It’s not failure unless you quit.
We all know JK Rowling was rejected 12 times before going on to be published by a small publishing house and told to keep her day job. Huge failures are common on the road to success, but they aren’t the end of the road unless you give up.
- Marilyn Monroe was dropped one year into her contract with 20th Century Fox because her producer thought she wasn’t attractive enough and couldn’t act.
- Abraham Lincoln faced 12 major political failures before becoming president.
- Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were both cut from their high school basketball teams.
- Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn’t hire him.
- 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.
- 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 1954, after performing at the Grand Ole Opry, Elvis Presley was told to keep his day job as a truck driver.
- 27 publishers rejected Dr. Suess’s first book I Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street.
- Henry Ford went broke five times before creating the Ford Motor Company.
- RH Macy had seven business failures before creating Macys in NYC.
- Soichiro Honda was turned down for a job interview from Toyota.
- Harland Sanders (The KFC Colonel) had his famous sauce reject 1,009 times.
- Thomas Edison failed 1000 times at creating the lightbulb.
- Winston Churchill was rejected for every political position before becoming Prime Minister at the age of 62.
- Oprah was fired from as a news reporter for being unfit for TV.
- Fred Astaire was told from his first screen test that he ‘can’t sing, can’t act, can dance a little.’
- Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected 30 times, causing him to throw it in the trash before his wife dug it out and insisted that he resubmit it.
