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It was 1973 and Stephen King was living in a trailer with his wife.
He taught English at Hampden Academy whilst moonlighting in a variety of other jobs including as a janitor and gas pump attendant.
King didn’t even have his own typewriter, working on his wife’s borrowed Olivetti.
He made a little bit of money from short stories, mainly published in men’s magazines.
A reader told him, “you write all those macho things, but you can’t write about women…you’re scared of women”.
King saw this is a challenge and Carrie was born.
In the first few pages of writing, he was struggling so much that he decided his critics must be right. In a fit of temper, he threw the document into the bin.
The next day, his wife retrieved it and persuaded him to continue writing until he had a final draft.
30 publishers rejected the manuscript…
Eventually, Doubleday Publishing accepted it with an advance of $2500.
Carrie sold slowly at first. Doubleday Publishing then sold the rights for the paperback to another publisher for $400,000, with $200,000 going to King. The paperback version went on to sell 1 million copies in its first year.
[tweetshare tweet=”Fall down 7 times, get up 8 – Japanese proverb” username=”alisonw30″]
I’m amazed by how many stories of inspirational people, such as King, are out there. We look at Stephen King now and think ‘he is so successful, I could never be like that’.
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What we don’t realise is the setbacks he suffered and his sheer persistence in the face of adversity.
Here are a further 13 stories of my favourite inspirational people.
Elvis Presley
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In 1954, Elvis was working as a truck driver but dreamed of becoming a professional singer.
He took to hanging around the Memphis Recording Studios where he made a couple of personal recordings.
Excitement came when he thought he may have his big break. His friend Ronnie, with whom he had played a number of small gigs, was a member of a ‘real’ professional band.
The band, led by Eddie Bond was looking for a new singer and Ronnie suggested that Elvis audition.
Elvis nervously auditioned in the HiHat club in front of Bond. Bond allegedly told him that he should stick to truck driving “because you’re never going to make it as a singer”.
A couple of months later, Sun Records signed Elvis and the rest is history.
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Rudyard Kipling
Yet another author who suffered the pain of rejection. In 1889 the San Fransisco Examiner fired Kipling as a contributor.
The dismissal letter apparently stated, “I’m sorry Mr Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language”.
In 1907 Kipling was the first English speaker to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The prize citation said: “In consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author.”
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Sir James Dyson
In 1978 James Dyson became frustrated with the performance of his vacuum cleaner.
Realising that the bag in the machine would diminish the vacuum’s performance as it got filled with dust, he set about inventing a bagless vacuum cleaner.
He failed no less than 5126 times!
On attempt number 5127, he finally had a prototype, but struggled to find anyone who would licence it.
He says of this time, “the people who rejected it did so for no good reason, which told me they were not interested in technological advances. That gave me the courage to keep going”. (fortune.com)
The vacuum cleaner went on to have limited success in the Japanese market. In the early 1990s, Dyson decided to manufacture the machine himself.
Following a patent war and a battle to raise finances, Dyson finally went into production and began selling by mail order.
John Lewis began selling the vacuum cleaners and other retailers soon followed suit. By 1995 it was the best selling vacuum cleaner in Britain.
Walt Disney
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In 1919 Disney was fired by a Kansas newspaper editor who told him that he lacked imagination, wasn’t creative enough and that he should be looking elsewhere.
Disney later acquired an animation studio called Laugh-O-Gram which subsequently went bankrupt.
Legend also has it that investors turned him down 302 times before he finally secured funding for Walt Disney World.
Disney went on to be nominated for 59 academy awards for his animation, bagging an impressive 32. He still holds the record for the most Oscars held by an individual.
Joe Wicks (The Body Coach)
In July 2017 he made an inspirational speech to new graduates of St Mary’s University detailing the struggles he overcame to get to where he is today.
From a working-class background, he and his brother were the first from his family to go to university.
Having studied a sports degree he thought he perhaps wanted to be a PE Teacher. Spending some time in a school as a Teaching Assistant, he decided that this wasn’t for him.
He then went on to train to be a personal trainer. On completing the course he decided he wanted to work for himself, so he set up a boot camp called ‘Rumble in the Park’.
Borrowing some money from his mum he bought some fitness equipment to run the boot camps.
