There's Failure In All Success Stories

Introduction

For as long as people have been succeeding at things, they've also been failing. In fact, I think that I can say with a fair amount of certainty that failure is an essential component of success. But why does this keep happening? Why do so many people need to fail before they can succeed? I don't know. What I do know is that failure seems to be something in our very nature as humans. We are curious, creative creatures who are always trying new things. We also could tend to be impatient creatures who often want to see results immediately. This human trait—the aspiration toward change and innovation mixed with the reality of human impatience—is really where the connection between failure and success comes from. If you accept that you'll fail many times on your way to success, then you can take a step back from your failures and learn from them instead of letting them crush your spirits. Then you'll be able to get back up again and start moving toward your eventual success story!

Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first TV job.

Oprah Winfrey has been a media mogul for decades, but she had to start somewhere. When the talk show queen was just 22 years old, she got her first job in television—as anchor of the local news program People Are Talking in Baltimore.

However, it didn't take long for management to realize that they'd made a mistake hiring Winfrey. She was let go after just six months because her emotional on-air style was too over-the-top for viewers' tastes at the time. "I wasn't confident enough," she recalled in an interview with Forbes magazine last year. Fortunately, Winfrey was able to get another job at WJZ-TV and hone her skills so that when she finally did make it big with The Oprah Winfrey Show 20 years later (at age 42), there wouldn't be any doubt about how good she really is at what she does!

J.K. Rowling was turned down by 12 publishers before being accepted for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

You might be thinking, "12 publishers? That's a lot of rejection!" And you'd be right—it is a lot. But the fact that Rowling had such an incredible story with her book that she was turned down by so many publishers makes her success even more impressive. After all, if 12 people don't like your work, it probably means something.

But there's another side to this story: In addition to being rejected by 12 publishers and having to rewrite her book seven times over eight years before finally finding a publisher who would accept it, J.K. Rowling also received some particularly harsh criticism from one publisher who told her that they didn't publish children's books or books about wizards (because wizards are for nerds). The rest is history!

Walt Disney was fired from The Kansas City Star because he lacked creativity.

The story of Walt Disney's rise to fame is well known by now. A man born with so little money that he could never afford a Christmas tree or new clothes, he went on to create some of the biggest and most recognizable franchises in pop culture history. His name is synonymous with creativity, fun, adventure and imagination. Yet before this icon was ever a household name, he made one of his first big breaks in an entirely different field: animation.

Disney was hired by The Kansas City Star as an artist at age 18—a job that eventually led him to work for Hearst newspapers across the country. At each stop along the way, Disney had trouble fitting into office culture; colleagues found him too shy and inexperienced for creative leadership roles like cartoonist or illustrator (which were considered more prestigious). In 1917 he was fired from The Kansas City Star because he lacked creativity—and thus began his lifelong career as an entrepreneur instead!

Everyone fails sometimes, but you can use those failures to make your successes even bigger.

Failure is part of life. It's one of the best things that can happen to you.

You see, when you try something new and it doesn't work out, it means you're on your way to doing something else, something more innovative, something much more groundbreaking. You're learning new things and finding out what works for you as an individual. In other words, failure makes room for success!

Conclusion

I hope this post has served as a reminder that failing is not something to be afraid of. Think about the things you want to do in your life. I’m willing to bet that if you follow through on those desires, you will experience failure at some point along the way. Failing isn’t a bad thing—it just means that you’re trying new things and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. That is never a bad thing! So don’t let failure stop you from doing what you really want to do in life.

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