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| Quotations - Leadership | [Quote No.53572] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"The one thing all famous authors, world-class athletes, business tycoons, singers, actors, and celebrated achievers in any field have in common is that they all began their journeys when they were none of these things." - Mike Dooley
American author
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| [Quote No.53597] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"You cannot mandate productivity, you must provide the tools to let people become their best." - Steve Jobs
(1955 - 2011) co-founder of Apple
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| [Quote No.53657] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"One of the greatest talents of all is the talent to recognize and to develop talent in others." - Frank Tyger
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| [Quote No.53660] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties." - William Matthews
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| [Quote No.53663] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"The man [or woman] with the average mentality, but with control [focus], with a definite goal [imagined vividly], and a clear conception [plan] of how it can be gained, and above all, with the power of application and labor [persistence], wins in the end!" - William Howard Taft
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| [Quote No.53665] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[Life-skills:] Men [and women] who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others idled, have persevered when others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial [focus], industry [persistence], and singleness of purpose [focus]. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success so often erroneously attributed to good luck." - Grenville Kleiser
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| [Quote No.53670] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"Success consists of a series of little daily victories!!" - Laddie Hutar
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| [Quote No.53684] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing!" - Abraham Lincoln
(1809 - 1865)
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| [Quote No.53695] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation — veneer isn't worth anything." - George Washington Carver
(1864 - 1943)
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| [Quote No.53722] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"No one can deal with the hearts of men as he ought, unless he has the sympathy which is given by love." - Henry Ward Beecher
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| [Quote No.53748] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"Nothing discloses real character like the use of power!" - Robert G. Ingersoll
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| [Quote No.53781] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist!" - Pablo Picasso
Spanish artist
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| [Quote No.53806] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really knows how smart or talented he is until he finds the incentives to use himself to the fullest." - Sydney J. Harris
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| [Quote No.53826] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"I think I still have that same drive and determination, the same curiosity and passion for filmmaking that I did when I first started. Every film brings with it unique challenges and experiences, and I approach every one with the same enthusiasm.
" - Barbara Kopple
American Academy Award winning film director known primarily for her documentary work.
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| [Quote No.53831] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be 'curiosity'.
" - Eve Arnold
American photojournalist.
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| [Quote No.53883] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do, and that often means living outside the limits of one's comfort zone!" - Jeff Olson
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| [Quote No.53892] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"When Buck [R. Buckminister Fuller, the American neo-futuristic architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor,] was asked about what he wanted on his tombstone, he said he wanted it to read: 'Call me trimtab.'
What?
It turns out that a trimtab is the thing shipbuilders invented when ships became so large that the captains couldn't turn the rudders since the water pressure was so strong that the boat tended to stay on the same course. A trimtab is a rudder on the rudder that creates a little shift in course and is easy to turn that in turn leads to the ability to turn the big rudder and thus the course of the large ship.
Bucky wanted to be the little change that made the big change possible [which is really what most leaders do]." - Bill O'Hanlon
Monday 26th January, 2015 on billohanlon.com
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| [Quote No.53895] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"More gold [wealth and prosperity] has been mined from the [wise, inventive, imaginative] thoughts of men [and women] than has been taken from the earth." - Napoleon Hill
(1883 - 1970)
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| [Quote No.54034] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[Praise:] Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary!" - Margaret Cousins
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| [Quote No.54081] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"...if we can't think of anything to inspire us [or those we care about], we can always turn to the inspirational words of others [and quote them]." - Galen Schultz
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| [Quote No.54095] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier!!" - Colin Powell
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| [Quote No.54109] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story: about leadership, persisting past rejection and not letting age be a barrier to pursuing your dream:] COLONEL SANDERS: The founder of KFC. He started his dream at 65 years old! He got a social security check for only $105 and was mad. Instead of complaining he did something about it!
He thought restaurant owners would love his fried chicken recipe, use it, sales would increase, and he’d get a percentage of it. He drove around the country knocking on doors, sleeping in his car, wearing his white suit.
Do you know how many times people said no till he got one yes? 1009 times!!" - Unknown
[Refer http://getbusylivingblog.com/famous-people-who-found-success-despite-failures/ ]
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| [Quote No.54110] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about leadership and persistence.] - Keep On, Keeping On - colonel Sanders went to more than 1,000 places trying to sell his chicken recipe before he found an interested buyer. The fact that we can buy Kentucky Fried Chicken today attests to his perseverance. Thomas Edison tried almost 10,000 times before he succeeded in creating the electric light. If he had given up, you would be reading this in the dark! The original business plan for what was to become Federal Express was given a failing grade on Fred Smith¹s college exam. And, in the early days, their employees would cash their pay checks at retail stores, rather than banks. This meant it would take longer for the money to clear, thereby giving Fed Ex more time to cover their payroll. Sylvester Stallone had been turned down a thousand times by agents and was down to his last $600 before he found a company that would produce Rocky. The rest is history! To truly succeed requires a total commitment to your goal. Too many people make the mistake of quitting just short of success. Keep going no matter what." - Jim Donovan
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| [Quote No.54125] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story after true story: about leadership and persisting past failure to achieve success:]
7 Entrepreneurs Whose Perseverance Will Inspire You:
Everyone knows that perseverance is important. You’ve probably heard the quote ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try again’ or seen the commercial that talks about falling down 7 times and standing up 8. The lesson, of course, is that few people achieve anything great without first overcoming a few obstacles.
