From Zero to Hero

If you decide to quit, give up and accept failure when trying to reach a particular goal, the consequences could affect millions of people around the world.

Many people have fulfilled their own dreams, and successfully changed and improved lives of others by providing everything from encouragement, motivation, business developments, leadership, direction, entertainment, heritage, employment and much more.

Major benefits and advancements never would have happened if these determined persistent committed people were not able to endure the tremendous amount of failure, rejection and countless obstacles they had to overcome. Here are just a few people.

Abraham Lincoln’s business failed. He lost in elections when he ran for legislature, congress and the senate. He also lost the vice presidential nomination. He could not afford Law School, so he taught himself and became a lawyer. He was the sixteenth president of the United States. To this day he is still considered to be one of the most popular and most successful of all the presidents.

Michael Jordan did not make his high school varsity basketball team the first year he tried out. He went on to win two Olympic gold medals in basketball. He has NBA Most Valuable Player titles and he led his team to six basketball World Championships.

J. K. Rowlings submitted her first Harry Potter book to several publishers and they kept rejecting it. The Harry Potter books and movies have become one of the most successful children series ever. J. K. Rowlings went from welfare to multimillionaire.

Alex Haley went to the National Archives in Washington D.C. searching through thousands of documents and endless rolls of microfilm trying to research his family history to verify the stories his ancestors told. For the longest time, he found absolutely nothing. When he finally found the needle in the haystack, it all paid off. People all over the world were glued to their television sets for an entire week watching Roots. It broke all kinds of television broadcasting records.

Sherwood Schwartz kept getting rejected by television networks to put on his shows Gilligan’s Island and the Brady Bunch. Both of these shows were so successful that they have been in prime time and reruns for about forty years.

Mrs. Debbie Fields was nineteen years old with no prior business experience

when she was turned down by every bank in Oakland, California that she tried to get a loan to start one cookie store. Later she became the founder and owner of her own cookie company with branches all over the world. She was a millionaire before her thirtieth birthday.

Bill Gates wrote his first software program when he was thirteen years old. As a teenager he then wrote the software for his Traf-O-Data computer and tried to sell it. Nobody wanted the machine. Instead of trying to sell hardware, Gates and his partner Paul Allen decided to write software. Gates sent numerous letters from his college dorm room to all the big computer companies offering to write their software. Nobody was interested. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University, started the Microsoft Corporation and eventually became the richest person in the world.

Bessie Coleman could not get into any Pilot school in the United States. She went to France, got her pilot’s license, and returned to the USA. She was the first black female American airplane pilot.

Madonna was living in the streets and eating out of trash cans while trying to get into show business. She kept getting rejections. Now she is one of the top female performers and recording artists ever. She has won numerous awards.

Oprah Winfrey loss her broadcasting job then went on to become a billionaire and hosting one of the most popular talk shows in the world.

Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer which made it unlikely that he would be able to compete in cycling. After that he won seven first place titles riding his bicycle in the Tour de France, which is considered to be one of the most difficult and most challenging athletic competitions in the world.



Wilma Rudolph was diagnosed with polio and doctors told her that she may never be able to walk. After that she went on to win three Olympic Gold Medals in Track.

Colonel Harland Sanders was a senior citizen with little money. He kept getting rejected when he tried to get anybody to share the profits with him using his fried chicken recipe. Eventually his is Kentucky Fried Chicken became the largest fast food fried chicken restaurant on earth.

Jennifer Hudson lost when she competed on American Idol. She went on to win an Academy Award in her first movie for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Effie in Dreamgirls.

The list can go on and on. It is easy to look backwards into the past because hindsight is 20-20 vision. Looking at the present objectively with an open mind and believing the potential of possibilities for the future is much more difficult. However, it also could be more rewarding for everybody.