People and circumstances aren’t always favourable to your dream. You’ll find yourself struggling sometimes to realise those dreams. In the face of failure, it’s especially hard to stay true and devoted to achieving it. But if you give up, you’ll always think, ‘What if’ an that’s the worst feeling ever.
If some of these brilliant people had given up after facing a failure or two, we wouldn’t have a lot of influential and useful assets that we have today.
Inventions:
1. Light Bulb
Thomas Edison made a 1000 prototypes that failed, before he got it right.
2. Plane
After several failed prototypes, the Government was hesitant about funding their invention.
Brands:
3. Disney
Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper stating “He lacked imagination and had no good ideas”. When he started Disney, he end up bankrupt after a couple of failed businesses.
4. KFC
Harland David Sanders’ secret chicken recipe was reject 1009 times before it finally found success.
Leaders:
5. Winston Churchill
He failed in sixth grade and met with a lot of political failure, before winning the election to be Prime Minister twice in a row.
6. Abraham Lincoln
He went to war as a Captain and then was demoted to a Private. He even established several business that failed and even lost the race to Public Office.
Books:
7. Harry Potter
J.K Rowling was diagnosed with severe depression and living off of government welfare. Her ‘Harry Potter’ manuscript was rejected by 12 publishing houses.
8. Little Women
She worked as a servant during war time to make enough money fro her family to survive. Her letter written to her family members back home, inspired one of the greatest novels in history.
Movies
9. Life of Pi
Ang Lee failed to clear college entrance exams in Taiwan, then he was rejected from acting school because his English was poor. He went on to direct multiple hits including Life of Pie.
10. Jurassic Park
University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts rejected Steven Spielberg’s application multiple times. He is now a legendary director with a multiple notches, like Jurassic Park, under his belt.
Famous Personalities
11. Charlie Chaplin
His act was termed ‘too nonsensical to ever sell’ by Hollywood studio execs.
12. Harrison Ford
Movie exec told Ford, popularly recognised as Han Solo, that he simply didn’t have what it takes to be a star.
Musicians
13. The Beatles
A recording company they approached told them, “We don’t like you sound, and guitar music is on the way out”.
14. Elvis Presley
His first manager told him, “You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.”
Sportsmen
15. Michael Jordan
He was cut from his school basketball team for being too short.
16. Babe Ruth
He held the record for strikeouts for a long time and today he’s known for his home run records in Baseball.
Artists
17. Monet
His art wasn’t appreciated. It was ridiculed and rejected by the Paris Salon, at the time considered the highest authority on the matter. Now a Monet is sold for millions of dollars.
18. Vincent Van Gogh
When he was alive he only sold one painting for a meagre amount of money, that too, to a friend. Now his paintings are valued at hundreds of millions.
Who knows, maybe you’ll be the next legend or inventor. Remember you are #GreaterThan one failure.
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