I recently read this story in the news and social media. There was a boy who got first place in the district in the last released A/L exam results in Bio-technology field. He is from a remote village in Kilinochchi district and his father is daily wage worker. He studied at a school in Kilinochchi till O/L and then moved to a high school for A/L. During an interview he recalled what his old school principal said when he left the school(in Kilinochchi) "You will not achieve anything big.You are a waste"( I translated that from Tamil language and believe that it conveys the correct message.)I think it is quite unfortunate to hear such words from a teacher.
Sometimes people find you unworthy or they reject you or disregard you because they are unable to measure/relaize the worthiness in you. It is not necessarily a deliberate act. They may be just incapable of doing a complete or excellent assessment. Sometimes people consider only what is exposed so that miss out underlying potential.
Dear Toastmaster and friends! I'm going to talk to about a few people that are considered to be enormously successful;rose above failures and rejections.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey,the iconic media personlaity, was fired from one of her first television anchor jobs as she was declared “unfit for TV.” Oprah Winfrey has risen from poverty and a deeply troubled childhood to evolve as one of the most powerful and influential woman the world has seen on television.She was so poor that often wore dresses made of potato sack during childhood.According to Forbes Magazine, she is the world’s highly paid entertainer in 2012. And she is considered to be the richest African-American.
Walt Disney – Founder of Disney Co.
No need of any introduction.Walt Disney made it big in the world of animation but also faced lot of challenges in life. He was fired by the Kansas City Star newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He started a small cartoon studio with his brother Roy in Hollywood and the studio later went bankrupt following debts and was eventually closed down. That is not the end; Disney also struggled to release some of his now-classic films and he was told Mickey Mouse would fail because the mouse would “terrify women.”
In a timely twist of fate, The Disney Company went on to purchase ABC in 1996. At the time, ABC was owner of the Kansas City Star, meaning the newspaper that once fired Disney had become part of the empire he created.
J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter
When Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in 1995, it was rejected by dozen of publishers. Even Bloomsbury that finally purchased the manuscript, told her to get a day job. At a time she was writing the book, she was also going through a divorce and surviving on government welfare. Today, she is a billionaire. Also she is the best selling living author in UK.
Brian Acton – Whatsapp
He is the founder of Whatsapp but was rejected by the top social media firms. Twitter and Facebook turned him down. He still maintained a positive attitude .Instead of interviewing with large corporations, he used this as an opportunity to try his entrepreneurial luck. I'm sure there must have been lot of hard work and struggles before whatsApp became one of the most popular SMS platform in the world.Later Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 Billion. Imagine if he had received a job offer at Facebook. Instead of being a multi-billionaire with the world open to him, he would have been a coder at Facebook. He would be an ordinary man making somewhere between 100k-300k a year.
Perserverance and courage are the two essential virtues that we need to posses in our journey.
It’s not rejection or failure that holds us back, it’s the way we choose to respond. And ultimately, it’s what we choose to do in a tough situation that enables us to realize our potential to succeed. I wish every one of us to have that wisdom in our mind in every aspect of life and rise above negative forces to realize our potential.
"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy." -Norman Vincent Peale
Reference : http://successvalues.com/famous-failures-and-rejections/
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