He couldn’t afford a vehicle so he put all the equipment in a trailer on the back of his pushbike. Early each morning he would set off for the park. Setting up 15 work out stations for his boot camp, some mornings no-one would turn up.
Not put off, Joe got flyers printed and handed them out at the railway station.
Despite the number of flyers thrown away by rushed commuters, Joe slowly built up a following for his boot camp.
In 2014 he started posting recipes on Instagram and Twitter and came up with the hashtag #leanin15. His friends and relatives told him it was annoying and that he should stick with the boot camp.
Eventually, a publisher contacted him with the possibility of publishing a recipe book. Joe then got an agent and a bidding war started for Lean in 15. He secured an 8 book deal and the books are now the second best-selling UK recipe books of all time.
Joe now runs a global company with 40 staff and inspires people around the world to get fit and lean.
Albert Einstein
Stories suggest that Einstein didn’t speak until he was 2, almost 3 years of age.
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He failed to pass the entrance exam to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School. He later passed but then struggled once at the school.
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His father allegedly considered him to be a ‘major failure’.
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Later in life, Einstein struggled with various ailments. As a German Jew, his life was also at risk before and during World War II.
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Through sheer persistence, Einstein went on to revolutionise scientific thinking in space, gravity, light and time.
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J.K. Rowling
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Penniless and recently divorced, single mum Joanne Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book on an old manual typewriter.
Rejected 12 times, the manuscript was eventually published by Bloomsbury with a very small advance of £1500.
Initially, 1000 copies were printed with 500 of these going to libraries. The editor of Bloomsbury advised Rowling to “get a day job” saying that she had little chance of making money with children’s books.
The book won the Nestle Smarties Book Prize and also the British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year in 1997.
In 1998 the book was published in the US and Rowling wrote a further 6 Harry Potter books. The final book sold 11 million copies on its first day of release.
Madonna
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The letter is undated but thought to be from around 1981.
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Lenner stated that although he “enjoyed listening to Madonna…I do not feel that she is ready yet.”
Not long afterwards, Madonna signed with Sire Records and released her first solo album. This went on to sell in excess of 10 million copies worldwide.
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Madonna is currently the best-selling female recording artist of all time, worth an estimated $590 million.
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Michael Jordan
“I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Jordan always loved sport but as a teenager failed to make his high school basketball team.
Drafted by the Chicago Bulls, Jordan quickly increased the number of fans attending their games.
He went on to enjoy considerable personal success and was named defensive player of the year in 1988.
In 1993, following the murder of his father and reports of a gambling problem, Jordan announced his retirement from basketball. He returned just a year later, a little rusty but determined to get back to the top of his game.
The Chicago Bulls went on to win 6 NBA Championships with Jordan also winning 6 MVP awards.
The Beatles
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The Beatles were famously rejected by Decca Records in 1962.
Following a 15 song audition, Decca told them that “guitar bands are on the way out” adding “The Beatles have no future in show business”.
5 months later, George Martin at Parlophone signed the group.
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William Golding
Golding’s first book ‘The Lord of the Flies’ was rejected by the many publishers he sent it to. One even claimed it to be “an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull”.
Golding’s daughter recalls in the Guardian “My earliest memory is not of the book itself but of a lot of parcels coming back and being sent off again very quickly. She adds “he must have been grief-stricken every time it returned”.
Even upon its eventual publication in 1954, it was a commercial flop, selling just 4662 copies. By 1962 it had managed to move 65,000 copies.
In 1983 Golding received the Nobel Prize for his novels “which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today”.
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Steven Spielberg
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The University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts rejected Spielberg 3 times, apparently due to his poor high school grades.
Obtaining his education elsewhere, he went on to direct Jaws, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List and many other blockbusters. He is now worth over $1 billion to Dreamworks, his production company.
The University eventually awarded Spielberg an honorary degree in 1994 and he became a trustee in 1996.
Colonel Sanders
Colonel Harland Sanders is well known as the jolly, bearded face behind Kentucky Fried Chicken. What is less well known is that he only started trying to sell his fried chicken recipe at the age of 65.
He travelled around the country looking for restaurants to partner with. Legend has it that he was rejected 1009 times.
By 1964 he had 600 franchises selling his chicken. He went on to sell the company for $2 million dollars.
I must admit that before reading the stories of these 14 inspirational people, I did have a tendency to look at failure and rejection as signs I should give up. Instead, from now on I am going to look at it in a different way.
