Failures Are Misunderstood
By: Gabriella Eberhardt
Albert Einstein (Compare/Contrast)
When you hear the word "Einstein," you automatically think, genius. Albert Einstein was known to be one of the smartest people in history. It wasn't always like that though. He wasn't always as successful as you believed him to be.
Albert Einstein wasn't able to speak fluently until the age of nine. Teachers thought he was slow or had a disability. He was expelled from school because he was rebellious and he wanted to be independent. He thought school was a waste of time. If you knew him at the time, you would have never guessed that he would become such a genius.
As he entered the adulthood, things got better for him. He had a great interest in Physics or basically science in general. He then developed a theory of General Relativity. He won the noble prize because of his research leading the U.S Atomic Bomb. He also influenced all the aspects of culture, religion, television, and more.
As you could probably tell there are many differences between his childhood and the success he made as an adult. They also have similarities as well. No matter how many times he failed or he made success, he was still the same person. At every point in his life he was happy. He had a passion for physics. His way of perserveing was simply doing what he loved. He didn't care what other people thought of him. His failures didn't bother him.
Walt Disney (Sequence/Process)
Walt Disney is known all over the world. It is one of the most popular children entertainment companies. But did you think it was that easy for it to get to where it is now? Walt Disney had multiple failures and if he didn't have them, he wouldn't of been able to get to where he was now. According to the life of Walt Disney, every success has had a failure.
Walt Disney didn't grow up with the best family. His siblings ran away from home and he didn't have very good parents. In 1921, he was a young adult (age 22) and he went bankrupt. He only owned $40. He was surviving off of dog food. So you could probably tell he had a rough start in life. This must have been hard for him, but sometimes you just have to get through it. In 1930, he said he had a "heck of a breakdown." He wasn't happy, he couldn't afford anything, and he was going through some rough times. In 1933, he created "The Three Little Pigs." It got rejected because it only had four characters. In 1940, he got the chance to have a premiere of "Pinocchio." The play ended up being a complete disaster because the actors were drunk. After that, his company was in more than $4 billion debt. In 1942, he had the premiere of "Bambi." The play ended up to go pretty well. That made his career jump a head start. In 1955 he finally had his dream come true. His company was big and he was proud.
Walt Disney went through some terrible experiences. He didn't have a great start to his life. The important thing is that he persevered through it. Despite all of his hardships, he dealt with it because he was determined to get to his dream. He has definitely succeeded. Most people would think that failure is a bad thing. That it means you're not good enough. This is completely untrue. When you fail at something, you learn from what you did wrong and at least you tried. If you succeed without failing then you don't have the satisfaction that you have succeeded. Failures are what gets us to where we want to be and it makes us feel like we have accomplished more once we have our dream come true, like Walt Disney.
Thomas Edison (Problem/Solution)
Almost everyone knows who invented the light bulb. Thomas Edison was one of the greatest American Inventors in history. He stumbled along the way to his success and he had a great way of putting it. "I have not failed 10,000 times - I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work." - Thomas Edison.
He had many failures/problems in his life. One of the problems he had was the "Automatic Vote Recorder." He successfully created a device that will count citizen's votes. It worked perfectly fine and there was no problem with it. When he took the device to political leaders in Washington, they sadly rejected him. They said, "Forget it." So even though Edison actually made something useful, people didn't want any part of it.
Another one of his problems was the "Electric Pen." This invention worked, but it wasn't pleasurable to the users. It was noisy, heavy, and very uncomfortable to use. It ended up to not be a success to him, because people weren't buying them and there were a lot of complaints about it. Even though it wasn't a home run for Edison, was that it paved the way for other inventors. By creating this it helped other inventors become successful.
The next problem he has was the "Tinfoil Phonograph." This invention took him nearly a decade to create. The machine worked on his first try. Basically, what this invention was, was you spoke into the machine and cranked the handle at the same time, then metal points traced grooves into the disc. The first one he made was "Mary had a Little Lamb." Reporters and Scientists were blown away by his invention. Things were finally looking up for him. He took his invention to President Rutherford B. Hayes. Unfortunately, his device did not have a target purpose or audience. The president said, "Interest (was soon) exhausted."
Despite all of these problems and failures Thomas Edison had, he had always had one solution, keep trying. After failure and rejection and one after the other, he always tried again something new. He always invented a new invention no matter what other people thought if he did. If he didn't keep trying, he would have never been so determined to invent the light bulb. Failures are what got him to his success.
J.K Rowling (Cause & Effect)
J.K Rowling is an author who's book series (Harry Potter) has been translated into 72 languages, sold millions of copies, and has received over $20 billion because of her book. But her famous quote might surprise you, "By every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew."
J.K Rowling had many causes that led to her success (Cause & Effect.) This is one of them. She started writing her first Harry Potter book out of grievance because of her mother's death. She wanted it done by the time she got back from her Portugal trip. Things didn't go as planned for her. She found herself in the exact position that she feared the most, but she didn't find it to be that bad.
Another cause was her trying to publish her book. When she finished the first three chapters, she sent it off to a publisher. They quickly declined it. She sent it to another publisher, then another one. Her mailbox was filling up with rejection letters. She didn't care. Her goal was set to finishing the book. She was very determined. But after getting rejected from 12 different publishers she started to give up.
Then the last cause was thankfully good. The editor at Bloomsbury Publishing Company sat down to read her manuscript. The editor's 8 year old daughter wanted to read it too. After she read the first chapter, she begged to read more. After the publisher seeing this, he agreed to publish her manuscript. But, they told her that they suggest she should get a day job, because children's books don't make a lot of money. They were wrong.
No matter how good or bad the causes were, the effect that came out of it was great. She went through a lot of failures to get to where she is today. So, I agree with her quote, that she was the biggest failure. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the outcome was bad. She persevered through her failures, which is what gets you to where you want to be. She clearly got where she wanted to be.
Stephen King (Description/Definition)
"Stephen King is an American bestselling author who specializes in science fiction, fantasy, horror and suspense stories. His books have been adapted into a number of successful Hollywood films like ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, ‘Carrie’, ‘Secret Window’ and ‘Hearts in Atlantis’. As of 2013 his books have sold more than 300 million hardbound copies. Stephen has published a total of 50 novels and 200 short stories out of which 90% of them have gone on to be positively appreciated," (Success Story). He is obviously very successful. Telling from his past, he has definitely worked really hard to get to where he is now.
A publisher once said to Stephen King, "We are not interested in Science Fiction which deals with negative utopias." This was him at age 20 and he was trying to publish his book, "Carrie." Before it becoming an iconic thriller, "Carrie" was rejected by 30 publishers. He was starting to give up because he felt that there was no hope left. He threw his manuscript in the trash and was really mad. His wife took it out of the trash and urged him to re-submit it. He agreed, and on his 31st try, he finally got his book published.
It is amazing to think about, if his wife didn't encourage him to submit it one last time, then he would have never got it published. It's funny how life works out sometimes. The point is that he went through disappointment, failures, and probably he was just straight up depressed. He still pushed through it and put the pain behind him and succeeded. You can't have success handed to you without it feeling like you have truly accomplished something. Sometimes you have to go through the bad times, to enjoy the good ones.
Bibliography
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