Preaching about the importance of perseverance is easy. Actually experiencing failure and continuing on undeterred; now that’s tough. But the 7 stories below prove that it can be done. These famous entrepreneurs exemplified perseverance. Maybe one of them will inspire you to overcome whatever obstacle is currently standing in your way.
----- Milton Hershey:
Milton Hershey had a long path to the top of the chocolate industry. Hershey dropped out of school in the 4th grade and took an apprenticeship with a printer, only to be fired. He then became an apprentice to a candy-maker in Lancaster, PA. After studying the business for 4 years, Hershey started three unsuccessful candy companies in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York.
Hershey was not about to give up, so he moved back to Lancaster. With his track record of failures, he could not attract loans or investors for his fourth attempt. With great tenacity he barely scraped together the funds to start the Lancaster Caramel Company. His unique caramel recipe, which he had come across during his earlier travels, was a huge success. Hershey, who was always looking ahead, believed that chocolate products had a much greater future than caramel. He sold the Lancaster Caramel Company for $1 million in 1900 (nearly $25 million in 2008 dollars) and started the Hershey Company, which brought milk chocolate -- previously a Swiss delicacy -- to the masses.
Not only did Hershey overcome failure and accomplish his goals, but he also managed to do it close to home. Hershey created hundreds of jobs for Pennsylvanians. In fact the company became so successful that the town where it was located changed its name in honor of Hershey Chocolate. He also used some of his money to build houses, churches, and schools, cementing his status as a legend in the Keystone State.
----- Steve Jobs:
You always hear about a ‘long road to the top,’ but perseverance isn’t limited to the early stages of a person’s career. Oftentimes, failure can occur after a long period of success.
Steve Jobs achieved great success at a young age. When he was 20 years old, Jobs started Apple in his parents’ garage, and within a decade the company blossomed into a $2 billion empire. However, at age 30, Apple’s Board of Directors decided to take the business in a different direction, and Jobs was fired from the company he created. Jobs found himself unemployed, but treated it as a freedom rather than a curse. In fact, he later said that getting fired from Apple was the best thing to ever happen to him, because it allowed him to think more creatively and re-experience the joys of starting a company.
Jobs went on to found NeXT, a software company, and Pixar, the company that produces animated movies such as ‘Finding Nemo’. NeXT was subsequently purchased by Apple. Not only did Jobs go back to his former company, but he helped launch Apple’s current resurgence in popularity. Jobs claims that his career success and his strong relationship with his family are both results of his termination from Apple.
----- Simon Cowell:
Nowadays, Simon Cowell is a pop icon and a very wealthy man. But early in life, Cowell faced his fair share of struggles. At age 15, Cowell dropped out of school and bounced around jobs. He eventually landed a job in the mail room of EMI Music Publishing. Cowell worked his way up to the A&R department, and then went on to form his own publishing company, E&S Music.
Unfortunately, E&S folded in its first year. Cowell ended up with a lot of debt, and was forced to move back in with his parents. But he never gave up on his dream of working in the music industry, and eventually landed a job with a small company called Fanfare Records. He worked there for 8 years and helped the company become a very successful label. From there, Cowell spent years signing talent and working behind-the-scenes before launching the ‘American Idol’ and ‘X-Factor’ franchises that made him famous.
Even though he is rich and successful, Cowell continues to work on new projects. This kind of dedication no doubt helped him overcome his early roadblocks.
----- Thomas Edison:
When he was a young boy, Thomas Edison’s parents pulled him out of school after teachers called him ‘stupid’ and ‘unteachable.’ Edison spent his teenage years working and being fired from various jobs, culminating in his termination from a telegraph company at age 21. Despite these setbacks, Edison never deterred from his true passion, inventing. Throughout his career, Edison obtained 1,093 patents. And while many of these inventions -- such as the light bulb, stock printer, phonograph and alkaline battery -- were groundbreaking, even more of them were unsuccessful. Edison is famous for saying that genius is ‘1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.’
