Successful Failures
Story★★★★John Maxwell points out that most successful people begin as failures: • Ignace Paderewski, the great Polish pianist, was once told by his music teacher that his hands were much too small to master the keyboard. • The great Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, was told by his teacher that his voice sounded like the wind whistling through the window. • When the British statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, attempted to speak in Parliament for the first time, members hissed him into silence and laughed when he said., “Though I sit down now, the time will come when you will hear me.” • Henry Ford forgot to put a reverse gear in his first car. • In 1902, the poetry editor of The Atlantic Monthly sent a sheaf of poems back to a 28-year-old poet with this curt note: “Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse:’ The poet was Robert Frost. 1John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (New York: Pocket Books, Inc .. 1956), 178.
The point
Famous achievers like Paderewski, Caruso, Disraeli, Ford, and Frost all faced early rejection but persevered. Failure is often the precursor to success.