every six months.

He continued his fight against apartheid from prison and, after his release from prison, became the first black president of South Africa.

He once famously said, “I never lose. I either win or learn.”

6 | Suicidal Single Parent Becomes World's First Billionaire Author

J. K. Rowling dreamed of being a writer from childhood.

She had a mother who suffered from multiple sclerosis and had a strained relationship with her father.

Rowling finally hit rock bottom when her marriage broke down and left her a single parent with an infant child.

She had no steady job, lived on government welfare, and went into depression when her mother finally passed away.

As she contemplated suicide, sitting in a cafe with her young baby, small flashes of a story came to her.

A story of a young boy who was unloved and neglected, and yet one day would become great.

Little by little, she put together the story that would eventually become Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

When she finished her book and sent it to publishers, no one wanted to touch it.

One after another, twelve top publishers in Britain rejected her book.

Finally, a small publishing company agreed to publish her book only because the company chairman’s young daughter had loved the book.

Once her book was published, it sold 500 million copies, was translated into 80+ languages, and made her the world’s first billionaire author.

She once said, “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

5 | Abused Black Teenager Becomes Global Symbol Of Hope

Oprah Winfrey was born to a teenage single mother in rural Mississippi in a house that had no running water.

She was so poor that her mother made her dresses stitched from potato sacks as they could not afford clothes.

At the age of 9, she started getting abused, and by 14, she became pregnant. The baby died shortly after birth.

Through her teenage years, she was moving through various homes and struggling with constant rejection.

At the age of 19, she finally became America’s first female African American news anchor.

Critics told her she was too emotional and did not fit the standard image of a news anchor.

Many years later, she landed her talk show, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” and her unique empathetic style skyrocketed her to fame.

Her show became the highest-rated talk show in history, and she became a global symbol for hope and healing.

She went on to become a billionaire, opened schools for girls in Africa, and donated millions to charities across the world.

Oprah once said, “Turn your wounds into wisdom.”

4 | Sixty Five Years Of Being Broke To Overnight Millionaire

Colonel Sanders lost his father when he was 6, and when his mother went to work, he had to learn to cook and care for his siblings.

He dropped out of school in seventh grade and took odd jobs.

By age 60, he had been fired from dozens of jobs, had multiple failed business ventures, and was living on social security checks.

At the age of 65, he came up with a secret chicken recipe with 11 herbs that he tried to sell to restaurants.

One after another, over 1000 restaurants rejected his chicken recipe.

Eventually, Kentucky Fried Chicken was born, and at the age of 73, he sold KFC for millions of dollars.

Sander’s life is proof that you can never be too old to succeed.

He’s known to have said, “I made a resolve that I was going to amount to something. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me.”

3 | Bright Student Fights Terminal Disease For 55 years And Becomes World Renowned Scientist

Stephen Hawking was a bright student from an early age, though he was never at the top of the class.

His teachers saw a promising future career in science for him.

At age 20, he entered Cambridge University as a PhD student in cosmological physics.

And then at the age of 21, he was diagnosed with a degenerative disease called ALS.

Doctors told him he had two years to live.

As the disease progressed, his body became paralyzed, his speech slurred, and he could only move in a wheelchair.

For most people, this would be the point where all hope is lost.

But Hawking decided to dedicate the rest of his life to science.

With his wife’s help, he continued his research in Physics and went on to make many landmark discoveries about black holes.

He wrote the book “A Brief History of Time,” which sold 25 million copies and simplified physics for the common person.

His greatest accomplishment was not that he became a world-renowned scientist and best-selling author, all from a wheelchair.

His greatest achievement was that he fought his disease and went on to live for 50+ years when doctors had only given him 2 years to live.

He is famous for saying, “However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”

2 | Broke Teenager Buys The Company That Laughed At Him

Howard Schultz was born into a poor family in Brooklyn, New York.

Watching his parents struggle to make ends meet left a deep impression on his childhood mind.

He was the first from his family to attend college, for which he raised money through loans and part-time jobs.

After graduation, he worked in various sales roles and eventually joined a coffee-maker company called Starbucks.

On a trip to Italy, Schultz came across espresso bars where people gathered and talked over coffee.

He pitched the idea for a similar coffeehouse to Starbucks’ owners, but was rejected.

Schultz left Starbucks and started his own coffee shop called Il Giornale, but struggled to raise money from investors who didn’t believe in his idea of a “third place” for people to relax.

After many rejections, he gathered enough money from friends and small-time investors and eventually turned Il Giornale into a success.

He finally made so much money that he bought the company Starbucks, where he had once worked, and then merged it with his own company.

He famously stated, “Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible. Care more than others think wise.”

1 | Survived Being Shot In The Head For Her Beliefs And Went On To Win The Nobel Peace Prize

Malala Yousafzai was born in rural Pakistan.

Her father ran a school and instilled a love for learning in her from an early age.

With growing Taliban influence in her region, girls were forbidden from going to school.

At the age of 11, Malala started speaking publicly about girls’ right to education and attracted global attention through online forums.

She received many death threats from the Taliban but continued her activism openly.

At age 15, when she was riding a school bus back home, a masked Taliban gunman stopped her bus and shot her in the head at point-blank range.

Most believed she wouldn’t survive, but after multiple surgeries, she slowly recovered.

After the attack, Malala became even more vocal about her fight for girls’ education.

She went on to write a bestselling memoir and founded a non-profit organization for educating girls worldwide.

At age 17, she became the youngest person in history to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

She became a global symbol of education rights.

In her United Nations speech, she gave the message:

“One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.”

There are many more such stories, and they all have one thing in common

No matter who you are.

No matter where you are.

Somewhere around you is a person who started out in worse conditions than you did.

They had a worse family, worse education, worse health, or something else that tried to hold them back.

And yet they managed to make a better life than most others around them.

Life gave them lemons, they made lemonade.

What happens to you is never fully in your control.

How you respond to what happens to you is always in your control.

What situation happens to you is an outside event, an external stimulus.

How you react to the situation is an internal response.

Between stimulus and response, there is a choice.

If you throw a stone at a dog

The dog will respond in only one way.

It doesn’t matter if the dog is old or young, big or small, wild or tame, the dog will bark.

The dog has no choice about it; it can only react by instinct.

Now if someone throws a stone at you, whether the stone is physical, verbal, or even a text message stone.

Whether the stone is thrown by your boss, your partner, or by life, you have a choice how to respond.

You can also bark, you can also react by instinct, like most people do.

Or you can choose to respond in a different way.

Your whole life is built up by adding together the small decisions you made at key moments in your life.