'They' said what?

Following on from my ‘at the top of their game’ post, I thought I'd share with you this inspiring list.

Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was almost 4 years old and his teachers said he would "never amount to much." (despite the fact that his first words were "The soup is too hot." Greatly relieved that he had finally spoken, his parents then asked why he had never said a word before. Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order.")

The American basketball player, Michael Jordan, was dropped from his high school basketball team and went home, locked himself in his room, and cried.

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for "lacking imagination" and "having no original ideas".

Steve Jobs was left devastated and depressed aged 30 when he was unceremoniously removed from the company he started.

Oprah Winfrey was demoted from her job as a news anchor because "she wasn't fit for television".

The Beatles were rejected by Decca Recording Studios, who said "we don't like their sound – they have no future in show business."

Knowing what we know about those people now, those kind of facts are funny, aren't they? But at the time for each of these ’superstars’, the rejection must have been devastating (except maybe when you're four years old and not that interested in what your teachers are saying about you). How much easier would it have been for them to have dropped their dream and tried something else?

Persistence, that keeping on getting up when you get knocked back, that is the real definition of success.