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We all hope to be successful at whatever we try our hand at in life. Sometimes we enjoy success straight off and then we feel great. At other times we fail. On those occasions we usually give up and try something different because we have “proved” that the method used was wrong. However, there are plently of people who don’t give up right away. They often become famous in their chosen fields. They discover how to be a failure and still succeed.

Thomas Edison rather famously considered the light bulb “an invention with 1,000 steps” when asked by a reporter how he felt about having 1,000 attempts to create it that all ended in failure. We only remember the fact that he was eventually successful. That’s certainly turning failure into success. Next time you flick a switch, remember all the failures that went into the wonderful success that gives us instant light.

Charles Darwin evolved from mediocrity into success, as is evidenced by this passage in his autobiography: “I was considerd by all my masters, and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” His theories of evolution changed the world.

A young boy who seemed unable to speak until he turned four years old, and who didn’t know how to read until he was seven years old, went on to become famous, despite his teachers reporting that he was, “…mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” However, those foolish dreams resulted in an equation that most of us are familiar with, even if we don’t quite understand it: E=MC2. Albert Einstein is now considered by many to have been one of the finest minds operating in the 20th century.

Michael Jordan is a well known and highly successful sportsman. It hasn’t always been so, however. He once admitted, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

A young man working for a newspaper was fired by his boss who claimed that “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He did better later on, even though he went bankrupt several times. He had an idea for a park attraction, but the governing council of the planned area initially turned him down, claiming that his idea would “only attract rifraff.” However, his park went on to be rather successful with several more parks opening, as well as the dozens of films he made. All of them carried the name of their creator, Walt Disney.

A director at MGM wrote a memo after a screen test in 1933 that read, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” The man who was the subject of the memo later kept it framed above the fireplace at his Beverley Hills home. That was after Fred Astaire had shown the world that he was actually not too bad at acting and singing, despite the slight baldness, and of course, his dancing improved too.

There are hundreds of similar stories, all of them quite true. So, if you are just starting out, or even if you’ve already given it your best shot and failed, don’t despair - your moment may be just around the corner. As Sir Winston Churchill, another one-time failure who went on to do rather well, once said, “Never give up!”

PS: here are a few more of life’s well-known “failures:

Louis Pasteur - born a poor farmer’s son, came close to last in his class of undergraduate studies in chemistry.

Henry Ford - went penniless five times before finally turning a profit.

R.H. Macy - failed at making a go of his store in New York seven times before he turned the corner and became a success.

Babe Ruth - once held the record for strikeouts.

Sidney Poitier - told by a casting director, “…stop wasting people’s time … become a dishwasher or something.”

Jerry Seinfeld - booed off the stage on his first professional appearance.

Michael Caine - his headmaster at school told him, “You will be a laborer all your life.”

Charlie Chaplin - initially rejected by Hollywood because his comedy routines were considered “nonsense.”

Enrico Caruso - as a child his music teacher told him he couldn’t sing and his parents wanted him to become an engineer.

Elvis Presley - told by the manager of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son!”

Ludwig van Beethoven - his teacher told him he was “hopeless as a composer.” He did quite well though and even wrote five of his symphonies while stone deaf!

James Joyce - his book, The Dubliners, was rejected 22 times.

Marilyn Monroe - told by a modeling agency, “You’d better learn secretarial work, or else get married.”

Abraham Lincoln - demoted in war, failed in business, unsuccessful lawyer, defeated in politics several times, then became President of the USA!

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