How many times have you allowed frustration, self-doubt, cynics, critics and obstacles derail you from success? You were left depleted, exhausted and disappointed in yet another failed attempt at a lifelong goal. Then you stopped trying. Then you came up with another idea and the same thing happened. So you stopped trying. Again. It’s a vicious cycle that will never end until you realize that success is born from failure.
Just because one method didn’t work, doesn’t mean another won’t. If you give up too easily, you will never reach the finish line. The road to success is often a broken, muddy, slippery and often scary route to take. But that’s how you grow into a true leader – by finding ways around the challenges and obstacles that are in your way. If you give up the fight too easily and keep looking for a “smoother path” to success you will never find it.
Here are five famous people whose “failures” changed the world. Learn from their life lessons and apply them to yours. Imagine what impact you can have if you just stay the course and keep pushing through…
Stephen King
When asked to name the top authors in the world, who comes to mind? To readers and non-readers alike, Stephen King will always show up as one of the first names on that list.
Why does everyone know the name, Stephen King?
He’s the sort of success story every author dreams of becoming. Not only are his books popular, but quite a few of them have been adapted quite successfully as television and movies. He’s known all the world around as being one of the great storytellers of the weird and creepy and has a considerable backlist waiting to be explored.
So, where did he come from? And how does his story apply to yours?
Stephen King was a writer at heart all the way back to his school days when he used to scribble out short stories for his friends. Writing wasn’t his original career ambition, though. He’d set out to become a teacher, and only resorted to writing when he couldn’t find a job in his field.
Even this didn’t come easily though. When writing his first novel, Carrie, he was plagued with massive self-doubt, so much so he threw away his initial attempts. But with the encouragement of those around him, he went on to finish the book and got it published to great success.
Too much success.
The stress of having to produce another book when his first had proven so popular caused Stephen King to question himself further. He didn’t feel he was equal to the task and started drinking heavily. This was the beginning of a struggle with alcoholism that would nearly ruin him.
In the end, he persevered. He forced himself to seek out help for the problems holding him back. He didn’t let alcoholism destroy him and went on to achieve significant accomplishments. Now he’s one of the most recognized authors in the world, having sold more than 350 million books worldwide, with 58 novels in print and having written more than 200 short stories.
Stephen King’s story becomes important to your own story when you believe, like King, that you’re not good enough. Everyone has moments where they feel like they’re not good enough. Sometimes we resort to unhealthy ways of dealing with the pressure when we feel like we can’t perform. You can’t beat yourself up over it. Focus on what you have the power to change in your life and change it – because you deserve better.
What you need to remember is this: You are more capable than you think you are. No matter how far you’ve fallen, no matter how much you feel like you can’t…you CAN. You only need to get up and keep going. You write the next word, you put in the next hour of work, you try one more time until you achieve what you would have called impossible only a short time ago.
Life Lesson: You are good enough. Period. You know enough, you are smart enough and you CAN have the success and recognition you dream about despite mistakes or poor choices from your past. Your past doesn’t equal your future, unless you allow it too.
Walt Disney
Even the unhappiest of beginnings can’t hold you back when you have drive and determination.
Meet Walt Disney. You’ve heard the name before, whether from the beloved mouse who’s graced our TV and movie screens for almost a century, to Frozen and a whole slew of animated and live-action movies our kids beg us to watch repeatedly.
Disney never set out to become a household name, even though that’s what happened. In fact, his beginnings have a whole lot more to do with escaping from a bad situation and trying to find his place in the world.
Walt Disney grew up with a father so cruel and abusive that Walt’s elder brothers couldn’t leave home soon enough. Walt himself made his escape before he was even fully grown. He lied about his age so he could run away and join the army and became an ambulance driver in WWI.
With such rough beginnings, it should come as no surprise young Walt kept drawing as a way to hold onto his sanity in difficult times. After the war, he tried to make a living off his drawings, first as an apprentice to an animation studio, then later in a studio of his own, which he formed with the help of his brother. He failed dismally.
