Successful People Who Overcame Obstacles

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Successful People Who Overcame Obstacles
They tried and failed. They tried again, and sometimes again and again. They are some of the most renowned names in business, technology, media and retail.

These captains of industries had to start somewhere. Obstacles were many, yet they persevered, believed in themselves and refused to give up. Some had rough childhoods, some suffered huge financial losses and some were simply told they weren’t smart enough.

The one thing they all have in common is that they failed somewhere along the way. But failure would not be an obstacle. It would be a step toward success.

The Innovators
Although Henry Ford is credited with inventing the automobile and the assembly line, the fact is he didn’t invent either. However, more than any other individual, he transformed the automobile from a simple invention into an innovation that dramatically changed the 20th century.

When Ford was 15, his father, an immigrant from Ireland, gave the young man a pocket watch. Ford took the watch apart and put it back together again. A year later, he left the family farm and got a job as an apprentice machinist in Detroit. It was the beginnings of the Henry Ford that would go on to become one of the most successful men in American history.

But Ford would fall on his face more than once before his ideas finally stuck. His first failure was Detroit Automobile Company, which was founded in 1899 and dissolved by 1901. It took Ford four more tries before the Ford Motor Company began with a $28,000 investment in 1903.

Thomas Edison was told he was stupid in school. He only attended organized school for three months before the headmaster labeled him “addled” and sent him home. Although many around him thought he was a simpleton, his mother saw something special in him and home schooled him. He became an avid reader.
Edison was fired from his first two jobs, including one with Western Union. He worked as a telegrapher during the night shift, which allowed him to dabble with his first love – experimenting. But one of his experiments went awry, bubbled over and ruined his boss’ desk. He was fired the next day.

As an inventor he made hundreds of attempts before he came up with something that changed the world: the light bulb! Edison holds more than a thousand patents. In addition to the light bulb, his inventions include the phonograph and the motion picture camera.

From Rags To Riches
Oprah Winfrey was born into poverty to a single mom in rural Mississippi. She experienced a number of hardships as a young girl, including being raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14. (Her baby died just days after birth.)

Growing up, her family was so poor that she wore potato sacks to school sometimes and was chastised by the other children.

But by 17, she knew her calling. She had started co-hosting a local radio show while in high school; it continued after graduation and for two years into college. During her moves toward TV talk show icon, she was fired from a job as a reporter and told she was “unfit for TV.”

Today, she is one of the most successful – and richest – women in the world. Winfrey has been ranked as the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest Black philanthropist in U.S. history and is currently North America’s only Black billionaire. She is also, considered to be the most influential woman in the world.

R.H. Macy failed five times at starting his own business. He didn’t give up, and more than 150 years later, the Macy’s name still stands as a retail giant.

Macy worked on a whaling ship as a teenager and had a tattoo inked on his hand in the shape of a star and colored red. Later in life, that tattoo would become the logo of Macy’s that still stands today.

By the time Macy was in his early 20s, he has switched gears and become a retailer. He opened his first dry goods store in 1843. It failed. But he tried again and again and again. By 1855, he had made four attempts and failed four times.

He was undaunted. In 1858, he moved to New York City and opened the first Macy’s at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street. Macy had obviously learned from his mistakes as the business grew and he opened more stores.

Today, Macy’s has 850 stores nationwide, revenue in excess of $24 billion and employs more than 167,000 people.

An American Tradition
It’s become a family tradition to go to Disney Land or Disney World. And the name Disney is synonymous with animation, movies and loveable and memorable characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Donald Duck.

But its beginnings in the early 1900s were rocky at best. In fact, Disney’s founder, Walt Disney, was once told that he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

He met with financial failure and bankruptcy several times, beginning in 1920 with Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. Disney and then partner Ubbe Iwerks had to abandon the company and go back to regular jobs when it wasn’t making any money. Disney would try again with a company called Laugh-O-Grams Studios, which couldn’t keep up with the cost of operations and went bankrupt.

Disney attempts at business were taking place in Kansas City. He heard about Hollywood and its burgeoning film industry and decided to take his ideas there. Walt and his brother Roy pooled their resources and headed to Hollywood. This time, the company – called the Walt Disney Company – stayed alive and began to grow.

Today, Disney brings in billions via movies, theme parks and merchandise.

What do they all have in common? They failed or hit obstacles, but they did not let failures and setbacks stop them from eventually reaching the pinnacle of success in their fields.