Dani Johnson Story of Creating A Happy Ending
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
I love Dani Johnson’s story because she came from a ship wrecked childhood but managed to break the chain against all odds & today is Multimillionaire. I started following Dani Johnson on Facebook before ever writing this article. Now seeing her featured article written on Forbes website is truly inspiring for all Women. I recently wrote Why 2013 will be the year of women entrepreneurs article that I referenced on about how Forbes is featuring many strong leadership women and how they leveraged the Internet & Social Media to build their brand.
In an episode of Sex And The City, the lead character Carrie Bradshaw, once poignantly concluded, “Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe, you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.”
Dani was not always successful but you wouldn’t never know by seeing her today. She was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
Dani grew up on welfare in a home filled with intense violence. Her parents were total drug addicts. She was emotionally, physically, verbally, and sexually abused on a regular basis. She was grabbed by the throat and shoved up against the wall so that the man she thought was her father, who was 6’10″ and 350 pounds, could cuss her out at eye level. (And then when she was almost 18 years old, she found out that the man who had treated her this way her entire life was not even her father! Her biological father was from Nicaragua!) Dani was kicked across the room and beaten. She would watch her sisters be kicked across the room and beaten. Violence, truma, and dysfunction were all she knew growing up. She was exposed to things no child should ever see.
She ended up pregnant at 17 and homeless at 21. She was drinking, doing drugs, partying, and sleeping around, and she was well on her way to becoming nothing more than a product of my horrific childhood.
Her whole life was filled with horror and terror and lies and she vowed that she would never be like her family. And there she was doing cocaine…”
On this one Christmas Eve, she joined other waitresses at the beach on a drink and drug binge.
Even though this day was rock bottom, it was the day of her miracle
“I was sweating as I was constantly dancing. I see the coke and I leaned down and I did a line. I remember waking up at 10 the next morning on my beach mat and I am asking everyone for coke. I was walking around saying, ‘Where do I get more of that stuff?’
That day, I would have given my body – I would have become a prostitute for coke and that’s how low I became. I hated everything about myself. I knew my future would never be good.
Fueled by the after-effects of the drug, in an almost catatonic state that morning, Dani decided she was going to end it all. “I started walking towards the ocean and dived underneath the wave.”
A few more moments under, and her life would have ended there – not an unsurprising demise given her circumstances, the coroner and police chief would have quietly concluded.
But as it happened, in that instant, her life changed forever
Almost a Miracle’
“I heard a voice say, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’’
It felt almost like a miracle to her.
I rolled up my beach mat, turned around and hiked a mile that I needed to in order to get back to my car. I drove 45 minutes to the beach where I was living. And the whole time I was driving, it was as if the left side of my mind was saying, ‘This is not what is intended for your life, you shouldn’t be drinking. There is more to life,’ and the right side was saying, ‘You’re a failure, you’re a loser, you’re filthy; worse than your parents. Drive this car into the ocean.’ This was like a war inside my mind with these voices and I was literally in a trance.
And I have no idea why I chose to listen to that first voice.”
“As a cocktail waitress, I was not making enough, so I had to figure out my options.”
“I get this idea. Everything I ever owned was in the backseat of my car. And there was this weight loss program I had purchased long before I was homeless, lying in the back seat. I had used it for a week. I never paid attention to it before. And it just caught the corner of my eye in the sun. It was warped from the humidity. But it was as if this device was talking to me. I picked it up and it was as if this thing was saying, ‘I’m your answer.’ And my first thought was, ‘No, I’m not going to peddle a weight loss program! No way I’m going to do this!’
And this is when Dani decided to get resourceful.
“I handwrote a flyer [for the weight loss program] but I needed a phone number to advertise so people could contact me – and I didn’t have one. So I picked up the Yellow Pages in the phone booth. You know cocktail waitresses always have coins! So I looked through the Yellow Pages and called a small telecommunications company. And I chatted with this guy for some time, trying to build a relationship. I asked him what the cost of their voice mail service was.
He said to me, ‘Don’t drive all the way to pay for this. Here’s your new number…!’
Dani down to her last quarter for that week, she got the break she needed.
“I put up the flyer at the Post Office where everyone in this town went to, and three hours later, not thinking I would get any messages – it was filled with 25 messages. I didn’t know what to do with them!
Dani made a quarter of a million dollars that first year just by selling the weight loss program, was a millionaire by the second year and went on to open up 18 weight loss centers around the country. She sold the business in 1996 – a multi-millionaire.
Today, Dani is passionately married to her husband and business partner, Hans. She is a mother of 5 and a grandmother of 4. Dani is a multimillionaire, owner of 5 companies, nationally syndicated radio show host, as well as a bestselling author spends her time jetting around the world, giving back through her various charities and international speaker and trainer.
In the first 24 hours since the Forbes article was published, it has gone totally viral on Facebook, with more than 13,200 shares. It actually beat out other articles including a full list of 2013 Grammy winners, coverage of President Obama’s State of the Union Address, and an “Ask Me Anything” session with Bill Gates.
The sad thing is, so many people who have a terrible past just stay there. So many people seem to believe that just because they had a rough start, nothing can ever change. But that’s not the case…
The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter how you start in life! It is NEVER the circumstances that determine your success in life. All that matters is how you finish.
Imagine your happy ending. What does it look like? What does it feel like? My friend, you have to understand something today. It is possible. It is so possible!
YOU are in control of your happy ending. You are in control of your future. Dani is living proof that you can rise up out of nothing and create a life that is good and full and happy.
The information I obtained was from Dani Johnson’s website & The Forbes Article Read More of Dani’s Story here and Visit the Forbes article here
The Forbes author Maseena Ziegler, Contributor
Are you ready to make a change in your life today? In our community we are inspiring others with self development, learning how become more within yourself, learn sales mindset and learn the leverage of Social media and the Internet.
Learn How it All started here for me Go Here
You can find more about me Here