As Winston Churchill put it:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts”.
Latisha Porter
Thanks for giving us a history lesson on not giving up. I learned a lot about some famous people/groups. It gets hard sometimes and I often feel frustrated with tge writing process, but I still press forward anyways. Happy Writing!
Alison
Glad you enjoyed the post Latisha, thanks for stopping by 🙂
Sara
Amazing Post!
Alison
Thank you!
Cordelia Moor
This is such a lovely post. It’s so easy to look at the success of others and only see what they’re doing now, and not what they did to get themselves there. A brilliant reminder for us all.
Cordelia || cordeliamoor.com
Alison
Thanks for stopping by Cordelia, I’m glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
October's Lallu
LOVE THIS! I remember when I was in high school, I wrote a play about Stephen King (mainly about his struggles) – Refreshed so many memories // Thank you for sharing <3
https://octoberslallu.blogspot.com/
Alison
Wow, a play, that sounds great! I loved his story, it is definitely in my top one or two from the 14 (I think Walt Disney is my other favourite)
Johnny
This post has made my day!
What all of these inspirational people have in common is that very few people around them saw the vision they saw of themselves, their work and their aspirations. They all experienced rejection, some quite harshly and some even thousands of times. No one would’ve blamed them for giving up but by doing that they would’ve just been conforming to societal norms, like settling for a day job as J.K Rowling was advised to do but refused to obviously.
The lesson is not just to never give up, but also not to never fear rejection.
Johnny | Johnny’s Traventures
http://www.johnnystraventures.com
Alison
Glad to have made your day! I knew about a few of the stories before I researched this post and they had already inspired me not to give up. I thought it would be great to find other famous people who add to the list of stories I already knew. There are actually loads out there but these ones were my favourites!
Naz Garcia
Glad JK Rowling did not give up. 😂😂 muggles and wizards in Hogwarts were the best things i’ve ever read in high school. Love this post btw. 😊
Alison
Yes I’m glad that she didn’t too! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Iryna
Very inspirational! I love when people no matter the age believe in themselves.
Alison
Hi
Thanks for stopping by, glad you enjoyed the article 🙂
Anonymous
I love the people you listed here! They really are influential and inspirational people. I also love Michael Jordan’s quote. Thank you for sharing Alison!!
Alison
Thanks for stopping by, glad you enjoyed!
Abby
This was just the post I needed today. It’s hard to remember that the people that made it were in a very similar position as me at some point.
Also, super cool, I live right next to Sun Studios!! In Memphis, TN. Such a cool place. So many amazing artists have recorded there.
Thanks for doing this research and sharing. It was very inspirational!
Alison
That is indeed super cool Abby!! I enjoyed researching the post and the stories have made me determined to never give up in pursuing my dreams!
Marie
This is so uplifting and inspirational! Thanks for sharing all about these wonderful people.
Alison
Thanks Marie, glad you enjoyed 🙂
Kelly
Hi lovely
What a fabulous post I really enjoyed it. I love Walt Disney and can not believe he got fired for lack of imagion just goes to show you never give up. No matter what someone says fabulous xx
Alison
It was the Walt Disney story that inspired me to write the post! I’d heard the JK Rowling story also but found out most of the others as I researched. All truly inspiring!
Bella
Whenever I think of someone successful I tend to think they must have been lucky or that it was easy for them, and I’m sure a lot of others do the same. In a way it’s motivating to know that even the most successful people were rejected and “failed” so many times before they got to the top! It makes them seem more human too!
Alison
Hi Bella,I know exactly what you mean! I was quite surprised how many failures some of these individuals had before they found success!
OneMoreLightLB
You know, I really needed this, what an uplifting and inspirational post. Social media often portrays an idea of “instant success” and it’s important to realise it isn’t the case!
Alison
Glad you enjoyed 🙂 It was a fun post to research and write. We often don’t realise the struggles ‘successful’ people have been through!
Chloe Chats
I loved reading this Alison! I do this all the time, but you see all these people who are doing absolutely amazing and think that you’ll never get there, but when you actually look at how they got there it’s pretty inspiring and something that is possible.
Chloe xx
Alison
Glad you enjoyed it! I always think of this post when I feel like giving up. Stephen King and JK Rowling in particular. They got rejected so many times!