Lessons from the World’s Biggest Failures

If there's anything you can count on when hearing a story about someone’s rise to fame, it’s that they probably went through a period of failure. No matter what industry, sport, or medium, the best learned from their failures and the failures of others. 

 

Failure is life’s greatest teaching tool. If everything was handed to us, what lessons would we learn? How would our work evolve? No one likes to lose, but it makes us work harder, get wiser, and become stronger. 

 

Barbara Corcoran, one of the “Sharks” on Shark Tank, not only embraces failure but has a whole mantra behind investing in people who’ve been at the bottom. She was a guest on Business Insider's podcast, Success! How I Did It, and explained:

 

“My bias toward the poor person coming up is they’re usually hungrier. They’re more injured. They have more to prove,” Corcoran continued, “so they've had a few bumpy endings, and they're used to failure, and, my God, what's more important in building a business than failing?”

 

If you're nailing it left and right, you're not pushing yourself to the limit—you're comfortable. For most of us, success doesn’t come overnight. There’s hours and hours of practicing, reviewing our past experiences, and using those moments as fuel to break through to the next level. 

Some of our most beloved cultural figures have been through the wringer, but because they refused to give up — to let failure win—we're all better off for it. Here are some of the most famous failures and the lessons they inspire. We hope these will help you on your own path toward extraordinary failure, and eventually, extraordinary success:

#1 Albert Einstein 

 

It might surprise some to find out that one of the smartest men who ever lived failed to pass the entrance exam to a school. Well, it’s true. When applying to a polytechnic school in Zurich, Einstein failed to receive passing marks on several subjects. He later got into the school and graduated by the skin of his teeth. 

 

Whether for political, academic, or personal reasons, Einstein found himself in a dubious position post-graduation. His initial goal was to land a job in academia where he could study his passion, but this didn’t work out. With the help of a friend, he took a position at the Swiss Patent Office. 

 

Einstein could have found himself complacent with work at the patent office, slowly climbing his way up the organization. But that wasn’t what he wanted in life. While working there, he divided his time up into eight-hour blocks between patent work, scientific work, and sleep. Using this regimen, he’d go on to write and publish four papers that would not only forever change our understanding of physics, but also landed him the career in academia he’d wanted before.

 

The moral here is to always keep an eye on where you want to be, and to use your time in a way that is conducive for making that outcome possible. Einstein was already spending eight hours a day at the patent office, and it would have been easy to settle for that as his life. But he was careful to keep that from happening. By blocking his time off, he was able to give himself the space he needed to make progress on his goals. 

 

Heck, if time blocking worked for one of the smartest people who ever lived, it could for you, too. 

#2 Oprah 

 

Long before Oprah became a household name (or a billionaire), she was just Oprah Winfrey. Born in rural Mississippi, Oprah’s life was far from charmed. When she was a girl, the kids in her class teased her because her mother couldn't afford proper clothes. So, little Oprah went to school in a dress made from potato sacks. Later, at age 14, she gave birth to a son but miscarried. Oprah was also victim to abuse from family members. But, despite a childhood that was filled with a lot of sadness, Oprah endured.

 

She went on to become Miss Black Nashville and Miss Tennessee during her freshman year at Tennessee State. The local CBS affiliate took notice and offered Oprah a job, which she turned down twice. It wasn’t until her speech teacher encouraged her to take the job, saying this was “the reason people go to college,” that she did. Oprah was Nashville’s first African American female evening news co-anchor – she was only 19 and still a college student.  

 

After working in Nashville, Oprah worked the news desk in Baltimore but was soon moved to the co-host of the show Baltimore is Talking. Seven years later her next move would be the one that made her career: Chicago. Joining a struggling ABC morning show, A.M. Chicago, after a year, the show was renamed the Oprah Winfrey show. From that moment on, the train never stopped. Oprah went from meager beginnings to becoming one of the most influential people in the world.

 

There are two lessons on failure here. The first is that where we begin doesn’t determine where we wind up. Our choices determine that. The second lesson on failure is that we should always give ourselves the opportunity to fail. Like Oprah turning down that first job, if we don’t take that first step, we’re already failing. Allow yourself to fail, and you’ll give yourself the opportunity to be who you want to be. 

#3 Michael Jordan 

 

Despite being retired since 1999, Michael Jordan is still one of the most famous athletes in the world. No matter where you find yourself, you’ll always be around someone who knows what the number “23” means. But, for Jordan, that world-record-breaking success didn’t come easy.

