What is “holding you back” from creating the life of your dreams?Have you “failed” in the past? Or, are you just scared to try anything because you might “fail”?Throughout history, there have been thousands of famous failures.Let’s take another look at some very successful failures and see what we can learn from their stories.Curtis Jackson A.K.A. 50-Cent | | Born in 1975, in Queens, New York, Curtis Jackson, professionally known as 50-Cent, had a tumultuous past and a precarious upbringing.
Growing up in poverty isn’t easy on anyone, especially in the Projects in New York’s roughest neighborhoods.
Not only were drugs and crime all around him, but his own birth mother, Sabrina, was a drug dealer.
At the ripe young age of just 8-years old, his mother, however, died in what’s been coined a “mysterious” fire.
His father left, leaving only his grandmother to help raise young Jackson, who started dealing drugs at the age of 12-years old during what’s been labeled the “crack epidemic,” in the 1980’s.
In 1994, at the age of 19-years old, after a string of run-ins with the cops and a subsequent arrest for possession of drugs and a firearm, he was sentenced to serve 3 to 9 years in prison, but was instead sent to a bootcamp where he spent just 6 months, earning his GED in the meantime.
It was after his release that he adopted the name 50-Cent as a moniker for change, naming himself after a local bank robber by the same name.
He states that he chose that name “because it says everything I want it to say. I’m the same kind of person 50-Cent was. I provide for myself by any means.”
In 2000, he was infamously shot 9 times at close range by an assailant outside his grandmother’s home and left for dead.
While in the hospital, he signed a deal with Columbia records, but was subsequently dropped from that label and even blacklisted within the recording industry due to a song entitled, “Ghetto Qu’ran,” forcing him to go to Canada to record over 30 songs and release a mixtape. In 2002, Eminem heard his song, “Guess Who’s Back?” and ultimately signed him to his label, Shady Records.
He was coached by both Eminem and Dr. Dre, and released his first studio album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, which later went 6-times platinum in the United States and Jackson has since become one of the world’s most famous and best-selling rappers.
| | Born in 1899, in Omaha, Nebraska, Fred Astaire is one of the most famous failures to grace the entertainment business.
In 1905, the family moved to New York City to allow Fred and his sister, Adele, to pursue a career in entertainment, and they focused their energies solely on the musical and dancing education of their children.
The two performed together in acts for some time, even touring the New York City Broadway circuit, and on to London as well.
This helped to drastically improve their talent, but Fred shined during this time, with a set of charisma and charm that shone through even at the dimmest of times.
However, in 1932, the sister-and-brother act split, when Adele wed her husband.
Fred continued his career despite that. And, according to legend, he was famously rejected during a Hollywood screen test when it was said that he “Can’t act. Slighty bald. Dances a little,” which came as a major disappointment at the time.
Yet, that didn’t stop him.
Fred Astaire’s career in the entertainment industry lasted a mind-boggling 76 years, he appeared in 31 musicals, television shows and recordings.
Gene Kelly once stated that “the history of dance on film begins with Astaire.”
This was clearly a nod to the musical and dance genius that Astaire was. Mark Cuban | | Born in 1958 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Mark Cuban is an American entrepreneur and pop culture icon, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star of the hit television show, Shark Tank.
However, things weren’t always so rosy for Cuban.
He learned failure the hard way, by failing numerous times, again and again before he ever attained any semblance of fame.
In his earliest years, Cuban was always a tinkerer with an entrepreneurial spirit.
From selling garbage bags to running newspapers and everything in between, Cuban learned early on how the mechanics of business worked, but that didn’t mean he didn’t experience the gut-wrenching pain of failure along the way.
In 1982, at the age of 24-years old, he moved to Dallas, Texas, on the word of some of his college friends, in a 1977 Fiat X19 that had a hole in the floorboard.
Upon his arrival, he worked numerous odd jobs. He simply couldn’t find something that he was good at.
He failed at bartending because he couldn’t open a bottle of wine without the cork falling in.
He failed at short-order cooking because he never knew when the food was ready unless he cut off a piece and tasted it.
And he failed as a salesman at a computer distributor when he was fired after less than a year on the job.
Cuban simply couldn’t get anything right.
At the age of 25 years-old, one year after he arrived in Dallas, he decided to start his own company, MicroSolutions, selling software, doing training and configuring networks and computers.
He grew that company to $30 million dollars in revenue, and it was later acquired by CompuServe in 1990 at the age of 32-years old.
That gave him the ability to create Broadcast.com in 1995, at the age of 37-years old, a company that was later acquired by Yahoo in 1999 when it was sold for $5.7 billion in stock.
Cuban was 41-years old, famous and wealthy beyond measure. Although he had failed numerous times and been through the ringer, he never gave up.
| | The Beatles were an English rock group that formed in 1960 and have since gone on to sell over 1.6 billion records worldwide, with over 600 million records being sold in the United States, and are considered to be one of the most popular musical groups in history.
Its members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
However, The Beatles once considered themselves failures.
On New Year’s Eve in 1961, the group drove in a snowstorm to Decca Recording Studios to lay down 15 tracks based on songs that they were already performing, which was a mashup of R&B and Rock tunes.
Still, it was Dick Rowe, an A&R (talent scout and oversee the artistic development of recording artists) was there to hear their sound, who stated that they would never succeed.
Specifically, he said that “guitar groups were on their way out.”
Five months later, the group received the big break they had been hoping to receive and signed with George Martin from Parlophone and released their first in a string of hits late that year entitled, Love Me Do.
While others might have gotten discouraged during the rejections and the failures faced by the group, they didn’t falter.
They didn’t throw in that proverbial towel.
They knew deep down inside that they were bound to be famous and that it was just a matter of time as long as they didn’t give up.
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.”- John Lennon
“I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.” — Paul McCartney Source – wanderlustworker ----------------------------------------------------------------- So, what can we learn from these historical Successful Failures?
They were beaten down and “lost” at many things, yet they kept persevering.
They didn’t give up. They overrode their fears and took “action”!
Their desire to succeed overrode any fears they may have had.
Do you give up when failure strikes?
Or, do you take your failures and find the “silver lining” and learn from the situation?
I hope you take these examples and examine your own life and make any necessary adjustments to turn the corner.
Take these famous Successful Failures and use them to build the desire and determination to “pick yourself up” and keep reaching for your dreams just like 50 Cent, Astaire, Cuban and The Beatles did.
To your future success,
- Duane Eberhard | |
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