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- Jessica Cox
Jessica Cox was born in 1983 in Arizona without arms due to a rare birth defect. She is the world's first licensed armless pilot, as well as the first armless black-belt in the American Taekwondo Association. Jessica Cox graduated from the University of Arizona in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a minor in communications. Cox has not used prosthetic arms since she turned 14. Using her feet as most people use their hands, she is able, among other things, to drive an unmodified car with an unrestricted license, to type on a keyboard at 25 words per minute, to pump her own gas, and to put in and remove her contact lenses. She is also a certified scuba diver. At the age of 10, Cox began training in taekwondo at a school in her hometown of Sierra Vista. At the age of 14, she earned her first black belt. While in college at the University of Arizona Cox restarted her taekwondo training at an American Taekwondo Association club on campus. In an effort to help future students without the use of arms the instructors created an entire training curriculum by modifying the standard material from the ATA. For example, instead of a punch Cox executes a knee strike.Cox has since gone on to earn her second and third degree black belts in the ATA. Cox has also earned the title of 2014 Arizona State Champion in forms. She did not compete in a special abilities ring. Jessica Cox flew in a single-engine airplane for the first time via Wright Flight in 2004. Jessica earned her pilot's certificate on October 10, 2008, after three years of training, and is qualified to fly a light-sport aircraft to altitudes of 10,000 feet. She received her flight training through an Able Flight scholarship and soloed under the instruction of Parrish Traweek. Cox's Sport Pilot Certificate is for an ERCO 415-C Ercoupe which the Federal Aviation Administration has designated a light-sport aircraft. Designed in the 1940s, the Ercoupe was built without rudder pedals. "We feel Jessica Cox an inspiration VictoryTale and wishes her a grand success"
- Sergey Brin
We are sure that most of us know about Mr. Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin who is an American software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He co-founded Google with Larry Page. Popularly known as Sergey Brin, was the president of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc, until stepping down from the role in Dec 2019. We as VictoryTales believe that Brin is truly InspiringTale for all of us. Degree in philosophy Brin immigrated to the United States with his family from the Soviet Union at the age of six. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Maryland, College Park, following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps by studying mathematics, as well as computer science. After graduation, he enrolled at Stanford University to acquire a PhD in computer science. There he met Page, with whom he built a web search engine. The program became popular at Stanford, and they suspended their PhD studies to start up Google in Susan Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park. Brin’s father is a retired mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The Brin family lived in a three-room apartment in central Moscow, which they also shared with Sergey's paternal grandmother. In 1977, after his father returned from a mathematics conference in Warsaw, Poland, Mikhail Brin announced that it was time for the family to emigrate. It is believed that Brin is working on other, more personal projects that reach beyond Google. For example, he and Page are trying to help solve the world's energy and climate problems at Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, which invests in the alternative energy industry to find wider sources of renewable energy. The company acknowledges that its founders want "to solve really big problems using technology". "We feel Sergey Mikhaylovich Brinis an inspiration VictoryTale and wishes him a grand success"
- Sara Treleaven Blakely
An American businesswoman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. She is the founder of Spanx, an American intimate apparel company with pants and leggings, founded in Atlanta, Georgia. She was listed as the 93rd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. Blakely was born in Clearwater, Florida, and graduated from Florida State Univerity with a communication Degree. She is the daughter of Ellen, an artist, and trial attorney, John Blakely. Being the daughter of a trial attorney, she initially planned to become an attorney, she reconsidered after scoring very low on the Law School Admission Test; she instead accepted a job at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where she worked for three months. She also occasionally worked as a stand-up comedian during this period. After her short stint at Disney, Blakely accepted a job with office supply