 

Jordan tried out for Laney high school’s varsity team. He was rejected and was told he needed to play on junior varsity. This drove him nuts because the decision wasn’t due to Jordan's inability to perform, but was based on size, seniority, and strategy. He chose to use the failure as fuel.

 

“I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

 

Jordan teaches us that effort matters. He learned to use squeeze every ounce of opportunity out of his current circumstances. It would be easy to fail once, to get demoted, and accept that. Instead, use these types of failures as springboards for growth. Challenge yourself and learn where you can. When you get another shot, you’ll take it and land closer than you did before. 

#4 Walt Disney 

 

Can you imagine a world without the name Walt Disney? There are few monikers in the history of the world as influential and as crucial than the gangly kid from just outside Kansas City. But, while we all dream of visiting either Disneyland or Walt Disney World, there's quite the backstory to the man who dreamed up the world we love to play within. 

 

Long before Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney was a high school dropout. He wanted to do his part in World War I. After the war, Walt joined his brother Roy in Los Angeles to make cartoons, but the pursuit wasn’t a walk in the park. Disney’s first animation studio was called Laugh-O-Gram, which told modernized versions of Aesop's Fables. The studio eventually went bankrupt and went back home. Sometime later with $40 in his pocket, Walt made a fateful second trip from Missouri to California to start his life over.

 

Luckily, on the train ride back to L.A., Walt came up with his masterstroke, Mickey Mouse. While the public embraced the adventures of their favorite cartoon mouse, Walt wasn't done breaking through. He was obsessed with leveling up, not just making more cartoons to play before the big movies, he wanted to be the big movie.

 

So, Walt Disney set forth on creating the first feature-length cartoon, Snow White. To say Hollywood wasn’t excited would be putting it mildly. Some in town referred to the movie as “Disney's folly.”

 

When Snow White hit the theaters, crowds were mesmerized. Not only by the sweeping animation, but that the picture was also in color, a recent technological breakthrough. The film earned more than $8 million, which is around $130 million in today's money. At the 1938 Oscars, Snow White won Best Picture, and Walt was presented with a regular Oscar and seven miniature ones to symbolize the Seven Dwarves.

 

By the early 1950s, Walt had faded out of the spotlight, even though his movies were still selling well. It then that he got the idea for Disneyland. Up until that point, theme parks were fairly run down. Walt wanted something different, he wanted somewhere kids and adults could be blown away. 

 

Walt called the day Disneyland opened “Black Sunday.” The electrical cables to Fantasyland were cut by an unknown saboteur and riders were stranded for hours before firefighters came to their rescue. Heels sank into the freshly laid asphalt. A natural gas leak occurred, causing the park to rope off and shut down Tomorrowland. (Apparently, blue flames were sprouting up around Sleeping Beauty’s castle.) And only a few bathrooms were working due to a plumber strike.

 

News outlets ran headlines to the likes of “Walt’s Dream a Nightmare” and “Disneyland Opens Amid Traffic Jams, Confusion.” And carnival owners who were invited to the opening of the park told Walt at a dinner that night that the park would only last six months.  

 

According to those who worked with him, Walt’s greatest characteristic was that he always faced the future. He didn’t spend much time relishing in what they should have done—he stayed focused on what they had to do next to succeed. They fixed the problems one by one, and in the end of its first year, Disneyland wound up hosting 1.2 million visitors. Attendance more than tripled the following year. The park became such a powerhouse that Disney greenlighted a project to turn over 30,000 acres of swampland in Florida into a larger, East Coast version of the park called Disneyworld. And even though he died before the park opened, his vision was survived by those around him who saw it through. The rest, as they say is history.

When looking at stories of failure we often key in on a single, defining moment. The truth is that failure is a continuing occurrence, and it happens more frequently as your world grows. 

 

If you’ve set big goals in your life, and you’re committed to realizing them, then you should know that you’ve also committed yourself to enduring a ton of failure. Stories like Disney’s are magical, but they don’t happen with the wave of a wand. When these regular failures occur, take them one step at a time. Keep your eye on your one thing and walk backward to find solutions. And most importantly, never stop moving forward!

 

Have you ever experienced a failure or setback that actually ended up pushing you forward? Tell us about it on our Facebook page. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter for more insightful articles.