Rocky the writer???

An authorpreneur is one who believes in the power of books.

He/she believes that the books he/she read have the power to transform his/her life like nothing else can.

He/she also believes that his/her writings can create an enormous impact on people's lives. And the first person their writings (whether published or unpublished) touch is themselves.

Sylvester Stallone is one such person whose life had been changed forever by two book-related events.

One, when he read a book of poems written by Edgar Allan Poe which prompted him to make the decision to be a writer.

Two, when he wrote the Rocky story (over three days in one sitting) after he watched how a nobody-journey-man boxer knocked down Muhammad Ali unexpectedly. Although he did not win the match, the fact that he knocked down Muhammad Ali (even if it was only once) had ignited the fire in Stallone to write that script.

That was the author part of the Stallone's authorpreneurial journey.

The entrepreneur part of the journey started when he negotiated with the producers who bought his script. Stallone steadfastly insisted that he had to play the character of Rocky in the story he wrote because he didn't think anyone could understand Rocky as well as he could. He was the under dog, just like the character he created, Rocky.

So the movie was made, and then promoted and the rest is history.

The success of the Rocky movie was so phenomenal that the world knew him as one of the Hollywood's biggest action movie stars. But his story really began the moment he decided to be a writer, not an actor.

His acting career was going nowhere. His partially paralyzed face was the reason why he could not get any leading roles. It was only after he decided to write his own script did he stand a chance to act in the story he wrote.

When you come to think of it, Stallone's story is really one of the biggest success stories of an authorpreneur. It happened long before AUTHORPRENEUR even became the word that it is today.