company Danka, where she sold fax machines door-to-door. She was quite successful in sales and was promoted to national sales trainer at the age of 25. At the age of 27, Blakely relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, and while still working at Danka, spent the next two years and $5,000 savings researching and developing her hosiery idea. Blakely then drove to North Carolina, the location of most of America's hosiery mills, to present her idea. She was turned away by every representative; these companies were used to dealing with established companies and did not see the value of her idea. Two weeks after arriving home from her North Carolina trip, Blakely received a call from a male mill operator based in Asheboro, North Carolina, who offered to support Blakely's concept, as he had received strong encouragement from his three daughters. Blakely further explained that the experience of developing her idea also revealed to her that the hosiery manufacturing industry was overseen solely by men who were not using the products they were producing. Blakely launched the “Sara Blakely Foundation” to help women through education and entrepreneurial training—Blakely had considered the establishment of a non-profit foundation prior to the founding of “Spanx”. "We feel Sara Treleaven Blakely is an inspiration VictoryTale and wish her a grand success"
- Nick Vujicic
We as VictoryTales believe that Mr. Nick Vujicic has blessed by God to Inspires the world despite not having his Arms, Legs, and Worries. Mr. Nick Vujicic was born on 4th December 1982 with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder (called phocomelia) characterized by the absence of arms and legs or simply without fully formed limbs. Mr. Nick is a world-renowned motivational speaker born in Melbourne to Dušanka and Borislav Vujičić, Serbian immigrants from Yugoslavia. Nick has two small and deformed feet, one of which he calls his “chicken drumstick” because of its shape. According to his autobiography, his mother refused to see him or hold him when the nurse held him in front of her, but she and her husband eventually accepted the condition and understood it as “God’s plan for their son”. Originally, the toes of his "chicken drumstick" foot were fused. An operation was performed to separate the toes so that he could use them as fingers to grab, turn a page, or do other things. He has been able to use his foot to operate an electric wheelchair, a computer, and a mobile phone. At the age of seventeen, Nick started to give talks at his prayer group. He graduated from W Griffith University at the age of 21 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, with a double major in Accountancy and financial planning. In 2005, Vujicic founded Life Without Limbs, an international non-profit organization. In 2007, he founded “Attitude is Altitude”, a secular motivational speaking company. It is said that Nick realized after reading about a disabled man who refused to let physical limitations dictate his life, that he had the ability to take control of his life. Instead of looking at everything he lacked, he decided to look at everything he could have. Now a famous author and international speaker, Nick inspires the world every day to live a life without limits. His message is brilliantly sobering thought and galvanic to the present generations. we as VictoryTales feel that he is the true example of God's gift who comes on earth as an inspiration to others. "We feel Nick Vujicic is an inspiration VictoryTale and wish him a grand success"
- Stephen King
Stephen King was struggling when he was first trying to write. He lived in a trailer with his wife —also a writer—and they both worked multiple jobs to support their family while pursuing their craft. They were so poor they had to borrow clothes for their wedding and had gotten rid of the telephone because it was too expensive. After graduating from the University of Maine, Mr. King earned a certificate to teach high school but, unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men’s magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been republished in the collection Night Shift. The short story "The Raft" was published in Adam, a men's magazine. After being arrested for driving over a traffic cone, he was fined $250 and had no money to pay the petty larceny fine. However, payment arrived for the short story "The Raft" (then entitled "The Float"), and King was able to pay the fine. In 1971, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels. King received so many rejection letters for his works that he developed a system for collecting them. In his book On Writing, he recalls: “By the time I was 14...the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.” He received 60 rejections before selling his first short story, "The Glass Floor", for $35 to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Even his best-selling book, Carrie, wasn’t a hit at first. After dozens of rejections, he finally sold it for a meager advance to Doubleday Publishing, where the hardback sold only 13,000 copies—not great. Soon after, though, Signet Books signed on for the paperback rights for $400,000, $200,000 of which went to King. Success achieved! Stephen King is an inspiring man for the world for his continued efforts to write and achieve success by selling his short stories after so many rejections before selling his first short story. "We feel ‘Stephen King’ is an inspiration VictoryTale and wish him a grand success"
