The scariest word that we all have encountered in our lives is…Failure!
Everyone wants to be successful yet nobody wants to face failures. From the early stages of our lives, we were told to get good marks in school. We tend to see failures as a very negative thing and we were taught to stay away from failures from as far as possible. But, is that really the truth? Should we get scared of failures?
The answer is a big NO!
To explain this thing, let’s try to understand it by an example:
We all know about the famous inventor Thomas Edison. The light bulbs that we are using in homes, is one of his major discoveries. He discovered the mechanism of light and thus did a marvellous invention. But, do you know that it took him 1,000 failed tries. It could be so depressing for anybody as getting repeated failures and that too 1000 times. Someone asked him, “How did you perceive it when you fail 1,000 times?”. To which he replied, “I didn’t fail 1000 times rather it was an invention that took 1000 steps.”
It’s the perception that matters the most. How we are taking failures is the most important thing that we need to learn. When we stumble upon our failures, we gloss over them, selectively cutting out the miscalculations or mistakes in our life’s resume.
There are so many people all around the globe who have faced failures but the only difference is they learned from their mistakes and moved forward. And this is what we are going to address in this blog.
These 8 inspirational figures will definitely be going to teach you some major life lessons. So, without any further delay, let’s quickly check their stories.
- A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
The Missile Man of India faced a lot of struggles but he never termed them as “struggles”, instead he termed them as “experiences”. He belongs to a poor fisherman family and during his early years of childhood he did not have electricity, however, he never let this fact cross his way. He had a keen interest in mathematics, so his father arranged private tuitions from a maths teacher. The teacher had a condition that he only taught him if he promised to come before dawn. For almost a year, he woke up when there’s still dark outside. After attending the tuition, he used to sell newspapers to support his family financially.
He had gone through a really hard time. The most difficult one would be when his first major project SLV-3 got failed. He did not let this failure come into his way, he tried really hard and got success on the second trial. After learning from his failures, he climbed the ladder of success and never looked back. He launched a bunch of missiles like Prithvi, Agni, Nag and Trishul. That’s how he earned his name the “Missile Man”.
- Nelson Mandela
The Nobel prize winner faced a lot of challenges and despite the fact, he faced a lot to get his rights. At the age of playing and enjoying, Nelson Mandela faced the ugly truth of society and that is Racial discrimination, Apartheid. Mandela initially opposed to violence, but after facing a massacre of unarmed South Africans, he started a riot against the government. Because of which he has to spend 27 years at a prison in Robben Island. The government had tried it’s best to negotiate with him, but he kept refusing them. After getting released, he already became a hero due to his anti-apartheid movement and an inspiration to thousands of people.
While Africa’s having its first election, the people already made a choice. He became the first black president. He has spent 67 years for social justice and to remember his contribution, the UN has pronounced July 18 as Mandela Day, in which people are supposed to do something good for the society for at least 67 minutes.
- J.K. Rowling
The very well known author of an awe-inspiring, magical and amazing series of Harry Potter, J.K.Rowling was once really stuck with failures. She has claimed every bit of success by putting in hard work. She hasn’t become a star overnight. When she had the idea of Harry Potter and started writing, she immediately got pulled away as her mother passed. She wasn’t able to write as she was mourning and got herself in a profound depression. She got a job in Portugal as an English teacher. She has set a target that she has to complete the first book before leaving Portugal. Things didn’t go as planned.
She didn’t get any progress on the book but also ended up with a failed marriage and a daughter that totally depends upon her. She also lost her job and all these situations made her more depressed. However, she still got a little hope from the book. She completed her first book. But it seems that nothing has changed. One by one she got rejections from 12 publishing houses. The book was her last hope so she didn’t give up and hence she kept trying.
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At last, her book got selected by a publishing house and the owner warned her that she should focus on getting a real job as this book won’t be able to feed her as well as her daughter. Once the book got published, she never looked back. The whole series has been translated in 73 languages, sold millions of copies worldwide and that’s how she became the world’s best selling author!
- Walt Disney
The whole journey of Walt Disney is full of painful events and failures. The childhood days of Disney’s are quite painful as his father was an abusive person and slowly his every sibling tries to run off from their father. He started his first business at the age of 19, in which he drew cartoons from his childhood. He failed to sell a single cartoon. Then, at the age of 22, he got bankrupt as he’s unable to generate revenue from his cartoons. He got on trails with the release of “Oswald the Rabbit” but that success was very short-lived as some of his cartoonists left him. Disney once again comes down from where he started.
On his way in a train, he drew Mickey Mouse. That is the turning point of his life. By taking the help of television, he generated a good amount of revenue from his “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”. After which Disney was able to set up his biggest venture yet: Disneyland!
- Narayana Murthy
We all know that Narayana Murthy is also known as the father of the IT Sector. But what we don’t know is he was also just like one of us. He belonged to a poor family. He has a keen interest in mathematics and physics from the very start. He always had one dream of having his own business. And he was very well determined that he possesses all the qualities that one should have for entrepreneurship. His first venture Softronics turned out to be a failure which only survived for 1.5 years. Despite having failures, he still has faith and that’s how he succeeded.
In 1981, he called his 6 friends and explained to them his plan of starting a coding company, Infosys. For this, his wife gave him Rs. 10,000. And the rest is history!
- Sandeep Singh Bhinder
Sandeep Singh is a professional Indian Hockey player and also ex-captain of the National Indian Team. He made his debut in international matches when he was just 17 years old. But, things went off when he got shot at his back when he was travelling on a train as he was all set to leave for the world cup in Africa. This gunshot left him waist down paralysed for about a year.
Life doesn’t stop here for him, he recovered from that injury in one year and got back to where he left. Just a matter of fact, while playing hockey, back plays an important role as you’re supposed to bend. He not only got over his injury and made our country proud by his contributions to numerous victories.
- Kartik Sawhney
Not many of us are familiar with this name, however, we are talking about inspirational figures and it isn’t necessary that you have to be famous for that. Kartik Sawhney is a visually impaired boy who had successfully set an example for all of us. At the age of 18, he scored 96% in CBSE Class 12 exams and became the first visually impaired to score that much. His struggles started when he showed a keen interest in science. CBSE wasn’t allowing him to take science as it involves graph representations, lab activities and diagrams. It took two dozen letters to convince CBSE from Kartik’s side. And thus he became the first visually impaired child who took science.
He always wanted to be a software developer, but when he applied at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), due to lack of special services, he got rejected and that too three times! He just wanted to be treated like a normal kid.
He didn’t lose hope. He started preparing other entrance examinations which had provisions for the blind. Then, he got heard by Stanford University, California. He got admission there and that too on a full scholarship programme!
- Mary Kom
Mary Kom is one of the strongest women in India. She inspires all of us with her hard work, dedication and motivates us to not to hesitate to fight for what we want. She also belongs to a poor family and her father was really against the fact of her being a boxer. So, she secretly started her training. She had to leave her house and go to the academy to give boxing more time. Her father only got convinced when he saw her picture in the newspaper as she won at Manipur Boxing Championship. She had faced a lot of criticism from the very start. It’s quite difficult for her to find sponsors, right practice and there’s also lack of opportunities. But she overcomes every hurdle with flying colours. After having kids, she again faced a lot of criticism that she should quit now, she isn’t ready to represent India. But, Mary Kom proved everyone wrong and won lots of medals at various championships, making our nation very proud!
These are several personalities who have faced a lot of problems in their lives, got criticized by society, didn’t have a fair opportunity at resources. Still, they didn’t fail to set an example that everything’s possible if you are determined enough to take risks!