It’s not professional to break down in tears on the job. But there I sat doing just that, head on my desk, bereft to discover that my dream prospect had chosen another writer—and utterly disappointed in myself.

The initial elation of launching my first-ever tech-writing business had soon turned to anxiety as I’d found that companies demanded experience in technology writing. A twenty-five-year journalism career didn’t seem to count, despite my many awards and the samples showing that I could write about anything. From agriculture to the arts, my work had covered it all. But no one would take a chance on me.

What was I doing wrong? How could I turn my bad luck around? These were the questions keeping me up at night— literally. On this particular day, I had managed to get back to sleep after three hours’ tossing and turning, and hadn’t awakened until ten in the morning. Seeing the clock, I’d raced to my laptop to find that this plum prospect, the Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte, had awarded the contract to someone else.

And so I cried. Profusely. How could I have screwed this up? Maybe I wasn’t cut out for business. Perhaps I should try to find a nine-to-five job and forget about writing books, which was my heart’s desire.

Three days. That’s how long I grieved, and ruminated on what winning the gig might have done for my career. And then, on the third day, I rose like the Phoenix, stronger than ever—and found the executive on a social media site.

“I wish you’d hired me,” I wrote. “I would have done such a great job for you.”

“I’ve been wanting to write a book,” he replied.

And—voila! Two months later he did hire me, and my career as a technology and cybersecurity writer and editor took off. We worked together for five years until he left the company, and six months after that he hired me to ghostwrite his book.

In business as in life, persistence really does pay off.

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