Success in life isn’t anyone’s birthright, and it doesn’t come easy if it even comes at all. Success is hard-won and easily lost. It is something you might have to fail repeatedly to achieve. However, when success is in the palm of your hand, and it opens its limitless vistas to you, you’ll realize that the reason you endured so many failed attempts to reach there was because you had to prove you were strong and worthy enough to warrant success in the first place. This is a lesson Kareem Hassan has learned along his journey and wants to share with others.
Quitting college to take care of his mother, Kareem Hassan began trading in collectibles to generate some much-needed income. He explained, “Growing up, I was obsessed with comic books. The stories and characters offered me a magical escape from my own drab, limiting, and at times, painful reality. I always felt I didn’t quite fit into this world, but in the comic books, I could find myself. This led to me frequently attending the New York Comic-Con, which was a real eye-opener because here, I first saw how people were making a good living out of their hobby through trading in comics and other collectibles.”
As he grew, Kareem tried his hand at various jobs and projects in a bid to be successful, but it was all in vain. After a series of failures, it one day dawned on him that the answer to all his financial problems was at his fingertips, in the shape of the comics he had adored and collected since he was a young boy.
Kareem Hassan explained, “I eventually realized that my passion for comics and collectibles could be turned into a lucrative career. I had failed at so many other things, but I knew deep inside that this would be the game-changer, and so it proved. I used everything I learned from my previous business endeavors to make this a success. It was hard work at the beginning, and I made many mistakes, but I persevered and can now comfortably say that the world of comics and collectibles has provided me with a living beyond my wildest dreams. I also believe it was comic book characters that instilled in me the ethos that if you don’t succeed at the first attempt, try again, and again, and again until you finally do.”
As per Kareem Hassan, learning from your past mistakes is the biggest lesson you can learn, and given his success and achievements, his advice is well worth taking.
