Marriage Success Stories

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. — Henry Ford 

Let’s explore the stories of successful men and women in our world.

CEO Apple The now revolutionary Apple started off with two men in a garage. Years later we all know it as a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. Steve Jobs was fired from the very company he began. The dismissal made him realize that his passion for his work exceeded the disappointment of failure. Further ventures such as NeXT and Pixar eventually led Jobs back to the CEO position at Apple.

• “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.” 

Bill Gates was a Harvard dropout. He was privileged to co-own a business called Traf-O-Data which was a terrible failure However, skill and a passion for computer programming turned this failure into the pioneer of famous software company Microsoft, and the then 31-year-old into the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. In his own words:

• “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”

The word ‘Einstein’ is associated with intelligence and synonymous with genius. It is a famous fact that the pioneer of the theory of general relativity, Albert Einstein himself, could not speak fluently until the age of nine. His rebellious nature led to expulsion from school, and he was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.

His earlier setbacks did not stop him from winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. After all, he believed that:

• “Success is a failure in progress.” 

To this day, his research has influenced various aspects of life including culture, religion, art, and even late-night TV.

Failing in business in 1831, suffering a nervous breakdown in 1836, defeated in his run for president in 1856, Abraham Lincoln was no stranger to rejection and failure. Rather than taking these signs as a motivation for surrender, he refused to stop trying his best. In this great man’s words:

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” Lincoln was elected in 1861 as the 16th President of the United States of America.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 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.”

This quote by retired basketball legend Michael Jordan in a Nike advertisement speaks for itself. It would be an easy misconception that Jordan’s basketball skills revolve around natural talent. In fact, in his earlier years, basketball coaches had trouble looking past the fact that Jordan didn’t reach the minimum height.

It was years of effort, practice, and failure that made the star we know today. Michael Jordan’s success all came down to his Intrinsic Motivation, one of the most invincible types of motivation that drives people to succeed.

Mickey Mouse creator Walt Disney dropped out of school at a young age in a failed attempt at joining the army. One of his earlier ventures, Laugh-o-Gram Studios, went bankrupt due to his lack of ability to run a successful business. He was once fired from a Missouri newspaper for “not being creative enough.” Yet today, the genius behind Disney studios is responsible for generations of childhood memories and dreams. From Snow White to Frozen, Disney will continue to entertain the world for generations to come. The logic behind this is simple:

When asked about the many thousands of failures he had when trying to create the light-bulb he famously said,

• “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” 

As a child, he was thought to be dumb and told that he would never be a success by many of his teachers because his mind would often wander in class.
Good thing for us that the greatest inventor in history did not listen.

For many years after during and after his college years, he worked odd jobs to pay the bill while simultaneously taking on any acting roles he could find to keep his dreams of becoming a successful actor alive.

Throughout all of those seven challenging years, Sylvester would gain a few small roles in a handful of movies, but nothing grand enough to get his career launched.

During those seven long years of striving, he came face-to-face with near poverty. Getting so desperate for money he at one point had to sell his wife’s jewelry out of desperation for money. He even had to sell his dog because he couldn’t keep him fed.

And to top it all off, there came a point where Sylvester was homelessSuccess Stories and had to sleep outside for a number of days. But, his days of struggle as an aspiring actor would not last forever.

After facing seemingly insurmountable odds for over seven years, he would finally get his big break. And this break would come after he managed to get a script, he wrote in a three-day flurry of inspiration in front of two big-shot directors in Hollywood.

It was this defining moment that would turn the tides for Sylvester Stallone, and his career would skyrocket after he negotiated the lead role in the film that would come to be known as ‘Rocky’. Success eventually comes to those who always dream of her.

J.K Rowling had a dream of becoming a writer early on. Almost as soon as she decided to get to work on putting her ideas down on paper for her book, she would be sidetracked by her mother’s death.

And the depression that would ensue left Rowling seeking out a job as a teacher in another country. Soon after, she would get married and have a child, which would delay her aspirations even further.

However, despite her challenges, Rowling would persist in the creation of her book. And she did so by seizing every spare moment she could while her child slept to write. Until finally the day came when she completed her manuscript.

Of course, even after Rowling finished her manuscript obstacles still remained. 12 different publishers would reject her novel, and she found herself almost ready to quit before her manuscript would eventually get accepted.

And it was at that moment, that J.K. Rowling’s luck turned around.

Now, J.K. Rowling is now one of the bestselling authors of all time.

In fact, she is the highest-paid novelist in the world, with her books having been translated into over 80 different languages with over 500 million being sold. Clearly, persistence and patience pay off in the long run.

Cristiano Ronaldo grew up in a household that was barely getting by. As a child, he had to share a room with three of his siblings due to their meager financial situation. There were even times where they didn’t have enough money to buy a soccer ball just so he could play in the streets.

But Ronaldo did not let his environment dictate his destiny.

No, instead he would find ways to play the sport he loved even without the ball. He would use bottles, rags, or pretty much anything he could find to make a makeshift ball just so he could play. Eventually, he would get so good at soccer, that he would have to make the ultimate sacrifice at the age of 11 to move over 500 miles away from his family to train with a prestigious soccer academy. history.

In addition to this, he is the first soccer player ever to earn over $1 billion dollars, while generating one of the largest net worth among professional athletes.

• “Dreams are not what you see in your sleep, they are the things that don’t let you sleep.” – Cristiano Ronaldo

These are stories of people who had the drive to do. What is your drive? What is that thing you have passion for?

Who Knows? You could be our next Einstein.  Let’s close with this wonderful quote from a great and successful preacher

• Your destiny is not in the hands of man, nor in the hands of God. Your destiny is in your hands. – Bishop David Oyedepo

Our next article will be on “Making Right Choices”.

The following questions will be answered
What are choices?

How can I recognize good and bad choices?

As a teenager, how can I impact my world?

Find out these and more in our next article.