If you’ve ever been told you’re not good enough to do something, read on.

The odds of having a #1 bestselling book are over a million to one.

Here’s how an ordinary guy who graduated college with a 2.2 GPA accomplished this nearly impossible feat.

And for a moment in time directly beat JK Rowling and Stephen King, and indirectly beat Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, and Tom Hanks.

Glenn self-published his first three books. Then in 2005, an executive editor with John Wiley & Sons in New York City sent him an email that would change his life.

It read “I’m interested in publishing your next book.”

This was like Taylor Swift calling an unknown guitar player out of the blue and saying “I want you to join my band”.

Wiley is a literary giant that published legends including Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Hans Christian Andersen, and Charles Dickens in the 1800’s.

Today they’re the world’s largest publisher of medical, scientific, academic, and business books. They’ve published 490 Nobel Laureates from every Nobel Prize category; and also publish the For Dummies series, CliffsNotes, Betty Crocker, and Weight Watchers cookbooks.

So how does an ordinary guy in Tennessee get “lucky” enough to have a giant in New York City want to publish him?

Glenn always answers that question with this Thomas Jefferson quote:

“The harder I work, the more ‘luck’ I have.”

Wiley was looking for a book on how to manage problem employees and Googled that term. Glenn’s name came up more than anyone else because he was on the road over 200 nights a year teaching a seminar by that name.

He still had to submit a proposal to win over the full publishing committee in New York City.

To help with that, the editor sent him a proposal from another author he’d discovered. His name was Larry Winget and his book was Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life.

Glenn patterned his proposal after Larry’s but knew he was out of his league, so he added this to the proposal:

“I won’t be your best writing or best selling author. But I will be your hardest working, most low maintenance, and most reliable.”

In the 200 year history of the company, no one had ever said that before. And in those two short sentences, Glenn sealed his date with destiny.

That impressed the publishing committee so much that they voted unanimously to sign him, sent him a contract the same day, and mailed his first advance the next day.

Then came the hard work.

The contract called for a 60,000 word manuscript and allowed only 4 months to get it done.

Glenn wrote from 4:00 am till 9:00 pm every day he wasn’t doing a seminar.

On seminar days, he wrote from 4:00 am till 7:00 am, gave the seminar from 9:00 to 3:00, then drove to the next city, and then wrote at the hotel till 9:00 pm every night.

His first book with Wiley was titled How to Manage Problem Employees.

It wasn’t a bestseller, but sold just well enough that they offered him a second publishing deal.

The next book was How to Make Performance Evaluations Really Work. It also wasn’t a bestseller, but sold just well enough that they offered him a third publishing deal – all in less than one year.

That book was How to be the Employee Your Company Can’t Live Without.

By now, Glenn’s confidence had soared and he set out to make this one a bestseller.

But his dream was shattered when he got some devastating news from his new publicist in San Francisco shortly before his new book was to be released.

A book titled Eat, Pray, Love had just been released and was being made into a movie starring the biggest movie star at that time, Julia Roberts.

Another titled Marley and Me had just been released and was being made into a movie starring Jennifer Anniston.

Another titled The Da Vinci Code had just been released and was being made into a movie starring Tom Hanks.

This was a disaster because Hollywood has more money and marketing muscle than anyone.

To make things even worse, mega authors Stephen King and James Patterson had just released their newest books, as had mega pastor Joel Olsteen. And to rub salt in the wounds, JK Rowling’s latest Harry Potter series was out.

Glenn’s publicist told him “There’s no way you can beat competiton like that. I’m sorry, but you’re just a little guy and have the world’s worst timing. ” 

But in a plot twist that even Steven Spielberg couldn’t have imagined, Glenn leaned on the one thing he had going for him… 

His blue collar work ethic.

His executive editor in New York had told him to spend 25% of his time writing the book and 75% on marketing it.

And that’s what he did.

He drove to every Barnes and Noble store from Miami to Minneapolis on his own time and at his own expense, doing book signings.

He did non-stop radio interviews.

He sent an advanced manuscript to book reviewers at every major newspaper in America.

He also sent an advanced manuscript to 68 CEOs and asked them to endorse it. He never heard back from 62 of them, including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

But the CEO of Office Depot, Staples, Cessna, Ruby Tuesday, 1-800 Flowers did respond and endorsed the book, and the momentum built from there.

Chicken Soup for the Soul  co-author Mark Victor Hansen generously helped Glenn promote his book. (Mark is legendary for helping young authors because his book was rejected by over 140 publishers. The Chicken Soup series has now sold over 100,000,000 copies.)

When it was finally released, How to be the Employee Your Company Can’t Live Without became an instant #1 Best Seller – beating odds of over 1,000,000 to 1.

Tribune Media Services selected it as one of the best career books of the year.

It was such a phenomenal success in the U.S. that it went on to be translated into Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Bulgarian.

Ironically, one of the chapters in the book was titled “Adopt the Work Ethic Your Grandparents Had”.

Glenn hadn’t intended for that to be autobiographical.

But it proved that you don’t have to be smartest, most educated, or most talented person to succeed.

Just be the hardest working and most persistent, and eventually success will come.