September 19, 2025
A man stands silently, in deep contemplation. He is at the end of his rope. He has no money, no real job, no prospects and is 2,000 miles from home and so, no family nor friends. He has been arrested for a drunken brawl in a saloon and has to appear in court but does not have the money for the fine and will go to jail. He is young but even the inherent energy of a 22-year-old isn’t enough to lift his spirits.
With a sigh and sag of his shoulders, he picks up his revolver, places the barrel against his temple, cocks back the hammer, and closes his eyes.
Years later, when he felt he could confess the story, he said the only reason he was still alive was because he didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger.
His name was Mark Twain.
His parents were illiterate, he experienced multiple business failures, a nervous breakdown, and the death of his first love before entering politics. His persistent melancholy was well-documented. He lost election after election until he won the one that mattered.
His name was Abraham Lincoln
He struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction while working as a janitor and teacher. His first novel was rejected 30 times, and he threw it in the trash. His wife retrieved it and encouraged him to try again. It was finally accepted.
Stephen King
She was a single mother living on welfare, battling depression, and facing repeated rejections from publishers. She described feeling like “the biggest failure I knew” before finally being accepted. She’s spoken openly about how close she came to giving up on her dreams and giving up on life.
JK Rowling
She was raised by a single mother in a New York housing project. Her mother worked multiple jobs and emphasized education despite their financial struggles. She eventually became the first Black woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she led Xerox.
Ursula Burns
He immigrated to the United States from Ukraine at 16, living in a small apartment with his mother and grandmother. They relied on food stamps and government assistance to survive. He taught himself computer programming and co-founded WhatsApp, which he sold to Facebook for $19 billion.
Jan Koum
She was born to former slaves in 1867 Louisiana. She was orphaned by age 7, married at 14, and widowed by 20. Starting with her own severe hair loss and $1.25 in savings, she began to research baldness and dandruff, which were endemic and at the time, untreatable. Her beauty care company made her America’s first self-made Black female millionaire.
Sarah Breedlove
He immigrated to the United States from South Korea with $750. He worked as a janitor, gas station attendant, and coffee shop employee while barely speaking English. He and his wife eventually founded Forever 21, building it into a multi-billion-dollar fashion empire.
Do Won Chang
He grew up in the Bronx, the son of a house painter. He and his brother changed their last name from Lifshitz to avoid incessant anti-Semitic bullying. His family struggled financially, and he worked various odd jobs to make ends meet. He eventually started by selling ties he designed himself, one by one. The rest is history.
Ralph Lauren
Became homeless with his young son, sleeping in subway bathrooms and shelters while pursuing an unpaid internship. He persevered to become a multimillionaire entrepreneur. His story inspired the film “The Pursuit of Happyness.”
Chris Gardner
Shot in the head and left for dead by the Taliban at age 15, for advocating for girls’ education in Pakistan. She not only survived but became the youngest Nobel Prize laureate and a global advocate for education, establishing a foundation that champions girls’ education worldwide.
Malala Yousafzai
Survived three Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, where he lost his parents, brother, and pregnant wife. He used his horrific experiences to develop logotherapy and wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning,” which sold over 10 million copies and profoundly influenced psychology and philosophy.
Viktor Frankl
Failed over 1,000 times while developing his new idea. When asked about his failures, he famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 1,000 ways that won’t work.” His relentless experimentation led to hundreds of patents and revolutionary inventions that shaped the modern world.
Thomas Edison
He travelled from one small town to another, seeking a customer. His recipe was rejected by restaurants over 1,000 times. He was 62 years old and living on Social Security, when he finally found a restaurant willing to try.
Harlan Sanders, Kentucky Fried Chicken
Was rejected from numerous jobs, including KFC (he was the only one out of 24 applicants not hired). Harvard rejected him 10 times. His early internet ventures failed. At age 35, he founded his company in his apartment, which became one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies.
Jack Ma…Alibaba
Was fired from a newspaper for “lacking imagination and having no good ideas.” His first company went bankrupt. He was told Mickey Mouse would fail because “a giant mouse on screen would terrify women.” Despite numerous setbacks, he built one of the world’s most beloved entertainment empires.
Walt Disney
Was cut from his high school team. Instead of giving up, he used the rejection as motivation to practice harder.
Michael Jordan
Was rejected by agents and studios over 1,500 times while trying to sell his script. His low point…he had to sell his dog for $25 to eat. When a studio finally showed interest but wanted a different actor, he refused to sell it unless he could star in it.
Sylvester Stallone
It is one of the oldest cliches that you never give up. It is one of the oldest because it is absolutely true. Getting knocked down 150 times won’t count if you get up 151 times. The question is…who is willing to get knocked down 150 times?
The Human will is among the most powerful assets we have. When we deny ourselves by discouragement, we strip ourselves of our personal power.
In the course of my life, I have found there are people who simply will not be denied. No matter the obstacle, no matter the disappointment, they absorb the punishment, they shake it off and get right back to their quest.
It is widely estimated in ice-skating culture, that it takes something like 10,000-50,000 falls to the ice to become an Olympic ice-skating champion. How many people are willing to go through that? But Michelle Kwan said, “Falling is not failing unless you stay down.”
A Spartan king, faced with an enemy army of overwhelming numbers, dismissed the frantic doomsaying of his messenger with the immortal response:
“We do not ask how many, but where they are.”
Brilliant self-confidence led to victory. And it was self-confidence borne of training and dedication and the total belief that victory would be theirs. The embodiment of that self-confidence. “Let me at ‘em” he said.
We live in a time and an era that tries to sow great doubt in us all. We are constantly bombarded with messaging that says if we could just own this product, we’d be fine. Or that we need to be constantly looking to others for our own compass for proper behavior. That our own opinions are not as important as the opinion of “experts” and so, stay tuned! It all seeks to make us imitators and not creators.
Each of us has the seeds of greatness, and if not greatness, then at least success. All of us. Vince Lombardi said if you “chase perfection, you can catch excellence.” That if you extend your reach beyond your grasp, if you try to do something you might not believe you can do, and you fail…your failure can be its own victory. Because your reach was greater than others were willing to try.
Mike Tyson once said “everyone has a plan until you punch him in the face.” I’m all for having a plan, and getting punched in the face, but then, what you do from there will make all the difference. Find that thing in your life that will allow you to try, to express your own willingness to take a chance and excel.
You can be shocked at what you will find.
Thoughts, questions, or reflections? I’d love to hear them. You can reach me anytime at anthony@workingprofit.com
