From Zero to Hero: Top 10 Inspirational Success Stories

When it comes to achieving great success, it’s rarely a smooth ride. But some people in particular had to face great adversity and succeeded to get to the very top against all the odds. It’s important to always be reminded of these stories and to know that whether you’re at the bottom of the ladder or over the hill, it’s never impossible or too late to achieve greatness.

So here are some of the most impressive examples of going from zero to hero in sports, politics, business, and media.

10. Howard Schultz

Born to a poor family in Brooklyn, Howard Schultz was an accomplished athlete in his youth, which allowed him to go to college on an athletic scholarship. After graduating, he initially worked as a salesman for Xerox, and then as a general manager for Swedish drip coffee maker manufacturer, Hammarplast. It was in that capacity that he first came into contact with a small Seattle-based coffee-bean shop called Starbucks. He would go on to work for this company and eventually run it, turning Starbucks into the global brand it is today.

9. Dr. Dre

In the past decades, rap has gone from an underground movement to a global phenomenon – and few people have been as influential in the genre as Andre Young, aka Dr. Dre. A founding member of the influential (and very controversial) gansta rap group N.W.A., Dre also enjoyed a successful solo career, but was particularly good behind a mixing board. He is also credited with discovering and promoting Eminem, one of the most acclaimed rappers of all time.

In addition to being a great artist, producer, and talent spotter, Dre has also proven to be an astute entrepreneur. He founded his own record label, Aftermath Records, and after years of market research he released a brand of headphones called Beats by Dr. Dre, which was purchased in 2014 by Apple for $3 billion – making Dr. Dre the richest rapper ever.

8. Alan Rickman

Alan Rickman is such respected name in Hollywood that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t anywhere near the stage or the film set for the first three decades of his life.

Though he did dabble in acting during his youth, he eventually settled for the job of graphic designer, which he considered more stable. Then, at 26, he thought “YOLO!” and left the successful business he’d founded with some of his friend three years prior for a last-gasp attempt to become an actor. During this time, he supported himself by working as a dresser, but it was all worth it, since his performances were very well received. His real break came when he was cast as the German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard¸ opposite Bruce Willis, with a series of other villains to follow, most notably Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. The age Alan Rickman was first cast in a movie role? He was 46 years old!

7. Ursula Burns

Raised by a single mother (a Panamanian immigrant) in the New York projects, Ursula Burns got a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering, and then a master’s degree from Columbia. She joined Xerox in 1980 as a summer intern and has been with the company ever since, going through all the steps on her way to the very top.

In 2010, she made history when she became CEO of Xerox, the first African-American woman to head a Fortune 500 company. She was ranked the 22nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2014.

6. Barack Obama

Whether you love or you hate his politics, you can’t deny just getting to where he is right now was an incredible achievement.

Born in Hawaii, his mother was an 18-year-old university student and his father was a Kenyan six years her senior on a scholarship. His upbringing was fairly modest, yet after graduating from Columbia University and working as a community organizer in Chicago for a few years, he eventually went to Harvard Law School, where he soon became editor and later president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. After a legal career spanning 12 years, he was elected to the US Senate and in 2008, before completing his first term as senator, became the President of the United States, the first African-American to hold the office.

5. Harlan Sanders

Even if you don’t recognize the name, you certainly recognize the logo and the three letters the man is associated with: K.F.C.

A native of Indiana, Sanders worked a wide variety of jobs and ran a number of businesses throughout his life, but some incident or just plain bad luck always seemed to hamper him. He lost his job as a lawyer after a brawl with his own client in court. His restaurant and motel were destroyed by fire, and after he rebuilt them, the start of the Second World War forced him to go out of business. Finally, after a lifetime of setbacks, Sanders opened the first KFC franchise in 1952. He was in his sixties.

4. Shahid Khan

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Shahid Khan moved to the United States as a teenager as a student. His first job was a dishwasher. After graduating with a degree in industrial engineering, he was hired by the automotive parts manufacturer Flex-N-Gate, which he eventually bought and over the next three decades managed to turn it into a multi-billion dollar company. In addition to his business ventures, Khan also owns the Jacksonville Jaguars (of the NFL), as well as the English football team Fulham F.C.

In 2012, Shahid Khan was featured on the cover of Forbes as “the face of the American Dream.”