Not one to be easily put off by failure, Disney dug in his heels and tried again. He headed for California, which he felt was the future of the movie industry and set up shop. Here he had success with Oswald, a cartoon rabbit that the public loved. So did the unscrupulous people he was working with. His animators were stolen right out from under him, as was the very character he’d created.
Most people probably would have quit somewhere around here. Not Walt. He instead created a mouse named Mickey and kept going.
From there, Disney never rested. He tried his hand at a full-length animated film with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which became very successful. On the other hand, he also tried things that were considered ‘flops,’ such as Fantasia and Pinocchio. His was a career full of ups and downs. When he opened Disneyland, just about everything that could go wrong, did. He simply dug in and worked harder to make it the success he knew it could be.
Life Lesson: The life of Walt Disney teaches us many things. First, it doesn’t matter where you begin. The point is to get started. Second, you can’t let disaster get you down. You simply need to pull yourself up and move on without looking back. No matter where you are in life, keep going. The only thing that can hold you back is YOU.
Milton Hershey
Chocolate. So good. So tasty. Who knew a candy bar could lead to a success story?
Hershey chocolate has become a staple in just about everyone’s diet. Whether you are a person who loves the straight-up Hershey bar or are more of a Kit Kat or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup sort of person, there’s something for every chocolate lover. We can’t imagine life without chocolate, although only 150 years ago, only the rich could enjoy the delicious confection.
Chocolate had been around for centuries, but candy was something made by hand, taking a lot of time and effort to create. Thankfully some people saw it didn’t have to be that way.
Meet Milton Hershey.
Hershey was the sort of guy who loved dessert. He also had a knack for sniffing out business opportunities. Unfortunately, most of his ideas didn’t work out very well. In fact, if it hadn’t been for relatives loaning him the money and a good bit of luck, his caramel business would have died out in the 1880s. Hershey, though, was one to keep an eye out for opportunity. He found it in 1893.
Hershey noticed few were paying attention to a contraption at World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A German chocolatier had a machine which could produce chocolate much more simply, with a lot less work. Although his field wasn’t chocolate, but caramel, he knew a good idea when he saw one. He purchased the machine to adapt to his own work, thinking chocolate-covered caramels might be a good idea.
This didn’t exactly work out as planned. What did, though, was making chocolate bars. These candy bars took the world by storm. So much so, Hershey was approached in 1937 to come up with a bar that wouldn’t melt easily but could have added nutrition to send with soldiers overseas as a supplement to their diet. During WWII, he was making 24 million bars a week for the military!
After the war, Hershey’s success was secured. He branched out into other kinds of chocolate bars, continually trying new things and expanding production until it became the successful company we know today.
Life Lesson: Expect failures, learn from them and forge through – never let them hold you back. Hershey might have been a failure initially, but he had a lot of drive and determination. What didn’t work, he left behind, pursuing quickly what did. When he was approached to try something new, he immediately rose to the challenge, asking, ‘how can I do this’ instead of focusing on ‘I’ve never done this before.’
To succeed in today’s world, show yourself to be persistent like Hershey. Never turn your back on a lucky break. Most of all, don’t forget to embrace the sweet things in life. You’ll be amazed where they can take you!
Henry Ford
Who do you listen to? It’s so easy to become discouraged when you hear the people around you, especially those who don’t quite catch the vision of your dreams. How you deal with this kind of naysaying can mean the difference between failure and success.
Henry Ford experienced just this problem.
When you think of Ford, you probably immediately think of cars, or even the entire assembly line process. His success was not immediate, though, and in fact, he failed twice before finally getting to where he wanted to go.
Ford was just twenty-three years old when he first discovered the wonders of the internal combustion engine. Fascinated, he immersed himself in the mechanics of it with the idea of attaching it to a horseless carriage. He even came up with a prototype that seemed extremely promising.
