1. Bill Gates watched his first company fall apart
Bill Gates is one of the richest people on the planet. For almost a decade, the former CEO of Microsoft was the richest man in the world, and as you may have imagined, his path to success was not easy.
Gates entered the business realm with a company called Traf-O-Data, whose goal was to process and analyze data from traffic tapes (sort of an early version of big data analytics).
He tried to sell the idea along with his partner, Paul Allen, but the product barely worked. It was a complete disaster.
However, failure did not stop Gates from exploring new opportunities, and a few years later, he created his first Microsoft product, and forged a new path to success thanks to Windows and Microsoft.
So much so that years later a documentary of his life was made on Netflix where his exploits and challenges are reflected and how Bill Gates knew how to take advantage of his failures to learn and succeed both in life and in his business.
Today he is dedicated to philanthropy with his wife gives motivational talks and is an example of a celebrity with a great capacity for self-improvement.
2. Walt Disney was told he lacked creativity.
One of the most creative geniuses of the 20th century was once fired from a newspaper because he was told he lacked creativity. Trying to persevere, Disney formed his first animation company, called Laugh-O-Gram Films.
He raised $15,000 for the company but was eventually forced to close Laugh-O-Gram, following the closure of a major distribution partner.
Desperate and penniless, Disney found his way to Hollywood and faced more criticism and flops until, finally, his first classic films began to be successful.
Today, Disney is one of the most successful and largest organizations in the world, so much so that there are few businesses with which it dares, even committing to enter the world of streaming to compete with Netflix, Apple, and HBO.
3. Steve Jobs was fired from his own company
Steve Jobs is an impressive businessman for his limitless innovations, but also for his emphatic comeback from near-irrecoverable failure. Jobs found success in his early 20s when Apple grew into a massive empire, but at age 30, Apple's board of directors decided to fire him.
Undaunted by failure, Jobs founded a new company, NeXT, which was eventually acquired by Apple.
Once back at the Apple company, Jobs demonstrated his capacity for greatness by reinventing the company's image and taking the Apple brand to heights never imagined thanks to his ingenuity and products such as the iPad, the iPhone, iTunes, and iPod.
He died in 2011 and in that year it was estimated that his fortune was worth 8.3 billion dollars, according to Forbes, and that he was also ranked number 110 among the world's great fortunes.
Steve Jobs was not just any character, this man served as an example of self-improvement and inspiration for many people, including the next on the list, Steven Spielberg who said the following about Steve:
Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world in our hands.
By the way, Steve Jobs' speech that he gave at Stanford University is well known for his inspirational message to the world. If you have not seen it, then we leave you the video.
Without a doubt, it is an essential story that everyone should know and one of the most interesting 10 cms in the world. Jobs was a genius and not only transformed Apple, but h but also transformed Disney thanks to what he did in the 1990s with a subsidiary company acquired from Lucasfilm in Pixar, which changed the animated film industry with Toy Story.
The rest of the story is well known, Disney bought Pixar in 2006 and this made Steve Jobs even richer.
4. Steven Spielberg also flopped
His film production has grossed more than $9 billion and earned him three Academy Awards, but the master blockbuster was rejected TWICE by the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. As his way of saying "Oops, I think we got you wrong," the school built a building in Spielberg's honor.
5. Arianna Huffington was rejected by 36 publishers
It's hard to believe that one of the most recognizable names in the world of online communication was turned down by three dozen major publishers.
Huffington's second book, which she attempted to publish long before she created the now ubiquitous and recognizable Huffington Post empire, was rejected 36 times before it was finally accepted for publication.
Even the Huffington Post was not immediately successful. In fact, when it was released, there were dozens of very negative reviews about its quality and potential.
Obviously, Huffington overcame those initial bouts of failure thanks to her stubbornness, insistence, and her self-improvement skills that have helped cement her name as the head of one of the most important outlets in the digital world.
