9 Famous People Who Failed Hard Before Becoming Successful

The names of these nine stars are known all around the globe. And they’re popular because what they’ve accomplished was much more important than the fact they failed before. Celebs are people too, and people do stupid things that cost them their jobs all the time, but these nine did not want to back down, instead they treated their failures as stepping stones to their inevitable victories.

Here are 9 famous people who failed hard before becoming successful.

1. Michael Jordan
How cool is this guy? One of the most memorable NBA players of all time has apparently failed plenty of times. From his own words he missed over 9000 shots, lost nearly 300 games, and couldn’t whoosh the game winning shot 26 times. Here’s Jordan’s best quote you should print out and live by: “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

2. Charles Darwin
Believe it or not Charles Darwin was just a simple man with a love for nature. He was an average student, probably because deep inside he knew what he really wanted. And that thing was to change the world. Because thanks to his revolutionary work titled “On the Origin of Species”, the humankind will never be the same as before.


3. Steven Spielberg
Being a multi-billionaire today, Steven Spielberg probably doesn’t care about winning or failing at this point, but he wasn’t always this three-time-Academy-Awards-winner. In fact, the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts rejected him not once but twice! The person responsible for that has probably been fired after the success of E.T., maybe even before that.

4. Thomas Edison
You know Edison, the guy who invented modern lightbulbs, about a billion other things, and screwed over Nicola Tesla (unrelated)? Yeah, he was told by his teacher that he was too dumb to learn anything. About a thousand patents later he was going to shove all that in his teacher’s face, but the dude died.

5. J.K. Rowling
The Mama Potter, as they call her (nobody calls her that, probably), was once a huge mess. Single divorced mother with no stable income and a severe depression hanging over her head… does that sound like the witty, sarcastic Joanne we all know and love? No, because shit happens in this life, and all you can do if plow through it and come up with something even better than a wizard boy.


6. Oprah Winfrey
I’ll just say it out straight: a TV station in Baltimore FIRED Oprah for being a bad anchor. What madness is this? According to Oprah herself there is no such thing as failure, it’s just life trying to move us in another direction. Well put, lady. Now where’s my car?

7. Elvis Presley
Presley’s dad wanted his son to be a truck driver. Like, who in their right mind would want their child to be a truck driver?

8. Stephen King
If it wasn’t for his persistence, Stephen King would never become the man we know and love today. Well, maybe his wife helped a little. See, what had happened was after about 20 rejections from publishers King started to doubt that his book Carrie was all that, so he dumped it in the trash. But his wife told him not to give up just yet. And after another 10 submissions Carrie was finally accepted!


9. Walt Disney
Probably the most outlandish of all the failures was Walt Disney’s. Apparently his former newspaper editor told him that his work lacks imagination and that Walt had zero good ideas. I don’t know about you but I’d like to see that editor’s face today.

So it doesn’t matter how hard you’re failing, what matters is that you get yourself together and just march through the badlands. Maybe one day you’ll be the next Walt Disney or J.K. Rowling!