Unable to develop the project further on his own, Ford sought financing so he could take the automobile to the next level. He secured this reasonably quickly, and so his success should have been certain, right?
The problem lay in the prototype. The car he’d designed initially had too many parts that were hard to get. He had to keep tweaking the design to make it into something able to go into production. In short, he took too long to get the desired results, and the financiers lost faith and backed out.
Henry Ford dug in, though, and tried again, this time paying more attention to the production aspects. He somehow convinced his backers to give him a second chance. They did, with the stipulation they could bring their own manager in on the project.
Again, this led to failure. Ford felt micromanaged by someone who didn’t understand the vision. When this fell apart, it should have been the end of things. He still believed in both the product and his ideas regarding production and hung in there. This time he searched for backers who likewise came to see his vision and were willing to allow him the freedom to act as he saw fit to make it a reality. This was the real beginning of the Model A Ford, which was the foundation of Ford’s success in automobiles.
Life Lesson: Don’t allow others to discourage you – believe in your dream and ignore the cynics. Ford was a visionary in that he never allowed anyone else to stop him from doing what he knew he could. When someone stood in his way, he found a new way around the problem to keep going. In the end, he succeeded through persistence.
So can you. The next time someone tells you ‘no,’ look for the one ready to say ‘yes.’ The next time someone says “you can’t” bless their intention, turn your back to the negativity and do your thing – knowing darn well that you can and you will. Align yourself with supporters, not naysayers. Then go out and get the job done.
Albert Einstein
Stupid. Failure. No good. Idiot.
Albert Einstein heard all these phrases about himself and more. Growing up was tough for young Albert. He didn’t express himself well and struggled in school. Even his teachers gave up on him, deciding that he was impossible to teach. Those around him considered him intellectually impaired, and no one thought he would ever make anything of himself.
This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning for someone who is considered to be one of the greatest geniuses of all time, does it?
Einstein seemed to meet failure at every turn. He wished to attend the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology but had to take the entrance exam twice before he was admitted. Even then, his troubles weren’t over. His teachers laughed at his ideas, calling his doctoral dissertation “irrelevant and fanciful.” After college, no one thought much about him. He worked in a patent office. A situation which turned out to be perfect because the work was so mindless, he had plenty of time to think.
And think he did. A lot!
Albert Einstein used his extra time to work out several theories. In fact, he became so caught up in his ideas, he grew absent-minded and oblivious to the world around him. In the grand scheme of things, maybe it didn’t matter quite so much whether he forgot to wear socks with his shoes. The important thing was what he developed, what he created in those deep thoughts. From the Theory of Relativity to every theory that came after, it soon became evident that Albert Einstein’s thoughts were considerable. So much so that he became a professor himself, and even won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
Imagine what his critics had to say about him then!
From Albert Einstein, we should learn not to let the world define us. No one truly knows what you’re capable of but you. Even if you don’t always express your ideas well, it doesn’t mean those ideas don’t have merit.
Albert Einstein is also an excellent example of what it means to do your own thing. His ideas didn’t mesh with the way people typically thought about the world. Even in his lifetime, not everyone saw things his way. This didn’t stop him from expressing himself and standing by what he said.
Life Lesson: Don’t be afraid to share your ideas with the world. Become the leader you were born to be. Never let anyone else tell you what you can do. That’s for you to show them.
Can you imagine what this world would be like if these five famous failures decided to give in to the critics, pessimists and their own limiting beliefs? I shudder to think… a life without chocolate or Mickey Mouse… c’mon! 😉
There is a lot to learn from failure, so don’t fear it. Embrace the lessons and character you will develop as you breakthrough your challenges head on.
Your knowledge and wisdom can change someone’s life. You owe it to them to share it – don’t you agree?
If you are ready to finally step up, share your ideas with world and become the transformational author that you meant to be, then apply for the Pen Your Purpose Mentorship program.
