1. In 1962, four nervous young
musicians played their first record audition for the executives of the
Decca recording Company. The executives were not impressed. While turning down
this group of musicians, one executive said,"We don't like their sound.
Groups of guitars are on the way out." The group was called
The Beatles.
2.In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modelling Agency,told modelling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, "You'd better learn secretarial work or else get married." She went on and became Marilyn Monroe.
3.In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole
Opry,Fired a singer after one performance. He told him, "You ain't goin' nowhere....son.You
ought to go back to drivin'a truck." He went on to become
the most
popular singer in America named Elvis Presley.
4. When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it did not ring off the hook with calls from potential backers. After making a demonstration call, president Rutherford Hayes said, "That's an amazing invention,but who would ever want to use one of them?"
5. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2000> experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. He said, "I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process."
6. In the 1940s, another young inventor named Chester Carlson took his idea to 20 corporations, including some of the biggest in the country. They all turned him down. In 1947 - after seven long years of rejections! He finally got a tiny company in ester, New York, the Haloid Company,to purchase the rights to his invention - an electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid became Xerox Corporation we know today.
7.Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of 22 children. She
was born prematurely and her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years old,
she contacted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralysed
left leg. At age 9,she removed the metal leg brace she had been dependent on
and began to walk without it. By 13 she had developed a rhythmic walk, which
doctors said was a miracle. That same year she decided to become a runner. She
entered a race and came in last. For the next few years every race she entered,she
came in last. Everyone told her to quit, but she kept on running.One day she
actually won a race. And then another. From then on she won every race she entered.Eventually
this little girl, who was told she would never walk again, went on to win three
Olympic gold
medals.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened,vision cleared,ambition inspired and success achieved. You gain strength, experience and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face....You must do the thing you cannot do. And remember, the finest steel gets sent through the hottest furnace. Champion is not the one who never fails, but he is the one who NEVER QUITS