10 Inspiring Success Stories

“Your success and happiness lie in you”- Helen Keller. This quote says a lot about the way we live our life. Everyone looks towards the external sources for success without knowing the key to success is in their own selves. It is really important to know that success takes years of hard work and failure. Focussing on positivity sure is important but so is looking at the things that made that happen. In this blog, we have curated a list of 10 inspiring success stories and covered both the successes as well as failures in journeys.   

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Steve Jobs

“Your time is limited. Don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Steve Jobs is one of the most famous names in the entrepreneurial community. His story is one of the most inspiring success stories in the world. Today, everyone knows about his company Apple but no one actually believed such a technology could be created at that time. Steve Jobs was a visionary who believed in himself and decided to give everything towards building his company. He was adopted by a working-class couple at the time of his birth. Steve, being a born genius, developed a taste for machines and computers very early in his life. However, if we look at Steve Jobs’s education, formal education soon started to bore him. Although, he went off to college but quit only after the first semester. He then took up a job at Atari from where he saved up some money and traveled to India. He stayed there for spiritual purposes and returned home after 7 months as a Buddhist and led a simple life. However, soon after that, he started working on a computer project with Steve Wozniak and they created their first apple product in a garage. This is how the largest IT company in the world was built. Steve Jobs has created a legacy today.

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J.K Rowling

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

We now move on to J.K Rowling whose story is the most notable inspiring success story ever. The person is responsible for the creation of Harry Potter, who is the most iconic and inspiring fictional character of all time. J.K Rowling is one of the most renowned authors of our time. Everyone knows the fantastic world of Harry Potter today but not everyone knows about the person who brought that world into life. After the death of her mother, she moved to Portugal in order to teach English. She married a man there and had a daughter with him. However, after some time both of them parted ways and filed for a divorce. This was a turning point in her life as she moved to a different city with her daughter and three chapters of Harry Potter that she wrote before. J.K Rowling even suffered depression, anxiety during this time. After about two years she finally completed Harry Potter which was rejected by 12 publications. Soon after, the book was accepted and published and the rest is history. Her story teaches her that no matter what life throws at us, the solution is always inside us. 

Michael Jordan

“If you quit once, it becomes a habit. Never quit!”

From being rejected for the basketball team to becoming a basketball legend, MJ has seen it all making his story on our list of inspiring success stories. Michael Jordan was rejected from the basketball team in his high school due to his height. However, his liking for the sport made him even more determined to excel at the sport. He used to go reach the gym before anyone else and practice shots. Soon after the opening of a spot on the basketball team, he was selected. However, he still did lack the skills but he carried on anyway and worked every day towards perfection. He gained a reputation as a valuable player of the basketball team which eventually led him to the NBA and become the basketball legend that we know him to be.

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Walt Disney

“First, think. Second, dream. Third, believe. And finally, dare”

Next on our list of inspiring success stories is the story of Walter Elias Disney known as the world’s greatest animator didn’t have it so easy from the start. He used to be a daydreamer back in his school days and used to draw random sketches. After serving as a red cross volunteer in World War 1, he decided to make cartoon motion pictures and started a cartoon company at the age of 19. He failed miserably and went bankrupt at the age of 22 and also got fired from his newspaper agency for lacking imagination. After that, he went bankrupt several times and the company was completely shattered in 1928. That’s when he created his most famous cartoon character Mickey mouse. Everyone knows what happened next.

Colonel Sanders

“One has to remember that every failure can be a stepping stone to something better.”

Colonel Harber Sanders is famously known for his creation of Kentucky Fried Chicken today but not many people know the struggles he went through in order to make this happen and transform his story into the most inspiring success stories in the world. He continuously faced rejection in his life. His father passed away while he was just 6 years old which left him to cook for his siblings. Soon after that he dropped out of school and started working full time. He got a job in the army by faking his age from where he was discharged after a year. He got fired from his next job as well. Later, he founded a ferry boat company and failed at that as well. He started selling his fried chicken at a service station at the age of 40. However, as he started growing, he had a shootout with his competitor. He started a motel, four years later which got closed again due to world war 2. He tried to franchise his restaurant after that and was rejected thousands of times before his ‘secret recipe’ of KFC got selected. After years of failures, Colonel Sanders grew KFC at such a place that he sold it off for 2 million dollars. Even after facing so many rejections in his life, he didn’t give up and the world knows him as the face of KFC today. 

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Henry Ford

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain.”

Henry Ford is the most noted entrepreneur in the automobile industry. He completely revolutionized the automobile industry and made sure his story is one of the most inspiring success stories in the world. After launching his company, he went for funding from a businessman who later dissolved the company leaving him with nothing. However, he was determined to what he had started and aimed for perfection. He went back to the same investor again and requested him to give another chance but he failed again. Even after these consecutive failures he didn’t give up and finally introduced the Model A in 1904 and then he never looked back.

Stephen King

“Isn’t bravery always sort of beautiful?”

Stephen King is one of the most famous writers in the world and has one of the most inspiring success stories ever. The author is best known for writing in the genre of science fiction, horror, and suspense. Stephen had a knack for writing since his childhood and was seen contributing articles for his school magazine. He graduated with a bachelor of arts degree and started working as a teacher alongside selling his short stories to different magazines. He was working on completing his novel ‘Carrie’, but he left it in between due to depression and anxiety. However, his wife’s encouragement played an important part in his life which made him several successful books, some of which even turned into movies. He is the writer of the greatest movie of all time, ‘The Shawshank Redemption.’ Despite his failures and struggles he believed in his skills as a writer and continued on the path towards greatness.

Thomas Edison

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”

There’s no need to introduce who Thomas Edison is. He was the greatest scientist of his time and also the inventor of the bulb. If we were to look at the education of Thomas Elva Edison, he was a mentally unstable child and was dropped out of school because of this. However, he was a hard worker and never gave up on his dreams and made sure that his hard work made his story one of the most inspiring success stories in the world. His mother was also a true warrior, who showed her full confidence in Thomas and never let him down. He used to sell fruits and newspapers at the age of 12. He continued to work on different inventions, and after inventing the telegraph, he set up a laboratory in New York. Before inventing Bulb, he failed thousands of times but continued and finally made the bulb’s invention.

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Dhirubhai Ambani

“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.”

Next on our list of inspiring success stories is Dhirubhai Ambani. The story of Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of reliance is a true rag to riches story. He was born in a poor family and worked his way up the ladder. He moved to Yemen at the age of 16 to work at a petrol pump. He returned to India in 1958 and started his own textile business. Working in this business he got good marketing knowledge. After he ended this textile business he launched Reliance Corporation in 1996, which is today known as the Reliance Industries. There is also a scholarship in his name now by the name of Dhirubhai Ambani Scholarship.

Steven Spielberg

“I don’t dream at night, I dream at day. I dream all day. I’m dreaming for a living.”

Last but not least we have the story of Steven Spielberg on our list of inspiring success stories. He was a filmmaker who was rejected from the USC School of Theater, Film, and Television three times due to bad grades in his school. However, this did not stop him from carrying on with his dream of becoming a filmmaker. He went on delivering great movies and even won Oscar Awards three times consecutively. Even after facing so many failures in life, he delivered some of the best films to the film industry. He is known for blockbusters like Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Color Purple, etc. after being rejected from USC, today he is one of the school’s board of directors. 

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FAQs

All these stories were the most inspiring success stories and show us that nothing is impossible in life. Are you confused regarding your career path? We at Leverage Edu would love the opportunity to guide you through the process of choosing the best career path for yourself. Sign up for a free session with us now!