RAFICHOWDHURY

Ashley Qualls – A Millionaire by Choice and a Survivor by Spirit

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What is it that usually defines teenage? Zits, facial hair, peer pressure? Well, that is certainly not what defined teenage for Ashley Qualls – a 26-year old American from Michigan, who happens to be one of the most known teenage millionaires of her time. Starting at the tender age of 14, teenage, for Ashley was all about creativity, leading to entrepreneurship with her million dollar-making website Whateverlife.com.

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But, well before you go on and think that money begets money, I should tell you that her family wasn’t a millionaire and she didn’t even have an angel investor. Brave as it is, Ashley has struggled her way through right to the top list of self-made teenage millionaires. The elder child of a single mother, Ashley Qualls surely had her share of struggles. But, at 17, with her very website she became one of the most successful teenage millionaires of her times.

Ashley Qualls

But, this is not what Ashley Qualls is known for today. A survivor is what she is. Presently, putting up a fight against the autoimmune disease, she has started her life as well her career afresh. As she puts it herself – she is “Sick Not Dead”.

How it All Began for Ashley Qualls

Started just as hobby, Whateverlife.com was Ashley’s debut entrepreneurial endeavor as she turned 14. The website was aimed at providing free stack of a HTML tutorials and MySpace layouts for those teens who are interested in learning the skill to do graphic design and coding on their own. That was the year 2004.

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Within 3 years of the website up and running, i.e. by the year 2007, it was enjoying around 3-4 million page views and 300,000 unique visitors a day for CSS, HTML and much more creative things than just that. Whateverlife went on to become one of the most popular websites beating some top ones like, americanidol.com, cbsnews.com, brittanica.com, and not to forget, oprah.com. While Ashley Qualls has self-learned how to design MySpace layouts and posted tutorials only for friends, it soon became an enterprise that had the Brad Greenspan, the co-founder of MySpace approaching her twice with sky high bids to buy her Whateverlife.com.

However, the entrepreneurial spirit of Ashley Quallsdidn’t care about the money, but skill. So, while she politely rejected the offer twice (with an even higher bid the second time), she waited to see how far she could take her business. I, personally, have a lot of respect for Ashley Qualls. Being a young entrepreneur myself, with humble beginnings like her, it is important to highlight what it takes for a 14 year old to get there. And, I find parallels in my life and hers, except for that she became a millionaire quicker than I did. I too had my share of struggle and fun, as did Ashley.

How it All Began for Ashley Qualls

As I had mentioned at the beginning, Ashley, at the age of 17, became one of the most popular teenage millionaires in America. I mean, how many teenagers get there are such an age all by themselves? That is not usually the primary focus. Is it?

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However, two years later, in the year 2009, she began experiencing gastrointestinal issues, which years later, sadly, came to be diagnosed, by Ashley herself, as the autoimmune disease. What added to her situation was the loss of her business, her house, and an unfortunate miscarriage, one after the other.

But she did “soldier on”, as she puts it herself. Despite getting a job in 2015, she couldn’t move ahead in life because of her physical condition, which was forcing her to spend more and more time managing her bowels locked up in the bathroom. Ultimately, with the job gone in 2016, and the cognitive abilities falling down drastically along with immense loss of health, only made things worse.

And she was pretty much groping in the dark, with ceaseless visits to doctors and GPs, with no clear diagnosis, until one day she read an article by Meghan O’Rourke in The New Yorker. It mirrored exactly what Ashley had been going through.

With a mixed feeling of worry and relief, Ashley had found a place to begin from, so she got in touch with hundreds of groups that with thousands of women who were going through the same.

The Better Beginning

As Ashley punches autoimmune in the face each day of her life, she does realize that there are going to be days that are good, a few that are not so good, and even those which will pull her down to the ground, she moves with one reality – autoimmune is forever. So, what she devoted herself to now is the herculean task of eradicating the stigma that is attached to the autoimmune as well as chronic illness.

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The fact is that Ashley experienced, when she was in the initial stages of her medical condition, still not knowing what she was suffering from, an utter miscomprehension on the part of those who know nothing about it. Other people suffering from these conditions will agree, I am sure. And, that is what Ashley now fights against with her blog, SickNotDead which is on its way to provide advice and support to those who whose lives are being torn apart with this illness.

With whatever Ashley writes and talks about right now on social media, she has started to make a difference in the lives of thousands of people who either suffer from the same illness or those whose loved ones are affected.

The Truth about Ashley Qualls Journey

While most people may view her journey as “from rags to riches to rags again”, but the truth is that Ashley has it all together. She may have lost a lot in the process, she may long for being her old self, but she also makes the most of her loife, of each say she has to live. From once being hailed as one of the genius teenage millionaires to being hit hard by autoimmune, Ashley has still kept her spirit through the tortuous way down, only to rise up and make others rise with her.

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