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 first attempt to be nominated for congress,
defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office,
defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the
vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858. At
about 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 the 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)
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 1,000 unsuccessful
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."
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 in
undergraduate 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."
When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its
owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was
disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, "What use could this company
make of an electrical toy."
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
An expert said of Vince Lombardi: "He possesses
minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation." Lombardi would later
write, "It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get back
up."
Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their
high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, "I've failed over and
over again in my life. 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.")
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.
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."
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."
After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by
the casting director, "Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out
and become a dishwasher or something?" It was at that moment, recalls
Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.
When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress in
1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama
School, "Try any other profession."
In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book
Modeling Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, "You'd better
learn secretarial work or else get married." I'm sure you know that Norma
Jean was Marilyn Monroe. Now . . . who was Emmeline Snively?
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, "All right, 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.
After Harrison Ford's first performance as a hotel
bellhop in the film Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, the studio vice-president
called him in to his office. "Sit down kid," the studio head said,
"I want to tell you a story. The first time Tony Curtis was ever in a
movie he delivered a bag of groceries. We took one look at him and knew he was
a movie star." Ford replied, "I thought you were supposed to think
that he was a grocery delivery boy." The vice president dismissed Ford
with "You ain't got it kid, you ain't got it ... now get out of
here."
Michael Caine's headmaster told him, "You will be
a laborer all your life."
Enrico Caruso's music teacher said he had no voice at
all and could not sing. His father wanted him to become an engineer.
Decca Records turned down a recording contract with
the Beatles with the unprophetic evaluation, "We don't like their sound.
Groups of guitars are on their way out." After Decca rejected the Beatles,
Columbia records followed suit.
In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry,
fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, "You ain't
goin' nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck."
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.
When Pablo Casals reached 95, a young reporter asked
him "Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why
do you still practice six hours a day?" Mr. Casals answered, "Because
I think I'm making progress."
Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described
as both "unable and unwilling to learn." No doubt a slow developer.
18 publishers turned down Richard Bach's story about a
"soaring eagle." Macmillan finally published Jonathan Livingston
Seagull in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than 7 million copies in the U.S.
alone.
21 publishers rejected Richard Hooker's humorous war
novel, M*A*S*H. He had worked on it for seven years.
Jack London received six hundred rejection slips
before he sold his first story.
William Saroyan accumulated more than a thousand
rejections before he had his first literary piece published.
I bet you didn't know that John Milton wrote Paradise
Lost 16 years after losing his eyesight
There is a professor at MIT who offers a course on
failure. He does that, he says, because failure is a far more common experience
than success. An interviewer once asked him if anybody ever failed the course
on failure. He thought a moment and replied, "No, but there were two
Incompletes."
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