- John Paul DeJoria
Am sure you might have probably heard of Paul Mitchell hair products and Patrón tequila, but did you know these brands have a common origin? John Paul DeJoria co-founded both legendary companies, becoming a billionaire along the way. The path to success wasn't always easy for everyone as is heard from our ancestors so the same was also for John Paul Dejoria. DeJoria spent time on the streets twice. The first time he was homeless, he was only 22 and had a two-year-old son to care for. He persisted in his entrepreneurial vision, though, eventually co-founding John Paul Mitchell Systems with $700 in startup cash. Today, DeJoria is a philanthropist who supports a number of social causes. Among other things, he helps to provide resources to people dealing with homelessness. Community works provide opportunities for individuals who have experienced homelessness to rediscover purpose and apply their God-given talents to earn a dignified income. He inspires homeless persons with such talent to come forward and work/earn with their God-given talents "We feel John Paul DeJoria is an inspiration VictoryTale and wish him a grand success"
- Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is founder of Biocon, an Indian biopharma company. She is an inspirational entrepreneur who was born on 23rd March 1953 in Bangalore, India. She completed her initial schooling from Bishop’s Cotton Girl’s High School in 1968. She had aspired being a doctor instead she ended up doing her BSc in Zoology with Honors from Mount Carmel College of the Bangalore University in 1973. Two years later she completed her post graduate studies from Ballarat College, Melbourne University qualifying as a master brewer. Kiran began her professional career working as a trainee brewer at Carlton & United Beverages. After working there for four years she switched her job to work at Biocon Biochemicals Limited which was based in Ireland. Later on she founded Biocon in India with an initial capital of only 10,000 rupees. Business was not easy due to lack of funds. All the banks she turned to for loans were hesitant because biotechnology was not a familiar concept in India at that time. Another reason was her gender. A female entrepreneur was another rare idea for Indians and one bringing in a completely new field was even stranger. She even had difficulty hiring people to work for her. Kiran began Biocon out of her garage and grew it into a globally competitive company. In 2004, Biocon went public and became only the second Indian company to reach $1 billion on its first trading day. Kiran founded the Biocon Foundation which is a philanthropic organization carrying out environmental and health programs to help the weak parts of the society. In 2007, she also established a cancer care center in Bangalore. Kiran also founded Biocon Academy to crete a globally competitive biotech ecosystem in India and make the country’s youth employable. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has received many honors and accolades for her entrepreneurial achievements such as the prestigious Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth and Express Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit Award for Dynamic Entrepreneur in 2009. Biocon under the dynamic leadership of Kiran Mazumdar became the only Company from Asia to feature on the prestigious U.S.-based Science magazine's annual Top Global Pharma, Biotech Employers list and ranked No. 6 in 2019 "We feel Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is an inspiration VictoryTale and wish her a grand success"
- Sheila Lirio Marcelo
Sheila Lirio Marcelo is a Filipino-American entrepreneur. She is the Founder, Chairwoman and CEO of Care.com, the world's largest online destination for finding and managing family care. She is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011. Marcelo was born and raised in the Philippines, growing up in an entrepreneurial household that was involved in a number of businesses from coconut mills to mango and banana plantations to transportation and coal production. Part of her early childhood was spent in Houston with her five siblings. When Marcelo was 11, she attended Brent International School in Baguio. She graduated magna cum laude from Mt. Holyoke College with a degree in Economics and received M.B.A. and J.D. degrees, with honors and the Dean's Award from Harvard University. It was during her undergraduate years at Mt. Holyoke that Marcelo had her first child, Ryan; her second son, Adam, was born right after graduating from Harvard Business School. While attending Harvard she also spent 30 hours a week on community activities, worked on several campus businesses and provided consulting services for the design of Harvard's Spangler Center. "We feel Sheila Lirio Marcelo is an inspiration VictoryTale and wish her a grand success"
