As you have probably realized, I get a lot of inspiration from reading positive and uplifting authors that I find online. I usually search out those that in particular would provide motivation and determination to my children. Like everyone, my children battle setbacks and shortcomings from time to time. I always try to teach them that hard work and a positive mental attitude best prepare them for rebounding from those setbacks and help ensure a positive path moving forward. Here is an interesting portion of an article I found through the online version of Inc. magazine by author Scott Mautz regarding overcoming failures in your life:
Ask yourself, “What if these people had let their failure shut them down?”
- The greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan, was cut from his high school team.
- Walt Disney was fired from his job at a newspaper early in his career–they said he lacked imagination.
- Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times.
- John Grisham’s first book, “A Time to Kill”, was rejected twenty-eight times.
- Albert Einstein had the label “mentally slow” put on his permanent school record.
- Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed.
- Oprah Winfrey was fired from an early job as a television news anchor.
- Jerry Seinfeld was booed off stage in his first stand-up comedy appearance.
- Sir James Dyson suffered through 5,126 failed prototypes before he landed on the first working Dyson vacuum.
- Elvis Presley was fired from the Grand Ole Opry and was told to go back to truck driving.
- Colonel Harland Sanders of KFC fame was rejected over 1000 times before finding a franchise partner.
Scott adds: “Feel better? You should. We’ve all been there. It’s all in your frame of reference and determination to keep moving forward, which is in your control.”