We were lucky to catch up with Jennifer Nielsen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jennifer, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I was really lucky to have two great parents. Although they were divorced, they were each wonderful examples of resilience. My mom found a way to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table, and even scheduled her working hours to be home when we were out of school. To this day, I have no idea when she slept. As the years go on, I have increased respect for the lessons she taught me about knowing that there is always a solution to everything, even if sometimes we have to work harder to find it.
With my dad, I visited him one day and he had a new trampoline. I’d never been on a trampoline before but I thought it was great fun. He offered me a dollar if I could learn to do a flip by the end of the day. For some reason, that lit a fire under me. I practiced and practiced endlessly. The dollar was great, but honestly, not that great. What mattered far more is that I knew as soon as I went home, I wouldn’t have the chance to use a trampoline again until my next visit. So if I was going to learn to do a flip, it had to be that day. The sun was setting when I called him out to see me do the flip.
Lessons like these were powerful when I was younger. In my life now, I can fall on my face over and over again, and I frequently do. But thanks to my parents, I learned to get up just one more time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am the author of about twenty books for young readers, mostly fantasy and historical novels. Over my career, I have gained an appreciation for just how powerful books can be. They will share out attitudes and beliefs, open doors to other places, times and worlds. They reflect us as readers, empower us, motivate us. I consider it an incredible privilege to be able to do what I do.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
As I look back, I can see three traits that were vital for me to finally move forward as a published author. First is to understand who was on my team and who was not. When I was first trying to get published, I believed that everyone in my life would automatically be my cheerleader. Why not? They cared about me and wanted good things for my life. I had to learn that those didn’t necessarily translate to them being on my team. Not because they didn’t care, but maybe because they didn’t understand exactly what I was trying to do, or how hard it was, or the odds against me ever getting a yes.
As a result, the second thing I learned was the importance of believing in myself. I believe that a person could have a team of a thousand people cheering them on, but if they don’t believe in themselves, none of that will matter. And a person could have no one behind them, but if they believe in themselves, it’s enough. I was lucky to have key people in my life who definitely saw a future for me as an author, but the most important person ever to believe this dream was possible, was me.
Third is what I call mad dog tenacity. It’s taking hold of your dream and refusing to let go. Whatever a person’s dream might be, they might feel as if they’re pushing at a brick wall in trying to move forward. If so, if they keep pushing at that wall, it will make them stronger. In time, the wall will crumble and they will be ready to move forward.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
For those who may be familiar with the musical “Hamilton,” (and if you aren’t, stop reading and go listen to the soundtrack), There’s a song sung by the character, Aaron Burr, near the end called “The World Was Wide Enough.” In it, he has this realization that the world was wide enough for both him and Alexander Hamilton to succeed.
I’ve taken that lesson into my own life. Being an author can be a competitive field, and one in which it’s horrifyingly easy to make comparisons. Who has a better Amazon ranking, more stars from reviewers, more awards, etc. So it’s also easy to fall into a trap where we tell ourselves that someone else’s success equates to our failure. If they get ahead, then we’ve gotten behind.
I try not to see it that way anymore. Instead, I remind myself that none of those things matter nearly as much as knowing that somewhere out there is a young reader who found one of my books and believed it was written just for her. And what could be better than that?
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jennielsen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nielsenwriter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Nielsenwriter/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nielsenwriter
Image Credits
Poppy’s Books, Spanish Fork, UT