3. Abebe Bikila

The world of sports is has always been a source of amazing rags-to-riches stories, because hard-work, tenacity, and talent can very quickly propel an outstanding athlete to the very pinnacle of greatness.

A member of the Imperial bodyguard, Abebe Bikila barely made the Ethiopian Olympic team, but made history at the 1960 Rome Olympics when he won the marathon in record time, and all of this while running barefoot! After the race, he reportedly said “I wanted the world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism.” Bikila went on to win the Olympic marathon once again in 1964 with another record-breaking time, and would have probably won four years later in Mexico City if it hadn’t been for a knee injury. The dominance of Ethiopian and East African runners in long distance events today can be traced to this incredibly inspiring athlete.

2. Oprah Winfrey

Few people have epitomized the American Dream better than Oprah Winfrey. Raised by a single teen-age mother, Oprah was nevertheless clever and ambitious, and she made the most out of every break she got. Her talent and personality were especially suited for talk shows, a genre she dominated for decades. Considered one of the most influential people in the world in the 21st century, Oprah’s endorsement could provide a huge boost to companies and public figures alike (it is estimated her support brought Barack Obama over a million votes during the 2008 Democratic primary race). She’s also an Oscar-nominated actress, a billionaire, and one of America’s most generous philanthropists.

1. J.K. Rowling

Both the Harry Potter books and the film series have been insanely popular, so you’d think the value of J.K. Rowling’s work was immediately recognized by publisher as well. But in fact, it took a year to actually find someone who would publish the first novel, after the first twelve (!) publishing houses rejected the manuscript. She was basically living in poverty at the time.

Thanks to the huge worldwide success of the franchise, Rowling is now one of the richest people in Britain (at one time, she was considered the first billionaire to make all her money from writing!), as well as one of the most influential people on the planet.

Famous Failures: 23 Stories to Inspire You to Succeed

Don’t be afraid to fail. In fact, failures often lead to success. Take inspiration from both the famous failures and the lesser known failures below. All of these failures were followed by perseverance and enormous successes.

I originally compiled this list of famous failures for my entrepreneurship class. The class curriculum consists of each student starting a businesses. These famous failures were meant to give the class some comfort about failures related to their businesses and the challenges they faced as teenagers.

I hope you also find these famous failures helpful.

When he was 15, Jack Andraka had a crazy idea. He would create a diagnostic test for Pancreatic Cancer that was better than the tests developed by scientists, research labs and billion dollar pharmaceutical companies. Jack wrote a proposal to develop a better test. 199 research labs rejected him. I’ll repeat that — 199 labs REJECTED him. Good thing he didn’t give up and good thing a lab finally said “Yes”. The 200th research lab — at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore — accepted him. At the lab Jack Andraka developed a Pancreatic Cancer test 100 times better and 26,000 times less expensive than the current test. Jack’s invention will save tens of thousands of lives. More of Jack Andraka’s story, as well as dozens of other inspiring stories about when a small act (in Jack’s case a “yes”) transforms a life, can be found in the book HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time. “The most uplifting and life-affirming book in years.”—Forbes. Check out HumanKind.

“Michael Jordan” by mccarmona23 is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Michael Jordan, considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time, was devastated when he was cut from his high school varsity basketball team sophomore year. Good thing failure only inspired him to work harder. Here’s what he said about failure:

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Attribution: Matthew Yohe at

Steve Jobs was fired from the company he founded – Apple. He also failed with NeXT computer company and the Lisa computer. When Jobs returned to Apple, he led the business to become the most profitable company in the US.

Elizabeth Blackwell was rejected from 29 medical schools. So, she went to visit the schools in person. She was told she should pretend to be a man, because women weren’t fit to receive medical schooling. She refused. Blackwell was accepted by mistake by Hobart College (then Geneva Medical College), and she matriculated. Many MD’s refused to work with her, but she persevered and graduated. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S. (1849). She then built a medical practice, created a place where women could have medical internships (since many healthcare facilities didn’t welcome women), served impoverished families, and established the first medical college for women.

This work is from the Harris & Ewing collection at the Library of Congress.