- Hilary Lorraine Devey
Founder and CEO of Pall-EX Hilary Lorraine Devey CBE is an English businesswoman, television personality, and entrepreneur, best known for her two-year role on BBC Two programe Dragons' Den until she left to present the Channel 4 series The Intern. Devey grew up in Bolton, Lancashire, and, as a seven-year-old child, witnessed the results of the bankruptcy of her father, who had owned a central heating company, when bailiffs removed furniture and household goods from the family home. Her father then earned living managing pubs and hotels. She left school at the age of sixteen, served for a short while in the Women's Royal Air Force, in air traffic control and the supply accounts department, stationed at Royal Air Force Brize Norton. Devey later moved to London. After two failed marriages, Devey finally grabbed hold of that one idea that would make her a millionaire within three years. There was just one problem: none of the banks would back her. She had to sell her house to get the financial backing she needed. In true rags to riches style, she is not the only CEO of freight distribution network Pall-EX, but even garnered TV spots on BBC’s Dragons’ Den and later Channel 4’s The Intern "We feel Hilary Lorraine Devey is an inspiration VictoryTale and wish her a grand success"
- Seth Priebatsch
If you walk in to the Seth Priebatsch's corner office, you have to step over a racecar mat -- the kind little kids use to race toy cars and crash them together. The obstacle is no accident. Priebatsch, the 21-year-old founder of a smartphone app called SCVNGR, placed the mat there to make visitors wonder whether he pulls some of the dozens of model cars off his shelves and plays on the floor when no one's around. He doesn't. But he wants to throw people off balance. Is he really that young, visitors will wonder. A timeline view of Seth Priebatsch's life helps make sense of his unique 21 years. Age 5 to 9 'You just start moving': Priebatsch's childhood was all about challenges and improvement. He took to running partly because his dad, a marathon runner, encouraged it, but also because it reinforced an axiom: If you try harder, you'll do better.Seth grew to love that philosophy. And it's one that drives his app, SCVNGR, which aims to make real life more fun by infusing it with constant challenges. At age 9, his dad upped the ante. Instead of running laps, he would teach his son to windsurf. And instead of offering lessons, Norman Priebatsch father of Seth Priebatsch dropped Seth off, with a life jacket, in the center of the Charles River in Boston, as Seth remembers it. Though Norman Priebatsch remains always nearby in the water and keeping a close eye on Seth.Seth panicked at first, but the lesson was a good one: He just had to try harder and he could make it work. "Everything's possible as long as you're really working like hell to make it happen," this thing he always keep in his mind. It's an idea that a 5-year-old Seth also learned on a ski trip.Seth's dad took him to the top of a black diamond run and skied down about 100 feet to wait for his unprepared son. Seth threw a fit, cursing up as much of a storm as a 5-year-old could muster. But then it clicked. "He wasn't going to come get me," he said, "so at a certain point, you just start moving." Age 12: Outsourcing to India By 12, Seth had gotten used to waking up at 3 a.m.He started an online company called Giftopedia, a digital shopping list of sorts that automatically searched the internet for the world's best prices and made purchases for its users. The only problem: Seth didn't really know how to write code for the site. So, after searching the internet, reading up on outsourcing and talking with his parents, he hired workers in Russia and India to do the coding for him.Because of the time difference, the preteen would wake up in the middle of the night to conduct online meetings with his employees. (This wasn't always enough: In one instance, Seth recalls abruptly leaving a middle school math class to take a business call on his laptop). Seth always talked to his workers over IM or a shaky Skype voice connection. He didn't want them to hear the little kid in his voice. "You never let them know how old you are," he said. Age 13: Taking the race Priebatsch was charging up the last hill.He was losing the cross-county meet. Until his competition looked back. "He turned back and gave me this look of, 'OK, this guy is so far back. I don't need to worry about it,' " he said. "I just sprinted the thing. It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life."Seth