Right now, millions of hopeful students are celebrating the receipt of acceptance letters from colleges and universities. But with school’s like Harvard accepting only about 2,030 applicants out of 29,000* you can bet there is also a lot of crushing news in the mail.

Sue Shellenbarger wrote an encouraging piece in the Wall Street Journal that I recommend to any applicant.

In “Before They Were Titans, Moguls and Newsmakers, These People Were…Rejected,” Shallenbarger reports on example after example of famously successful individuals—Warren Buffett to Meredith Vieira—who were flat out rejected by their first choice of higher education. The lesson learned, in most of the examples is, that our unrealistic expectations for what we think we have to attain often create an illusion of defeat when we don’t get what we desire.

Certainly, even illusions of defeat can create rubble in our lives. In these cases, much of the “digging” is a really a matter of asking how real the perceived obstacles really are.

In the cases that Shallenbarger describes, Buffett, Vieira, Tom Brokaw and others became phenomenally successful by finding a “plan B.”

Is an Ivy League degree the real goal? Or is it to be the best in your field? Or is it to be happy in your work? Sometimes if we reframe the situation against real goals that we can control, the rubble simply disappears.

*According to The Wall Street Journal.

My speaking engagement at the Tucson Festival of Books is presented by the Arizona Daily Star. The newspaper is staging two days of keynote speeches by some very notable writers and thought leaders.

Their Saturday, March 13 session, in which I will speak, is built around the theme of dealing with tough times.

From the Star…

If you want to help yourself but aren’t quite sure how, let the Star‘s lineup of inspirational authors, dubbed “Help for Tough Times,” show you the way.

“We have assembled the most inspiring authors we know to provide an unprecedented day of life-changing learning and discussion,” Star Publisher and Editor John M. Humenik said. “We know people are struggling at the workplace and at home due to terrible economic conditions. Our authors have answers to questions many of us don’t even know to ask.”

The list of speakers reads like an all-star shelf of self-help books come to life. [Full story here.]

Kudos to the Star for a thoughtful community service!