No one wanted to hire Walt Disney as an artist. In fact, he couldn’t get hired elsewhere either. So, his brother got him a temporary job. Walt’s first animation studio went bankrupt. He went on to co-found The Walt Disney Company, which had $50.1 billion in 2017 revenue.

Photo by Giuseppe Milo

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, wasn’t supposed to be leaning, but if it were straight it probably wouldn’t be such a popular tourist attraction.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Steven Spielberg was rejected both times he applied to attend film school at University of Southern California (USC). That didn’t stop him. Spielberg has grossed $8.5 billion from films he directed. Oh, and after Spielberg became famous, USC awarded him an honorary degree, and Spielberg later became a trustee of the university.

Photo by Wally Gobetz

Charles Schultz’s drawings were rejected by his high school yearbook. Schultz went on to create Peanuts (featuring Snoopy and Charlie Brown). The cartoon and licensing/product revenue from Peanuts generated over $1 billion a year. The high school eventually put a statue of snoopy in the main office.

Want more positivity and inspiration in your Facebook news feed? Then please consider liking my Facebook page . You’ll get inspirational stories and a focus on the positive. (About one post a week.) Thanks!

Noord-Hollands Archief / Fotoburo de Boer

The Beatles were rejected by numerous record labels including Decca Records, which said, “guitar groups are on the way out” and “the Beatles have no future in show business.” The Beatles did wind up getting signed by a record label. The Beatles sold more singles in the UK than anyone else, and the Beatles have moved more units in the US (more than 177 million) than any other group.

Photo by Suissrael

Colonel Harland Sanders was a 6th grade dropout. When he was 65, a new interstate highway diverted traffic away from his restaurant leaving Sanders with only his secret fried chicken recipe and a Social Security check. So he began selling his recipe and franchise idea. According to the news, he was rejected over 1,000 times. Then he found a partner with whom he build the KFC franchise powerhouse (over 15,000 restaurants).

Credit: Acme Newspictures

Mary Kay Ash sold books door to door while her husband served in the military. When her husband returned from duty, they divorced. Ash was left with three children at a time when divorce wasn’t acceptable. Ash was frustrated when passed over for a promotion because she was a woman. So, she and her second husband planned a business, Mary Kay Cosmetics. One month prior to launch her husband died. With a $5,000 investment from her oldest son, Ash launched her business. Forbes reported 2014 revenue as over $3.5 billion.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

“I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed. You only have to be right once. I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all.” Mark Cuban, Billionaire Entrepreneur. Check out these 10 important business lessons from Mark Cuban.

Photo by Alan Light

After only seven and a half months, Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job co-anchoring the 6pm news at Baltimore’s WJZ. Something about not being the right fit. About another news job Oprah said:

“I once went back … after covering a family that had been burned out and brought them some of my blankets and stuff. And the assistant news director … told me … that if I did that again and they found out about it, I could be fired, because I was involving myself in other people’s stories. Which is true, you’re there to cover the story, not get involved in it…” Oprah became a media billionaire, hosted the highest ranked TV show of it’s kind in history, and is an incredible philanthropist – getting involved in other people’s stories to help them.

This work is from the New York World-Telegram and Sun collection at the Library of Congress

Elizabeth Arden (real name – Florence Nightingale Graham) dropped out of nursing school. Then her first business failed. She didn’t give up. Instead, she borrowed $6,000 to start her next beauty company, Elizabeth Arden, Inc. Last year Elizabeth Arden, Inc. had over $1 billion in sales.

Photo by Derek Smith

Jack Canfield was rejected 144 times before he found a publisher for his book, Chicken Soup for the Soul. When Jack told the publisher he wanted to sell 1.5 million books in the first 18 months, the publisher laughed and said he’d be lucky to sell 20,000. That first book sold more than 8 million copies in America and 10 million copies around the world. Canfield’s book brand is now a $1 Billion brand. Canfield’s advice:

“So the reality is that you just have to say, ‘I’m more committed to my vision than I’m committed to your doubt or my fear,’ and just go for it…” (From Conversations with Top Achievers by Woody Woodward)

Photo by Michiel Hendryckx

It took 5 years and 5,126 failed prototypes for James Dyson to develop the world’s first bagless vacuum cleaner. 10 years later Dyson setup his own manufacturing facility, because other manufacturers wouldn’t produce his vacuum. Now he has the best selling vacuum in the world. According to The Sunday Times, in 2017 his net worth was 7.8 Billion Pounds.

