Failure List

I was going through my files and found this failure list I clipped from a newspaper years ago. If you're feeling like a failure today, take heart and keep trying.

• Einstein was four years old before he could speak.
• Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school and was considered "unpromising."
• Beethoven's music teacher once said of him, "As a composer, he is hopeless."
• When Thomas Edison was a youngster, his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. He was counseled to go into a field where he might succeed by virtue of his pleasant personality.
• F. W. Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21, but his employer would not permit him to wait on customers because he "didn't have enough sense to close a sale."
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Boston Celtics Hall of Famer Bob Cousy suffered the same fate.
• A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas."
• Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade and had to repeat it because he did not complete the tests that were required for promotion.
• Babe Ruth struck out 1,300 times---a Major League record.

A person may make mistakes, but isn't a failure until he starts blaming someone else. We must believe in ourselves, and somewhere along the road, we must meet someone who sees greatness in us, expects it from us, and lets us kow it. It is the golden key to success.