There are many times in our lives when we feel let down and rejected. But you know what they say, ‘failure is the first step to success’. While this is easy to say, we know how hard it is to keep going after a rough patch. Life makes you go through tons of hurdles and hardships. Getting out of it strong totally depends on us. You’ll find many excuses to give up your dreams, but only those who work hard and focus on their goals, achieve them. We’ve got you examples of success stories that’ll prove just that. Here they are:
1. Walt Disney
At the age of 22, he went bankrupt after the brutal failure of a cartoon series in Kansas City. He also wanted to become a Hollywood actor but that, too, did not work out. He was once fired by a newspaper editor who accused him to lack imagination and creativity. After tons of failure, he designed the famous character, Mickey Mouse that eventually created history.
2. Oprah Winfrey
Oprah began her life in poverty, and early in her career she endured numerous setbacks, such as getting fired from her job as a reporter because she was “unfit for television” and got fired as the co-anchor of weekday news on WJZ-TV, which resulted her getting demoted to morning TV. However, she did not give up. She worked very hard and finally earned fame from her TV show called The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is the first black woman to be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
3. Jim Carrey
Before he got famous, Carrey was born and brought up in poverty. He had to take up a job as a janitor to survive and also had to drop out of college to persue his passion. He wanted to be a successful stand-up comedian. He was booed off the stage many times but that did not stop him from trying. Finally after decades of struggle in the industry, at the age of 32, Carrey bagged the movie Ace Ventura.
4. Steve Jobs
Before launching Apple Computers, Jobs lived in poverty and struggled to make a living. He dropped out of college too. And even after Apple became a success, he was fired from his own company, but that did not stop him from recreating his life and succeeding after so many rough patches in his life.
5. Albert Einstein
Einstein was considered a failure all his life. He could not speak till the age of four. He also almost dropped out of university with very poor grades. His teachers always told him he’d never make it big. He took up several jobs to make a living from selling insurance to becoming an assistant examiner at the Patent Office. Eventually, many years later he won the Nobel Prize in physics (1921) and finally got credit for all his contribution in physics.
6. Michael Jordan
As a teenager, Jordan was passed up from being for the varsity basketball team. Instead, he was assigned to the junior varsity team. He was shattered since he was very passionate about basketball. While anyone else in his position would have given up, Jordan took failure to his stride and worked harder and pushed himself to get better. He said, I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
7. J.K. Rowling
After many years of struggle including her ill mother Rowling was sitting at a train station one day when she randomly pictured a wizard there. She quickly penned down the details and started writing a story. During this time she got married to an abusive husband and eventually got divorced. Because of all that struggle, she was going through clinical depression and was suicidal. Afte many years, she finally wrote the manuscript of her first book (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) but was rejected by 12 big publishing houses. She didn’t give up and finally a publishing house called Bloomsbury give her a chance and she is now considered one ofthe most famous authors in the world.
Success never comes easy. These stories are the proof of that. But hey teach us to never give up and take rejection in our stride to work harder everyday. Tell us your story in the comments below.
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