According to Business Insider, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because his editor felt he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas." Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first television anchor job because she became too "emotionally invested in her stories." Steven Spielberg faced multiple rejections from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Colonel Harland David Sanders was fired "from dozens of jobs" and Thomas Edison's teachers told him he was "too stupid to learn anything." A personal favorite of mine, J.K. Rowling, was a single mom living off welfare when she began writing the first Harry Potter Novel. The list of failures goes on, but my favorite part of these life stories comes after the rejection. After the firing. After the insults. Walt Disney later became "the guy who redefined American childhood," Oprah Winfrey is now worth "three billion dollars according to Forbes," Steven Spielberg has "won three Academy Awards, 4 Emmys, 7 Daytime Emmys, and his 27 movies have grossed more than 9 billion." We all know who Colonel Sanders is, and his Kentucky Fried Chicken is a household favorite still today. While Thomas Edison needs no introduction, his record of success shames the voice that spoke the word "stupid" over him. J.K. Rowling, once living on welfare as a single mom, became the "first billionaire author in 2004." Reading over these stories, if you had to choose one word to summarize them, what would it be? The word that came to me is perseverance. Galatians 6:9 says "let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up," and while the road can be long and the mountains steep, the greatest and most inspiring stories aren't written from overnight success legends, but from the forward movement, persistence, and continuous effort of those who pursued greatness, but also knew how to fail.
