Catherine Pratt tells you why you shouldn’t listen to this
I love inspirational stories from people who have achieved things by following their dreams no matter what. Imagine what a different world it would be it there was no Walt Disney, no Star Wars, no Beethoven symphonies. These have all been created by people who faced numerous rejections yet refused to listen to the negative people who said, ‘you can’t’.
Francis O’Dea:
You’ve probably never heard of Francis O’Dea but if you live in Canada, you’re probably very familiar with the coffee house company, ‘Second Cup’.
Francis grew up in Toronto, was sexually abused at age 13 and around that time starting drinking. Life quickly went downhill and before long he was homeless. He had to beg for change in order to survive. For six months he lived on the streets with no clue as to what he wanted to do or how to get out of his current situation. Happily, today Francis O’Dea is a multi millionaire. As he says, “One year I was broke, the next year I was a millionaire.”
He changed his life by focusing on what he wanted. He got a job and slowly started to turn his life around.
Four years later he opened a little coffee shop and called it ‘Second Cup’. Second Cup is now of the largest Coffee Shop chains in Canada.
Wayne Gretzky:
Wayne Gretzky has been quoted as saying, “It’s kind of ironic when I broken in at 17, I was told I was too small, too slow and I wouldn’t make the NHL.” He’s now recognized as one of the greatest hockey players ever.
George Lucas:
George Lucas spent four years shipping the script for Star Wars around to the various studios and racking up numerous rejections in the process. If he’d let his negative inner voice get to him he would never have ended up having the highest grossing film of all time.
Einstein:
He was considered an “unteachable” fool by his early teachers.
Michael Jordan:
He was cut from high school basketball team. Jordan quote, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.”
Bob Parsons:
Founder and CEO of GoDaddy.com. If you read his blog posting you’ll see that he overcame a lot in pursuit of his dream. He definitely was not an overnight success and experienced a lot of failure on the way. But, he kept his vision in his mind at all times and says, “I spent very little time looking back or feeling sorry for myself.” Another awesome quote from the article is, “Quitting is easy. The easiest thing to do in the world is to quit and give up on your dreams (and quite frankly, that’s what all the non-risk takers want you to do).”
Beethoven:
Beethoven’s music teacher told him he was a hopeless composer.
Colonel Sanders (creator of Kentucky Fried Chicken):
He was told “No” by over a thousand restaurants for more than a year while he lived in his car trying to sell his chicken recipe.
Thomas Edison:
He’s actually known as one of the most prolific inventors in history holding 1,093 US patents as well as a lot of patents in the UK, France and Germany. When Thomas was four he was sent home from school with a note. The note told his mother that she was to remove her son from school because he was “too stupid to learn”. Thomas’ mother decided to teach him herself. He only had three months of formal schooling yet went on to create numerous inventions like the phonograph. He was also partially deaf in one ear.
Walt Disney:
He was turned down by over a hundred banks when he tried to get funding to develop Disneyland. He was also fired from job at a newspaper for “lacking ideas”. He also had several bankruptcies before he was able to develop Disneyland.
Fred Astaire:
he kept a memo over his fireplace from an MGM testing director after his first screen test that said, “Can’t act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.”
Louisa May Alcott:
Author of Little Women, was encouraged by her family to be a servant or seamstress.
Enid Blyton:
She is a British author who was rejected by publishers 1,000 times. She wrote Noddy, The Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers, The Mystery Series, The Adventure Series, The Secret Seven, Malory Towers, The St Clare’s series, The Magic Faraway Tree series, The Wishing-Chair series, and hundreds of other books for children.
Enrico Caruso:
This famous opera singer was told by his teacher that he had no voice at all and couldn’t sing.
Richard Bach:
The author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull was turned down by 18 publishers before finally in 1970, MacMillan published it. By 1975, this book had sold more than 7 million copies in the US.
Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield:
These are the authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. They were turned down by 50 book publishers before somebody finally agreed to take a chance. They have since sold over 75 million copies.
Lou Ferrigno:
Most well known for his role on the TV show, The Incredible Hulk, as a child, Lou developed an ear infection which would result in partial but permanent hearing loss. His father was critical of and negative towards him due to his hearing disability. His father believed that he would never achieve success. Yet, he went on to become the youngest bodybuilder ever to win the Mr Universe title at the age of 20. Ferrigno quote: “If I hadn’t lost my hearing, I wouldn’t be where I am now. It forced me to maximise my potential. I had to be better than the average person to succeed. That’s why I chose bodybuilding. If I become a world champion, if I could win admiration from my peers, I could do anything.”
Stephen Hawking:
Well known for his ground breaking ideas on the laws that govern the universe, Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease when he was 21. He was never let this disease stop him from following his passion and achieving a life of happiness.
Og Mandino:
Is a bestselling author of inspirational books. Before he became a well known author, he was addicted to alcohol. One day, after a long night of drinking, he bought a gun from a pawnshop for $3. He thought this might be the way to end all of his problems but he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. He wandered aimlessly for awhile before he ended up in a library. There he decided to transform himself and managed to completely change his life. From being able to change his own life he has gone on to help many others.
George Orwell:
Most well known for his two books Animal Farm and 1984. Animal Farm was rejected by a number of publishers including one who told him that it was “impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.” By 1996, Animal Farm had sold 20,000,000 copies and had been translated into 60 languages.
Muggsy Bogues:
The smallest player in NBA history. He’s only 5’3”. Who’s says you have to be tall to play basketball?
