Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson talks about his battle with depression


Have you ever pursued a dream, only to have it not work out?

Maybe you got denied the job you wanted or maybe someone told you that you weren't good enough.

And, when that happens, you have two choices. To keep trying or to give up. And, many times, we choose the second option.

This same thing happened to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. But obviously, as his 17 WWE championship wins show, he did not let this stop him.

It's hard to picture Johnson as anything but a fierce man with rock hard muscles who doesn't let anything bother him. He's probably the last person you would think suffered from depression. But he did -- at age 23 after he was cut from the Canadian Football League and wasn't drafted in the NFL.

Johnson talked about this time in his life on Oprah's Master Class Special.

"(My) dreams were dashed. You work so hard and then somebody's saying, well, you're just not good enough. ... At 23, you think your life is over," he said.

"I found that, with depression, one of the most important things you can realize is that you're not alone. You're not the first to go through it, and you're not going to be the last to go through it."

For Johnson, something good came out of one of the hardest experiences in his life. He found his true calling -- wrestling. And, he said, even when he was reoffered a spot on the Calgary Stampeders, he turned it down because he knew in his "heart of hearts" what he was meant to do. When his dad told him this was the biggest mistake of his life, he didn't listen.

"It wound up being one of the greatest chapters in my life," Johnson said.

Your dreams may change in the course of your lifetime, but never let anyone make you feel like you're not good enough to pursue your dreams. Keep fighting for what you want.

If you let your critics' opinions define you, you could be missing out on the greatest chapter of YOUR life.

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