Photo by Famartin

Milton Hershey’s chocolate business was his third. The first two went bankrupt. His perseverance led to enormous wealth and philanthropy. Hershey established the Milton Hershey School for at-risk children, and a foundation to provide opportunities to residents of Hershey, PA.

Source Whitehouse [Public Domain]

Speaking at Harvard’s graduation, J.K. Rowling spoke about failures:

“You might never fail on the scale I did,” Rowling told the new graduates. “But it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.” “You might never fail on the scale I did,” Rowling told the new graduates. “But it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.” When Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, she was divorced, bankrupt and on welfare. After a dozen publishers rejected her manuscript one finally agreed to publish it. But the publisher told Rowling that she needed to get a job because there’s no money in children’s books. She’s now a billionaire.

Photo by Robbie Mendelson

Stan wasn’t able to secure a spot as a ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because he was deemed too clumsy and uncoordinated. Smith went on to demonstrate his lack of coordination by winning Wimbledon, U.S. Open and eight Davis Cups.

Source – Vimeo: Glambot – Grammys 2017 by Rogueartists

Lady Gaga was dropped by Def Jam records after only 3 months. She went on to become one of the best selling artists of all time with 6 Grammy Awards and 13 MTV Video Music Awards. She is also an activist donating money and support for natural disaster victims, LGBT rights and vulnerable youth.

Photo by chrisweger

Madonna dropped out of college, moved to NYC and quickly lost jobs at Dunkin Donuts and as a hat check woman at the Russian Tea Room. She wound up supporting herself through $7 per hour nude modeling gigs. Madonna still pushed for a career as an artist, and she succeeded. She has sold more than 300 million albums worldwide. Madonna is the best-selling female recording artist of all time.

“GoPro CEO Nick Woodman, Allen & Company Conference, Sun Valley, ID, July 2015” by Thomas Hawk

Nick Woodman’s startup, Funbug, was backed with $3.9 million from investors. Funbug failed. The $3.9 million was lost. Woodman was devastated and took an extended surfing trip. Woodman wanted to take videos while he was surfing. That led to his next idea – cameras that made it easy for people to video while participating in activities. Woodman and his girlfriend sold shell necklaces out of the trunk of their car to raise money for Nick’s business. They also borrowed money from Woodman’s parents. GoPro launched in 2002, and Forbes estimates Nick’s net worth is now close to $5 billion.

Photo by Peter Bond

Richie Ashburn was chosen to play in the Esquire Game in New York City with other teens who had baseball talent. Richie and his family travelled from their Nebraskan town of 950 people to play. Branch Rickey, who was considered the premiere judge of baseball talent, shook Ashburn’s hand after the game and said, “Son, you should go back and do whatever it was you were going to do before you decided to be a ballplayer.” One Hall of Fame career later, Ashburn demonstrated that it’s important to persevere. Ashburn did so well that each year the Phillies present the Richie Ashburn Special Achievement Award to “a member of the Phillies organization, and an area at the Phillies’ stadium, is named “Ashburn Alley” in his honor.

Want to be inspired by people whose lives were transformed by a single act of kindness? Check out my book, HumanKind. It’s full of heartwarming, true stories about when a small act of kindness transforms a life or has a ripple effect changing thousands of lives. (And all proceeds go to nonprofit Big Brothers Big Sisters.)

If you enjoyed this article about famous failures, you should check out this inspiring poem — Don’t be Afraid to Fail. You might also want to check out this great advice about how to achieve your goals faster.

Three Inspiring Failure-To-Success Stories You May Not Have Heard Before

By Han-Gwon Lung, the award-winning CEO and proud co-founder of Tailored Ink, a copywriting and content marketing agency based in New York City.

getty

There are nearly 8 billion people on Earth as of earlier this year. Yet whenever we fail at things — whether in sports, school or business — we’re told to look to shining examples of superhuman success despite failure.

If you got cut from your high school basketball team, then go watch The Last Dance. Do what Michael Jordan did and keep missing those game-winning shots until you start making them, right?

Unfortunately, a 2016 study of 400 low-income ninth- and tenth-graders in New York City public high schools found that students didn’t believe normal people have the natural aptitude or ability to succeed in the same way famous celebrities, athletes and entrepreneurs do.

