Famously Successful People Who Failed at First

                    

    But They Did Not Give Up "Ever tried. Ever failed.No  matter             

Not everyone who’s on top today got there with success after success. More often than not, those who history best remembers were faced with numerous obstacles that forced them to work harder and show more determination than others. Next time you’re feeling down about your failures in college or in a career, keep these fifty famous people in mind and remind yourself that sometimes failure is just the first step towards success.

Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." ~ Samuel Beckett

             
       


As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. Afterwards, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield,he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success. He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the     

legislature, again defeated in his attempt to be

nominated for the congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General LandOffice, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and in the senatorial election of 1858. At that time, he wrote in a letter to a friend, "I am now the most miserable man living.If what I feel were equally distributed to whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth."

             Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62.He later wrote,"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense Never, Never, Never, Never give up (his capitals, mind you) 

Socrates was called "an immoral 

corrupter of youth" and continued to

corrupt even after a sentence of death

was imposed on him. He drank the 

hemlock and died corrupting.

              

Sigmund Freudwas booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.               

 

    

Robert Sternberg received a C in his first college introductory-psychology class. His teacher commented that"there was a famous Sternberg in psychology and it was obvious there would not be another." Three years later Sternberg graduated with honors from Stanford University with exceptional distinction in psychology, summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. In 2002, he became President of the American Psychological Association. 

  

  Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching." In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, "I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect." Clearly, he evolved. 

Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.""Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall." ~ Confucius 

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was "sub-normal," and one of his teachers described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams." He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. He did eventually learn to speak and read. Even to do a little math.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil inundergraduate studies and ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry.

            

  Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded. R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York City caught on.

                 F. W. Woolworth was not allowed to wait on customers when he worked in a dry goods store because, his boss said, "he didn't have enough sense."

           

  John Garcia, who eventually was honored for his fundamental psychological discoveries, was once told by a reviewer of his often-rejected manuscripts that one is no more likely to find the phenomenon he discovered than to find bird droppings in a cuckoo clock. (sort of a cute critique actually)

Rocket scientist  Robert Goddard found

his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific

peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefied atmosphere of outer space.

                 

Daniel Boone was once asked by a reporter if he had ever been lost in the wilderness. Boone thought for a moment and replied, "No, but I was once bewildered for about three days." 

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly." ~ Robert F. Kennedy 

          

             

             

          

     Michael Jordanwas each cut from his  high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, "I've failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed."

 Most people wouldn’t believe that a man often lauded as the best basketball player of all time was actually cut from his high school basketball team. Luckily, Jordan didn't let this setback stop him from playing the game and he has stated, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” 

                   

                

  

Babe Ruth is famous for his past home run record, but for decades he also held the record for strikeouts. He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times in his career (about which he said, "Every strike brings me closer to the next home  run."). And didn't Mark McGwire break that strikeout record? (John Wooden once explained that winners make the most errors.)

Stan Smith was rejected as a                       

ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because he was "too awkward and clumsy." He went on to clumsily win Wimbledon 

and the U. S. Open. And eight Davis Cups.

          

                 Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, and Jimmy Johnson accounted for 11 of the 19 Super Bowl victories from 1974 to 1993. They also share the distinction of having the worst records of first-season head coaches in NFL history - they didn't win a single game. Johnny Unitas's first pass in the NFL was intercepted and returned for a touchdown.

                  

               Joe Montana's first pass was also intercepted. And while we're on quarterbacks, during his first season Troy Aikman threw twice as many interceptions (18) as touchdowns (9) . . . oh, and he didn't win a single game. You think there's a lesson here?   

                   After Carl Lewis won the gold medal for the long jump in the 1996 Olympic games, he was asked to what he attributed his longevity, having competed for almost 20 years. He said, "Remembering that you have both wins and losses along the way. I don't take either one too seriously."

         "Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay." ~ Eric Hoffer 

                                

 Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff. 

                                  

Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn't hire him.

                       

After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." He kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home. Astaire once observed that "when you're experimenting, you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, that you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion." And here is the reward for perseverance: "The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."

                                                         

       The first time Jerry Seinfeldwalked on-stage at a comedy club as a professional comic, he looked out at the audience, froze, and forgot the English language. He stumbled through "a minute-and a half" of material and was jeered offstage. He returned the following night and closed his set to wild applause. 

                         

     

  At the age of 21, French acting legend Jeanne Moreau was told by a casting director that her head was too crooked, she wasn't beautiful enough, and she wasn't photogenic enough to make it in films. She took a deep breath and said to herself, "Alright, then, I guess I will have to make it my own way." After making nearly 100 films her own way, in 1997 she received the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

  

              "Flops are a part of life's menu and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses." ~ Rosalind Russell                            
             

Charlie Chaplin was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because his pantomime was considered "nonsense." 

              

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Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him "hopeless as a composer." And, of course, you know that he wrote five of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf.

             

 Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. And this to the sister of one of his friends for 400 francs (approximately $50). This didn't stop him from completing over 800 paintings.

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"Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them." Washington                        

                

  Irving Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described as both "unable and unwilling to learn." No doubt a slow developer.

             

            

                   

 I bet you didn't know that John Milton wrote Paradise Lost 16 years after losing his eyesight 

              

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J. K. Rowling: Rowling may be rolling in a lot of Harry Potter dough today, but before she published the series of novels she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination.

                 

Oprah Winfrey: Most people know Oprah as one of the most iconic faces on TV as well as one of the richest and most successful women in the world. Oprah faced a hard road to get to that position, however, enduring a rough and often abusive childhood as well as numerous career setbacks including being fired from her job as a television reporter because she was “unfit for tv"

             

Stephen King: The first book by this author, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time. 

                        

 The Beatles: Few people can deny the lasting power of this super group, still popular with listeners around the world today. Yet when they were just starting out, a recording company told them no. The were told “we don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,” two things the rest of the world couldn’t have disagreed with more. 

                       

                     

 Bill Gates: Gates didn’t seem like a shoe-in for success after dropping out of Harvard and starting a failed first business with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen called Traf-O-Data. While this early idea didn’t work, Gates’ later work did, creating the global empire that is Microsoft.

      The common sense point here is simple. Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their career success. They set high goals and do whatever it takes to achieve them. They also react positively to the people and events in their lives – especially the negative people and events.

         In this post, I told the stories of some  well known people who ended up being wildly successful and well known. Let them be an example for you the next time you feel like giving up. That’s my take on career success and not giving up. What’s yours? Do you have any people to add to this list? If so, please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us. As always, thanks for reading.

          

          Last but not least ......               

"No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible." ~ Baudjuin