From Struggles To Stardom: What You Can Learn From Famous Failures

A university professor opened up his class by picking out of his back pocket a £20 note. In the lecture hall of about two hundred people, the professor asked: “How many of you would like this note?”

Naturally, all two hundred hands of the students went up. The professor said, “Interesting, before I let you have it, let me ask you this question.”

He then took the note and folded it in half and said, “How many of you now want this note?” Still, two hundred hands of the students went up.

The professor then said, “Let me try something else.” He took the note and crumpled it and said, “How many of you want this note now?”

Still, two hundred hands of the students went up. Finally, the professor threw the £20 note on the floor, screwed it into the ground with his shoe, and crumpled it even more.

He then picked up the crumpled note that was now covered in dirt and said, “How many of you want this note?” All two-hundred hands were still up.

The professor said, “Today you’ve learned an important lesson. No matter how much I crumpled that note. No matter, I crunched it up. No matter how many times it was stood on, you still wanted it because it was still worth £20.”

In the same way that £20 note held its value, so do you. No matter how many times life will tread on you. No matter how many times life will crumple you, scrunch you and squeeze you… you will always keep your value.

That spark that exists within us, all the bliss, knowledge, and eternity, will never be taken away.

Our value is not created by the price of our clothes or our bank balance or the job title that we have. We should be building our life and not just building our CV’s.

Famous Failures

In the middle of 2009, he was the software engineer that no one wanted to hire. He had 12 years of experience at Yahoo, but he was rejected by Facebook and rejected by Twitter.

He has been to a great university, had a great CV, but he decided to team up with one of his alumni members at Yahoo and started to create an app and focus on the startup space.

Five years later, he sold that app for $19 Billion dollars to Facebook. Believe it or not, that was Brian Acton, the co-founder of WhatsApp.

In 2009 when he was rejected by Facebook, he said: “It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life’s next adventure.”

When he was rejected by Twitter, he responded by saying: “Got denied by Twitter HQ. Would have been a long commute.”

It’s so interesting to see someone who was rejected by two of the top internet companies responded with humor and positivity.

He went on to build Microsoft. His name is Bill Gates.

This lady was diagnosed with clinical depression. Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child. She was on a four-hour delayed train journey from Manchester to London in the United Kingdom.

During the journey, she came up with an idea for a book about a wizard, and as she started writing. When she finished her manuscript, she took it to 12 publishers and was rejected by them all.

Believe it or not, that is J. K. Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, one of the most popular books and film franchises in history. She's now a billionaire.

Speaking at Harvard’s graduation, J.K. Rowling spoke about failures: “You might never fail on the scale I did,” Rowling told the new graduates. “But it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all.”

So, failure is just a sign, showing us that we need to widen our scope, to be ready, and build ourselves up for the next level.

Actually, what we end up achieving is far greater than what we envisioned for ourselves.

This divine plan, this orchestration, can’t be happening without the intervention that occurs. If we had it our way we would just settle and accept the goals that we thought we were chasing.

But, when you don’t achieve what you’ve been chasing, further down the line you will look back and reflect. You will then realize that what you’ve gained is so much greater.

Failures are only failures when we DON’T learn from them. When we learn from them, they become lessons.

We can then extrapolate all of these teachings and get more insight into how we can improve the way we work and how we can drive with a different energy.

The challenge we have is that we only talk about people's failures when they succeed. That’s why it becomes taboo, and we feel like these famous people's failures never happened and success came easy to them.

We need to share these stories of failure. We need to bring out these stories and experiences that happened on the journey.

In this way, people who are on that journey can actually follow in those footsteps. That’s why Steve Jobs (founder of Apple) said: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.”

We've learned that you don't need to be born a star to achieve success. In fact, some of the world's most famous icons faced overwhelming hardship and failure before finding their footing and reaching the heights of fame. From Oprah Winfrey's early struggles with poverty, sexism, and racism to J. K. Rowling's multiple rejections from publishers for her beloved Harry Potter series – these uplifting stories show us that our past experiences do not define our future destiny.

So what can we learn from these famous failures in order to help motivate us on our own quests for success?

