The road to success is challenging. There is no one in the world who hasn’t struggled his way to the top. It’s never easy for anyone. Luck doesn’t always favor you. You have to get up and get going. Even the most successful people in the world have faced failures and too many of them. But he who rises up against obstacles and continues the race forward is the one who reaches the top.
01.Walt Disney
Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse, was accused of a lack of creativity at the beginning of his career. Not letting himself get bogged down by an early rejection, he went on to give the world characters like Donald Duck and Goofy.
2.Steve Jobs
The man responsible for the iPhone, the iPod, and the iPad, was given away by his biological parents for adoption because they couldn’t afford to bring him up. Later, Jobs was unceremoniously ousted from Apple, the company he co-founded. Today, he is known as the father of the digital revolution.
3.Steven Spielberg
There is no questioning the talent of the brilliant director Steven Spielberg who directed blockbusters like ‘ET’ and ‘Jurassic Park’. But not everybody believed in him from the start.
4.Henry Ford
The man who is believed to have revolutionized industrial production in the 20th century suffered many a loss in business. Failed businesses and bankruptcy didn’t discourage him from trying to build one of the most successful car companies in the world.
5.Al "Bubba" Baker
Baker, a Pro Bowl defensive end in the NFL, always loved food--especially barbecue--and told me in an interview that he was "always cooking" on his days off. After retirement, he launched a successful barbecue restaurant and patented a way to debone spare ribs. He then convinced investor Daymond John to invest in his company in an episode of Shark Tank.
6.Chris Michel
A former Naval Flight Officer, Michel attended Harvard Business School and then launched Military.com, one of the first social networks in America, and Affinity Labs, both of which he ultimately sold to Monster Worldwide.
7.Debbi Fields
Fields were only 20 years old when she started selling homemade chocolate cookies--a tiny business that she and her husband, Randy Fields, ultimately grew into Mrs. Fields, which now has 390 locations around the United States and 4,000 employees.
8.Richard Branson
The famous Virgin Atlantic tycoon much known for his colorful antics and acute business sense was nothing like his impressive self as a child. Growing up, he suffered from dyslexia and had major cognitive problems. Today, he stands as the twelfth richest man in Britain.
9.Kevin Plank
A football player at the University of Maryland, Plank designed shirts that could wick away sweat and convinced his former teammates who went on to play professionally to try his product and share it with their teammates. The company that resulted, Under Armour, had $2.3 billion in revenue in 2013.
10.Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, is regarded as one of the greatest presidents in the history of the US. And yet his start was not exactly smooth. A humiliating demotion in the army (he went to war as a captain but returned as a private which is the lowest rank in the army), a series of failed businesses, and repeated defeat at elections could have broken the toughest of men.
11.Yvon Chouinard
An avid climber, Chouinard bought a second-hand forge and began to make his own equipment. Ultimately he founded Patagonia, a manufacturer of high-end outdoor clothing that did $600 million in sales in 2013.
12.Michael Jordan
American basketball star Michael Jordan was born on February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, New York. Jordan left college after his junior year to join the NBA. Drafted by the Chicago Bulls, he helped the team make it to the playoffs. For his efforts there, Jordan received the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. With five regular-season MVPs and three All-Star MVPs, Jordan became the most decorated player in the NBA.
13.Albert Einstein
The genius of a scientist most famous for his theory of relativity was mistaken to be retarded by his parents when he was a child. His grades in school were consistently poor and he couldn’t even read till the age of seven. No one could have predicted the child would go on to win the Nobel prize in physics.
14.Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan was born on October 11, 1942, in Allahabad, India. In 1969, he debuted in Saat Hindustani. His role in 1972's Zanjeer made him an action movie star. In the 1980s, Bachchan held a seat in the Indian Parliament. In the '90s, he started his own production company. He returned to acting in 1997, with Mrityudaata. In 2000, he began hosting the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
15.Wendy Kopp
Kopp turned her senior thesis at Princeton University into Teach for America, a $229-million-a-year nonprofit organization that places graduates from some of America's top colleges and universities as teachers in challenged public schools.
16.Bill Gates
Before launching Microsoft, Bill Gates was a Harvard University dropout and co-owner of a failed business called Traf-O-Data. Driven by his passion for computer programming, Gates built what would become the world's largest software company. Microsoft went public in 1986, and by the next year, its rising share price made then-31-year-old Gates the world's youngest self-made billionaire. An investor in the initial public offering would have seen a return of 30,207 percent.
EmoticonEmoticon