When looking at some of the world’s most successful individuals, whether in the business, technology or artistic fields, it is easy to assume their journey to the top was made easier by their talent. However, this is rarely the case, and the majority of successful people fail numerous times before succeeding and are often told they’ll never make it! These failures and setbacks faced shape the people they are today, and are just as much a part of the learning process as their victories. We’ve compiled a shortlist of individuals who, at some point, felt miles away from being successful, but through resilience and dedication, transformed their circumstances! This post is a great read if you’re feeling downbeat or uninspired and need a pick me up! Things are never going to be immediately straightforward, and often it takes a lot of hard work to reap the rewards of your efforts!
Stephen King
Despite being the most successful horror author of all time, King faced multiple rejections whilst attempting to enter the literary world. After graduating from college with a degree in English Literature, King struggled to find teaching work, and worked as a labourer, occasionally making money by selling short stories to local magazines. Once King obtained a teaching role, he became inspired by his high-school surroundings to write ‘Carrie’, his first novel in 1973. Carrie, which published in 1974 after being rejected 30 times, sold over 1,000,000 copies in its first year, and since then has sold over 350,000,000! King’s dedicated mindset began as a young teenager – ‘By the time I was 14 the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing’. King’s success is testament to the hard work and determination required to master your craft!
Baroness Martha Lane Fox
Martha began her career as an entrepreneur, and co-founded the successful lastminute.com, selling the company for £577million in 2015! Whilst on holiday in Morocco in 2004, Martha was involved in a life-changing car accident, breaking 28 bones and experiencing a stroke. Over the next two years, Martha lived in hospital as she underwent 47 operations. Martha’s traumatic experience didn’t dim her perseverance however, and in 2013 she became the youngest female member of the House of Lords aged 40, and received a CBE later that year. Currently Martha is a board member of Marks and Spencer, Chancellor of the Open University, and actively champions human rights, women’s rights and social justice. In 2022, Martha suffered another setback after developing sepsis, which caused her to almost lose her leg. Martha’s resilience is incredible, as she embarked on a mission to climb Britain’s three highest peaks in 2024, raising over £300,000!
Bill Gates
Being one of the richest men in the world, you’d be naive to assume that Bill Gates doesn’t have at least a bit of a knack for finding success in the technology business. However, it wasn’t always easy for him. Gates’ first foray into entrepreneurship was in 1973 at just 17- with two friends, he created Traf-O-Data, a piece of computer hardware designed to produce traffic reports from raw data. When the day came for the machine to be demonstrated in a sales pitch to the city of Seattle, the machine completely failed to work, and left Gates and his friends rather embarrassed. It didn’t keep him down for long however, and he and his business partner who he later founded Microsoft with have since both discussed the value of that failed project for teaching them lessons which were instrumental in Microsoft’s future massive success.
Tully Kearney
Tully began swimming aged 8, after watching her older brother’s training session. As a child, Tully suffered from mild cerebral palsy, which worsened after she turned 13, needing crutches and a wheelchair to move around. Following 2 years of tests and a generalised dystonia diagnosis, Tully became driven to continue swimming and obtained a scholarship to a prestigious swimming programme. By 2015, Tully was a 4x world champion at the IPC World Swimming Championships and was shortlisted for BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year! Just before Tully was due to make her Team GB Paralympic debut at Rio 2016, her condition suddenly deteriorated and she had to withdraw from the games. Unable to swim competitively, Tully lost her funding, questioned retirement, and deeply struggled with her mental health before her mum encouraged her to return to swimming. By 2018, Tully had returned to elite competitive racing, and won a gold and bronze medal at the European Championships that year! Tully faced another setback in 2023 however, after suffering a head injury which led to complex concussion syndrome. Tully couldn’t swim, had to drop out of her Masters at Manchester Metropolitan University and lost her memory for three months. Following an intense 18-month recovery, Tully was selected for the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, where she went on to win two gold medals! Currently Tully is a 10x world champion and holds 3 world records!
Marcus Rashford MBE
Manchester United star Marcus Rashford was brought up in various deprived suburbs of Manchester, and although his mother often skipped meals to ensure she could feed Marcus, he quickly became dependent on free school meals for necessary nutrition. Although Marcus was football-obsessed from an early age, he often had to miss training sessions as his family members needed to work late. Marcus’ determination to become a footballer was recognised by coaches at Manchester United, who organised drivers to take him to and from training sessions. Although Marcus is currently one of both the Premier League and England’s most prominent players, he remains heavily involved with his local community and in 2020, launched the #EndChildFoodPoverty parliamentary petition, which provides free school meals and activities for children during school holidays and gained over 1,000,000 signatures. Marcus was rewarded for his dedication to ending child hunger in the UK with an MBE in October 2021.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala has been a continuous advocate and symbol for girls’ education since she was a young child. Born in Pakistan under a leadership which suppressed female education, and attempted to destroy girls’ schools, Malala began speaking out in 2008. Under the pseudonym Gul Makai, Malala began a blog for BBC Urdu which detailed her life in Pakistan and the challenges girls who wanted to attend school faced. By 2009, Gul Makai’s true identity was well-known, and Malala received international recognition for her important work, and was even nominated for the Internal Children’s Peace Prize in December 2009, aged just 12! In 2012, Malala was the target of an assassination attempt whilst returning home from school, and was critically injured. Malala’s attack incited global protests and demands for girls’ right to education. After receiving critical care in the UK, Malala founded the Malala Fund in 2013, to bring awareness to the importance of female education and demand necessary change, which led to the development of Pakistan’s first Right to Education Bill. In 2014, Malala became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, and she continued to attend school, graduating from Oxford University in 2020! Malala continues to be an inspiration for girls globally, having since founded several girls’ schools and she is currently a UN Messenger of Peace.
Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865
Considered one of the United States’s greatest presidents and instrumental in abolishing the Atlantic slave trade, Abraham Lincoln actually experienced numerous failures before becoming one of the most beloved figures in American history. Before launching his political career, Lincoln served in the military, and actually ended his service still as a private, having been demoted from the much higher rank of captain. Lincoln soon began his career in politics, however it still took him many failed attempts to run for various positions in the government while he slowly worked his way up the ladder. Prior to becoming the president, he had even put his political career on hold after a disappointing election in 1848. Lincoln once spoke regarding his attitude on failure: “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
It’s inevitable that at some moments in life, you simply won’t be making the progress that you wish you were towards your goals, or your situation isn’t ideal, or you’ve outright failed to achieve what you wanted to for some reason or another. The important thing, though, is not to try in vain to avoid failure. Failures and mistakes are best viewed as a learning opportunity that will aid you in your growth as a person and the tackling of any obstacle in your way. In the words of Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Constance Baker Motley 1921-2005
After experiencing 2 overt cases of racism whilst in the South, Constance became dedicated to dismantling the educational, employment and socioeconomic hurdles faced by the Black community in the US. Constance graduated from Columbia Law School in 1946, and became the first black woman to elected to the New York State Senate, the first black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court, and in 1966, the first black women to serve as a federal judge in the US. Constance was a legal powerhouse, and won 9/10 of her Supreme Court cases, and provided assistance for nearly 60 cases brought before the Supreme Court. One of Constance’s most famous clients was Martin Luther King Jr, whom she visited in prison. Constance was never deterred by threats to her safety, and had 24/7 armed protection when conducting business in the South.
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