Everyone Has To Start Somewhere

Success isn't a linear path, and even the most successful people have their stories of failure. You need look no further than the stars of business, entertainment, and sports to learn that failure can be incredibly useful in helping us learn resilience and identify what future successes we should be pursuing.

Studying the famous failures of others can help inspire our own personal growth, showing us that not only is it okay to make mistakes, but it's how we learn from them that truly matters.

The failures that happened to the famous and well-known should remind us all of our own potential. They should encourage us to learn from their experiences in order to refine our own skills so that our eventual successes are bigger, brighter and more fulfilling than ever.

Our Failures Can Help Us Succeed in the Future

We have all experienced failure in our lives and it can be defeating, especially when the results seem final. However, the important thing to remember is that these instances form us, and what we learn from them will only help to propel us forward in our endeavors.

Learn From the Mistakes of Others and Don't Make the Same Ones Yourself

We often learn about the successes of our heroes, but rarely learn about their struggles and mistakes. However, if we learn from the famous failures of these people, we can learn from their experiences and make sure not to make the same mistakes that they did.

It’s a great way to learn without having to incur the cost and pain of making those mistakes ourselves! Knowing what didn’t work in the past allows us to gain greater insight into how we should move forward with our own projects. We can learn so much this way and take away valuable lessons that can be applied to our lives and change our future for the better.

Failing Is an Essential Part of Learning

It's easy to be overwhelmed by the fear of failure, but it's important to remember that failure often precedes success. If you learn from your hardships and mistakes, then failure can be an invaluable lesson in life.

Even some of the most famous and successful people in history have achieved greatness precisely because of their failures. Henry Ford failed at multiple businesses before inventing the Model T car and becoming an icon for innovation and industry.

So don't let your fears hold you back. Learn from people who have faced failure head on and kept pushing forward. If you take a risk and it doesn't turn out as expected – learn from that experience, use it to your advantage, and challenge yourself to try again until you succeed.

Let Go of Negative Thoughts and Cultivate a Positive Attitude

It's easier said than done, but it's a valuable practice to learn to let go of negative thoughts and cultivate a positive attitude. Our current age of 24/7 connectivity has made instant criticism easy. But for our own mental welfare we've got to learn to make this toxic criticism easy to forget.

It's not always easy but it does get easier with practice. Start by writing down your negative thoughts if it helps you to identify them.

Then try to learn something new or find something inspiring everyday, like inspirational quotes or podcasts and autobiographies of people who have have over come failure and adversity to achieve success. This will help you combat those feelings of doubt or anxiety that tend to hold us back.

With time, patience, and dedication to participating in some of the practices detailed above, you'll soon learn how to let go of that feeling of negativity that can come with a temporary failure. You'll then come to realize that with a positive attitude anything is possible.

Persevere Through Tough Times and Keep Moving Forward

It's inevitable in life that we will encounter tough times. One great strategy to persevering through these moments is to remember all the famous failures who did not give up. They learned from their mistakes, and kept moving forward.

By keeping these stories in mind even during the toughest of times, we can learn how to keep going no matter how broken we feel inside. All it takes is some creative problem-solving, determination and maybe a dose of optimism here and there!

It's ok for setbacks to steer us in a different direction – but as long as we keep moving forward, participate in some creative problem-solving, be determined, and have a big dose of optimisim, success is guaranteed.

Conclusion

J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs – Even though they are some of the most successful people in the world, they all have one thing in common: They have faced failure.

But instead of letting those failures define them, they used it as motivation to push themselves harder and achieve their goals.

What can we learn from these famous failures?

We learn perseverance, humility and resilience from adversity; qualities that have pushed many successful people across the finish line. It’s also important for us to learn from famous failures such as Thomas Edison who famously declared “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” after failing innumerable times at inventing the light bulb – these learnings remind us that there are always ways to keep going no matter how insurmountable an obstacle may seem.

So even though failure can be daunting, remaining open-minded and taking lessons away from these experiences. means that in the end they are an opportunity to learn and grow. And who knows, maybe one day your name will be on this list of inspirational people who have overcome adversity to achieve greatness.

If you're serious about manifesting the life that you TRULY want… generating more income … and experiencing a powerfully abundant lifestyle for this year and beyond… you can GET STARTED RIGHT HERE!

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