This isn’t too surprising, because I feel the same way. Having gone through New York CIty public schools myself, I have a hard time believing there are actually people out there who see these famous failure-to-success stories and think, “Gee, I bet I could do that, too!”

So, for the rest of us normies, here are three failure-to-success stories about ordinary, everyday people you likely have not heard of before. These are people like you and me. In these uncertain times, I hope you find their stories inspiring.

1. Jacob Warwick started out with no credentials and no mentors.

After graduating from high school, Jacob wasn't sure what he wanted to do. So he quickly got one odd job after another, working random hours to make ends meet.

In his early 20s, he got a shot as an entry-level journalist at NBC News. This spun into a video editing job at Discovery, where he learned the ropes of digital marketing. Jacob quickly realized marketing was his passion.

Through sheer grit and determination, he proved his worth as one startup after another began hiring him, first in junior marketing roles and eventually as a marketing strategist.

Before he knew it, Jacob had spent nearly five years in Silicon Valley and was hired by Xerox as their youngest-ever director of marketing in 2015. He couldn’t believe his luck. Unfortunately, due to internal differences, Jacob left Xerox after just one year.

But that didn’t stop him. He decided it was finally time to strike out on his own. Today, Jacob is the CEO and co-founder of Discover Podium, a Reno-based company that offers one-on-one career services for senior leadership. In business for a little over three years, the company is already raking in over $1 million in revenue.

I had the pleasure of working with Jacob many years ago, and I’m not surprised. He works harder than most people, and he is tirelessly enthusiastic. His story goes to show that with a little bit of talent and a lot of hard work, you can really go places.

2. Artem Mashkov sold phones because he didn’t get into college.

Despite being fortunate enough to attend Stuyvesant High School (where I was his lab partner), Artem didn’t know what he wanted to do. Pretty sure he’d figure it out after college, he realized all too late that he'd missed the deadlines for several colleges — and he didn’t get into the ones he had applied to.

Stunned, he got the first job he could find at a local Verizon retail store. There, he worked in sales until he knew the store, its inventory and its customers inside and out. Several years later, he was the manager.

Artem got his big break when the original owners decided that they wanted out. So they cut Artem a deal and sold him the store for a mix of cash and credit. Before he knew it, Artem suddenly owned his own Verizon Wireless retail store. He wasted no time in expanding.

By 2018, Artem and his business partners ran over a dozen Verizon retail locations around New York City, bringing in well over seven figures per year. But after being in the phone game for his whole career, Artem was stressed out, as I've written about elsewhere. He wanted to explore new business opportunities.

Today, he owns and invests in several other businesses, such as Proper West and Manhattan Proper, sports bars in New York's Financial District and Midtown. He’s also the chief operating officer of SwagUp, which sells onboarding “swag” to new hires for Fortune 2000 companies. It made $9 million in revenue in 2019.

3. Justin Park sold books. Now he runs a venture capitalist-funded startup.

Growing up in Illinois, Justin Park was a smart kid with big ambitions. But he didn’t have the experience or the know-how to realize his dreams. After all, it’s one thing to want to be an entrepreneur. It’s another thing when you don’t have mentors to set you up for success.

So, after enrolling in the class of 2010 at Amherst College, my classmate wasted no time in inheriting a local work-study campus bookstore job when graduating seniors had to hand it off. There, he learned the ins and outs of running a retail shop while attending classes full time.

Due in no small part to his business experience, Justin was able to land a job as an analyst at IMS Consulting Group right after graduation. After one year, he decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur. So he co-founded Vidaao, a video marketing platform, in 2011. It was acquired by Skyword in 2014.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Justin quickly got started with his next venture, launching New York-based QL Gaming Group (QLGG) in 2015. Fantasy sports had always been a passion of his, so it made sense for him to start the direct-to-consumer sports betting data and iGaming affiliate platform. Today, QLGG has over a million users and has raised over $8.3 million. He recently sold QLGG to Entercom for $32 million.

You don’t have to be superhuman to be successful.

Want to know what Jacob, Artem and Justin all have in common? They’re not all that different from “normal” people. I also started from humble beginnings with no idea what I was doing.

If we can learn from our failures and make it, how about you?