Thomas Edison is renowned for inventing the commercially viable incandescent light bulb after over 10,000 failed attempts. Despite being told he was "too stupid to learn" as a child and being fired from two jobs for lack of productivity, Edison remained determined. When asked if he felt like a failure after 9,000 failed attempts, he replied that he now knew 9,000 ways not to make a light bulb and success was close. Edison went on to become one of the greatest innovators in history with over 1,000 patents to his name.

2.  THE STEPHEN HAWKING SUCCESS STORY:
NEVER GIVE UP ON LIFE

3.  We often face horrible situations that make us believe all circumstances are
against us and we have virtually no chance to succeed. And yet, history is filled
with examples where people who rose to great heights despite facing tremendous
odds. One of the greatest examples of these individuals is Professor. Stephen
Hawking
 Born in Oxford, England in 1942, Stephen Hawking was always scientifically
inclined. He attended the prestigious University of Oxford and later while he was a
graduate student at the University of Cambridge, he met his first love, Jane Wilde,
who would later become his wife. He looked forward to having a normal life but
fate had other plans.
 At the age of 21 he was diagnosed with Motor neuron disease, a rare condition
which progressive cripples the individual and usually causes death within a few
years. Hawking was told he only had two years to live. While he proved the
doctors wrong and survived, he was still eventually confined to a wheel chair and
much of his body became paralyzed. Sometimes in life, not everything goes the
way you wanted. You may go through setbacks or personal tragedies that may
radically alter your life and make your goals appear like a distant dream. Life may
beat you into a pulp and others may think it’s all over for you. But if you have the
mentality of a winner, nothing will hold you down. No matter how tough it gets,
you shall rise, fight back and inspire everyone around you to face their own lives
with renewed vigor.

4.  So remember, there is only one thing that can stop you from achieving your
dream. It is not your ethnicity, it is not your gender, it isn’t your age, it isn’t a
disability and it certainly isn’t your current economic condition. The only thing that
can stop you is lack of your own will to succeed.
 He did not recover from his disease and it made him physically weak in time, but
what kept him going was his willingness to work from the mind as he says “
Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am
free.” He was told that he wouldn’t survive more than two years. When everyone
had lost hope then Stephen had a dream that he was going to be executed and he
believes this disease helped him to become the scientist he is today, as he says “
Before my condition was diagnosed, I had been very bored with life, there had not
seemed to be anything worth doing .” With the sudden realization that he might
not even live long enough to earn his PhD, Hawking dedicated all his energies to
his work and research. In one of his interviews he also mentioned – “My
expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been
a bonus.
 He didn’t close his mind when his body failed and today at the age of 73 while he
was just given hardly anytime he proved that it’s about the will to live and
readiness to accept challenges. Death has to come but the life which we have
between birth and death is up to us and it’s our will how we want to live. As he
says – “I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die.” (Stephen Hawking

9.  Rowling is one of the most inspirational success stories of our time. Many people simply
know her as the woman who created Harry Potter. But, what most people don’t know is
what she went through prior to reaching stardom. Rowling’s life was not peaches and cream.
She struggled tremendously.
 In 1990, Rowling first had the idea for Harry Potter. She stated that the idea came “fully
formed” into her mind one day while she was on a train from Manchester to London. She
began writing furiously. However, later that year, her mother died after 10 years of
complications from Multiple Sclerosis.
 In 1992 she moved to Portugal to teach English where she met a man, married, and had a
daughter. In 1993, her marriage ended in divorce and she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland to
be closer to her sister. At that time, she had three chapters of Harry Potter in her suitcase.
 Rowling saw herself as a failure at this time. She was jobless, divorced, penniless, and with a
dependent child. She suffered through bouts of depression, eventually signing up for
government-assisted welfare. It was a difficult time in her life, but she pushed through the
failures.
 In 1995 all 12 major publishers rejected the Harry Potter script. But, it was a year later when
a small publishing house, Bloomsbury, accepted it and extended a very small £1500 advance.
In 1997, the book was published with only 1000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to
libraries.
 In 1997 and 1998, the book won awards from Nestle Smarties Book Prize and the British
Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year. After that, it was one wild ride for Rowling.
Today, Rowling has sold more than 400 million copies of her books, and is considered to be
the most successful woman author in the United Kingdom

11.  Stephen King is famous for many critically-acclaimed novels, most of
which have been made into movies. However, Stephen King’s first novel,
Carrie, was rejected 30 times before it was published.
 Not only that, but King actually threw the manuscript into the garbage,
only later to be retrieved by his wife who wildly believed in his dream of
becoming a published author.
 Yet, King’s earlier years were also nothing to rave about. As a child, his
family barely made ends meet, and in his later years as an English teacher,
he supplemented his income by selling short stories to magazines.
 Today, King has over 50 novels and has sold over 350 million copies of his
work. Can you imagine what King’s life would be like had he given up? It’s
difficult to imagine that such a successful author was once rejected so
many times.
 In his earlier years, King talks about submitting short stories to magazines
beginning at the age of 16, and hanging the rejection slips on a nail until
the slips were so heavy he had to change the nail to a spike.

13.  BEFORE:
 After leaving school, he briefly considered joining the Indian Army and
hiked in the Himalayan mountains of Sikkim and West Bengal. Eventually,
he joined the Territorial Army and, after passing selection, served as a
reservist with the SAS in 21 SAS Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), for three
years until 1997.
 In 1996, he suffered a free-fall parachuting accident in Zambia. His canopy
ripped at 16,000 ft, partially opening, causing him to fall and land on his
parachute pack on his back, which partially crushed three vertebrae. He
later said: “I should have cut the main parachute and gone to the reserve
but thought there was time to resolve the problem”. According to his
surgeon, he came “within a whisker” of being paralyzed for life and at first
it was questionable whether he would ever walk again. He spent the next
12 months in and out of military rehabilitation.

14.  AFTER:
 In a showcase of what pure determination and hard work can do, on 16
May 1998 he achieved his childhood dream climbed to the summit of
Mount Everest, 18 months after breaking three vertebrae in a parachuting
accident.
 At 23, he was at the time among the youngest people to have achieved
this feat. This is the inspirational story of the amazing Bear Grylls He is
known to the world as a television presenter for the Discovery Channel,
with his own show called Man Vs. Wild.

16.  We’ve all heard the name before. This famous American is attributed with
failing over 10,000 times to invent a commercially viable electric Light
Bulb, but he didn’t give up. When asked by a newspaper reporter if he felt
like a failure and if he should give up, after having gone through over
9,000 failed attempts, Edison simply stated “Why would I feel like a
failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitely over 9,000
ways an electric Light Bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.”
 This is also the same person whose teachers said he was “too stupid to
learn anything,” and fired from his first two employment positions for not
being productive enough. However, Edison, through his failures, is also the
greatest innovator of all time with 1,093 US patents to his name, along
with several others in the UK, and Canada. This is someone who refused
to ever give up no matter what.

17.  It’s said that in his early days, he attributed his success to his
mother, who pulled him out of school and began to teach him
herself. It’s because of his mother, and how wholeheartedly
she believed in him, that he didn’t want to disappoint her. His
early fascination for chemical experiments and mechanical
engineering paved the way for a future that was incredible
bright. His company, GE, is still one of the largest publicly-
traded firms in the world, continually innovating across
virtually every spectrum.

18. THE END