Pursuing your passion can sweeten hardship

The story of Manuela Kjeilen, the Norwegian blogger turned celebrity baker, is proof that hardship just like comfort can be the spur we need to help us chase and achieve our dreams.

Manar Al Hinai

I have to say I am not one of those people who finds pleasure in the kitchen. Sure, I cook from time to time, but it has never really been my passion. My sister, though, could spend days camped in front of a stove.

Lately I have been researching a lot about successful people, and what really makes them tick. Many of them did not have it easy and were deeply immersed in personal and professional hardships before they became successful.

So when I was invited by the local bakery, Maison Sucre, to meet a woman who has established international fame and fortune from a passion for cooking – with a dose of pain and hardship thrown in – I had to go and find out more about her recipe for success.

Manuela Kjeilen is a Norwegian baker, blogger and author who rose to fame in the past five years on the success of her blog.

I sat across from Manuela, who was a positive bundle of energy. Had I not read about her online or found out more from her during the event, I would have assumed her life was all peaches and cream. However, she is a textbook example of how passion infused with hardship can breed ultimate success.

Six years ago, Manuela could not have imagined that she would one day become an internationally renowned baker, with loving fans all the way from Arabia.

So what happened six years ago? Manuela’s husband had a stroke and spent their savings on medical treatment. The family suffered as a result, and Manuela fell into depression. But she did not want her children to come home to a sad environment, so she decided to bake them different treats every day to cheer them up. Friends and neighbours started complimenting her delicious biscuits and breads.

Being a fan of the American television personality Oprah Winfrey, Manuela recalled how Oprah always encouraged people to follow their passion. At that time, in the middle of her own family’s hardship, Manuela found her passion and decided to follow her dream.

With the help of her husband she bought a web domain and started writing her blog, Passion for Baking. What made Manuela stand out from the crowd were her easy step-by-step techniques illustrated with by pictures and the way readers felt she was speaking to them directly through her blog.

During those five years, Manuela became an icon in Norway. She worked on five books in two years, securing her first book deal one year into her new venture. She also signed a joint venture with Dr Oetker, the German food company, to have decorating products branded with her name, and she launched an apron line. Now she is working on her own TV cookery show.

What I found remarkable about Manuela is that despite the hardship her family went through, she still looked for and pursued her passion. She put a lot of work into it and gained international success and fame. Would Manuela be where she is today had her husband not had a stroke? We will never know. But it is astonishing to see that hardship often breeds success, and that is because people work hardest when they are in pain.

On a personal level, I found that some of my best work was produced when I was under pressure or while I was in a bad mood.

A study by the British historian Lucile Iremonger also highlighted similar findings about hardships. She set to write a history of England’s prime ministers from the beginning of the 19th century to the start of the Second World War and wanted to explore the backgrounds and qualities that predicted the kind of persona capable of becoming a prime minister.

What Lucile found out was that 67 per cent of the prime ministers in her sample had lost a parent before the age of 16.

Hardship, just like comfort, can be blessings, and they can serve as the push we need to chase our dreams and pursue those delayed goals. Perhaps if we had not gone through pain, we would not be where we are today.

Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer based in Abu Dhabi. Follow her on Twitter: @manar_alhinai

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