won the meet. He collapsed at the finish line and, as he tells it, took a nap because he was tired and bored. The race was what he cared about, not the win. Since then, he's made a habit of saying "PLUS ONE!" to himself each time he passes a runner during a race. Usually he said it in his head, but it has slipped out of his mouth.It's fun to think you're earning points for passing people, he said. It makes running into a real-life game. Age 19: Dropping out of Princeton It's a call most mothers would rather not get."My instinct honestly was to fall upon the ground and flail," Suzanne Priebatsch, Seth's mom, said of the Saturday afternoon when her son called to tell her he was dropping out of Princeton to start SCVNGR. But then she listened to his pitch for the company. She was sold. Seth is fond of saying SCVNGR is "a game layer on top of the world." The last 10 years were about social media online, he said. Sites like Facebook and Twitter rule this space. The next 10 years will be "the decade of the game," he said, and companies like SCVNGR are trying to build it as fast as possible. After Seth won an entrepreneur contest at Princeton, investors started calling him about SCVNGR. Peter Bell, from the firm Highland Capital Partners, which gave Seth $730,000 in December 2008, first noticed two things about the surprisingly mature 19-year-old who entered his office: He wasn't wearing shoes and he sat on the back of the chair instead of in the seat. But as the two talked, Bell said he realized something else: Seth was wise for 19 -- having already run two companies (He founded the second during high school and put those profits into SCVNGR). And he had the youth factor, something that's important for tech CEOs these days for several practical reasons, he said. Part of it is the image. People have come to expect young tech CEOs like Zuckerberg and others. But it's also the lifestyle and dedication. Young people often are willing to give everything to a new company, because they aren't as committed to family and kids. Plus, they often come with the freshest ideas, he said. "Seth -- basically -- he works, he jogs, he eats and sleeps," but "He doesn't do anything else. "You could argue that's not healthy. But you get older and your kids have soccer games and you work with charities and those things make you a whole person. But there's something to be said for just putting the blinders on and being able to focus." Seth seems to thrive on this lifestyle. He lives in his office -- keeping a sleeping bag under his couch and sometimes staying at his parents' house, down the street, as a backup. He works seven days a week. Runs every morning. He doesn't have any friends outside work and sees friendship in a light that he admits can seem "caustic" from the outside. But to him it's just utilitarian. "It feels very ephemeral," he said of spending casual time with friends. "You go to see a movie with a friend and it's awesome for like two hours, but then it's over with -- that's it. Nothing has been produced from that." Any time spent not working makes him uneasy. "It's not so much guilt, it's more like fear, probably," he said. "Every second I'm not spending building SCVNGR is a second that someone else could spend building the game layer." Age 21: Champagne on the shelf Now age 21, Priebatsch is running full-force toward his goal of bringing app-based challenges and games to as many people as possible. SCVNGR isn't a runaway success. It has 500,000 users (Facebook has 500 million, while mobile-app leader Foursquare is nearing 5 million) and at least $5 million in venture capital funding. The app went international on Tuesday, expanding into 70 countries on the back of Google Places, according to Mashable. The 60-person company's sales executive (or "chief rock star" in SCVNGR-speak), Michael Hagan, said the app made more than $1 million last year, with most of that coming from big businesses that want to add challenges into the app as a way to attract repeat customers. But Priebatsch -- whose business card says he is SCVNGR's "chief ninja" ("because people don't negotiate against ninjas") -- is in the place he wants to be. He's running for the goal, but hasn't caught it. He's somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that he may actually get there. On his 21st birthday, December 14, 2009, Priebatsch got $4 million in funding from Google Ventures, one of the most notable start-up financing groups in Silicon Valley.He didn't stop to celebrate. He was still in race mode."We signed a bunch of paperwork and I was very excited about that, but then I sat in the office and did whatever I normally do," he said.Which means he went back to work. For the occasion, a co-worker gave Seth a bottle of champagne -- something he'd never tried. It sits on the shelf in his office, above the wall of toy cars. It's never been opened. "We feel Seth Priebatsch is an inspiration VictoryTales and wish him a grand success"