From a kid who grew up with one parent while the other one left him at 6 months old, and forced to move from town to town just to get bullied all throughout school by being the "new kid", appeared a legend not only in the hip hop community, but across the nation. Eminem is an inspirational figure who can teach anybody to never give up on their dream and that even if you may not be the most intelligent, or the strongest, or the fastest, or the most daring person, you can always be you- and that itself can lead into a career.

While Eminem never was a student in terms of a classroom environment, he still found his way in terms of being an intellectual and teaching others. Believe it or not, rapping takes a certain form of intellectual skill to be able to be a "lyrical genius" like Marshall Mathers is, and his lyrics are more powerful in teaching youths than Ernest Hemingway or Albert Einstein. Kids actually hang on his every word. I know I did. Perhaps I tuned out the lyrics consisting of the derogotary, slanderous, and disrespectful nuances due to the good parenting I was privileged enough to have, but I always hung on his motivational words of wisdom in songs like "Till I Collapse" and "Lose Yourself". They pushed me during my runs, my wrestling practices, and training sessions; and his songs certainly swept the nation with their pump-up spirited nature.

Although he didn't get the grades indicative of his intelligence (probably due to the lack of the attention span required to be the teacher's pet- I was a byproduct of ADHD so I certainly know that feeling), Eminem would read the dictionary and scribble lyrics in his free time- not exactly something unproductive. Adults within academia may knock this as being a hopeless pipe dream, however, Eminem really was productive. Although it may not have seemed that way at the time, he never gave up on his dream. He put his "free time" towards probably what were more productive things. Rather than play video games or watch TV, Eminem drew on something powerful that eventually this led to his career. While I am not encouraging you to neglect your schoolwork, I am simply saying that you should always follow your passion in life. Being a JD/MBA student myself, I obviously have a strong respect for those in academia and those willing to learn, but what I am suggesting is to always be as productive as possible in your life. So what you can draw from Eminem's experience is the good and the bad- work hard in school because that is #1, but in your free time, work on productive opportunities that coincide with your passion in life.

Eminem was one who persevered through his struggles and you can learn from that as well. And then, after all the fame and the success, Eminem found himself in a familiar place, going through plenty of bumpy roads. After a five-year span of losing his best friend Proof, divorcing his wife yet again, and taking in two nieces just to find himself battling a prescription drug addiction, depression, drastic weight gain and writer's block, Eminem released his big "comeback" album Relapse. And we know exactly where that went: nowhere.

Then labeled as a washed-up and not given a chance by the hip hop labels, Eminem could have packed it in, taken the hundreds of millions that he had earned over the course of his career (8 Mile, an Oscar, and all), and went quietly into that good night as a depressed individual teetering on a Charlie Sheen drug addiction yet again. But what did Eminem do? He buried his past and wrote the album off calling it "ehhh" in his hit song Not Afraid and went back into the studio to pen up not only his most emotional, fierce, and poignant album, but in all of hip-hop. Less than a year after Relapse fell to the depths of below mediocrity, Recovery shot to No. 1 and was the best-selling album of 2010. With hit songs "Love the Way You Lie" and "No Love", Eminem reprised his career with his lyrics. Moving away from those aforementioned derogotary lyrics, Eminem talked about overcoming obstacles and proving people wrong; which he did so eloquently both lyrically and literally.