One of Edison’s greatest stories of perseverance occurred after he was already wildly successful. After inventing the light bulb, Edison began a quest to find an inexpensive light bulb filament. At the time, ore was mined in the Midwest, and shipping costs were incredibly high. To combat this, Edison opened his own ore-mining plant in Ogdensburg, New Jersey. For roughly a decade, Edison devoted all his time and money to the plant. He also obtained 47 patents for inventions designed to make the plant run more smoothly. And after all of that, Edison’s project still failed thanks to the low quality ore on the East Coast.
But as it turned out, one of the aforementioned 47 inventions (a newly-designed crushing machine) revolutionized the cement industry and earned Edison back nearly all of the money he lost. In addition, Henry Ford would later credit Edison’s Ogdensburg project as the main inspiration for his Model T Ford assembly line, and many believe that Edison paved the way for modern-day industrial laboratories. Edison’s foray into ore-mining proves that dedication and commitment can pay off even in a losing venture.
----- George Steinbrenner:
Before ‘The Boss’ assumed ownership of the New York Yankees, he owned a basketball franchise called the Cleveland Pipers. The Pipers were part of the American Basketball League, and in 1960, under Steinbrenner’s helm, the franchise went bankrupt.
When he eventually took over the Yankees, Steinbrenner’s struggles didn’t end. Most baseball fans will remember the team’s drought in the 1980s and early 1990s. As the team suffered, Steinbrenner was often criticized for his executive decisions, which included questionable trades and frequent changes to the Manager position. Though his methods were controversial, Steinbrenner stuck to his guns, and it paid off. The Yankees made an impressive six World Series appearances from 1996-2003, and remain Major League Baseball’s most profitable team year after year.
Steinbrenner is known for his shrewd business tactics, but he’s also not afraid to put his money where his mouth is. The Yankees have the highest payroll in baseball, and they’ve been in contention every year since the mid-90s. Even when the Cleveland Pipers went bankrupt, Steinbrenner offered to pay back the team’s investors, a promise he eventually made good on.
Steinbrenner has been quoted as saying, ‘I never wanted anybody to say ‘I went down a path with George Steinbrenner and lost money.’’
----- J.K. Rowling:
J.K. Rowling, author of the ‘Harry Potter’ books, is currently the second-richest female entertainer on the planet, behind Oprah. However, when Rowling wrote the first ‘Harry Potter’ book in 1995, it was rejected by twelve different publishers. Even Bloomsbury, the small publishing house that finally purchased Rowling’s manuscript, told the author to ‘get a day job.’
At the time when Rowling was writing the original ‘Harry Potter’ book, her life was a self-described mess. She was going through a divorce and living in a tiny flat with her daughter. Rowling was surviving on government subsidies, and her mother had just passed away from multiple sclerosis. J.K. turned these negatives into a positive by devoting most of her free time to the ‘Harry Potter’ series. She also drew from her bad personal experiences when writing. The result is a brand name currently worth nearly $15 billion.
----- Walt Disney:
As a young man, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star Newspaper because his boss thought he lacked creativity. He went on to form an animation company called Laugh-O-Gram Films in 1921. Using his natural salesmanship abilities, Disney was able to raise $15,000 for the company ($181,000 in 2008 dollars). However, he made a deal with a New York distributor, and when the distributor went out of business, Disney was forced to shut Laugh-O-Gram down. He could barely pay his rent and even resorted to eating dog food.
Broke but not defeated, Disney spent his last few dollars on a train ticket to Hollywood. Unfortunately his troubles were not over. In 1926, Disney created a cartoon character named Oswald the Rabbit. When he attempted to negotiate a better deal with Universal Studios -- the cartoon’s distributor -- Disney discovered that Universal had secretly patented the Oswald character. Universal then hired Disney’s artists away from him, and continued the cartoon without Disney’s input (and without paying him).
As if that wasn’t enough, Disney also struggled to release some of his now-classic films. He was told Mickey Mouse would fail because the mouse would ‘terrify women.’ Distributors rejected ‘The Three Little Pigs’, saying it needed more characters. ‘Pinocchio’ was shut down during production and Disney had to rewrite the entire storyline. Other films, like ‘Bambi’, ‘Pollyanna’ and ‘Fantasia’, were misunderstood by audiences at the time of their release, only to become favorites later on.
Disney’s greatest example of perseverance occurred when he tried to make the book ‘Mary Poppins’ into a film. In 1944, at the suggestion of his daughter, Disney decided to adapt the Pamela Travers novel into a screenplay. However, Travers had absolutely no interest in selling ‘Mary Poppins’ to Hollywood. To win her over, Disney visited Travers at her England home repeatedly for the next 16 years. After more than a decade-and-a-half of persuasion, Travers was overcome by Disney’s charm and vision for the film, and finally gave him permission to bring ‘Mary Poppins’ to the big screen. The result is a timeless classic.
In a fitting twist of fate, The Disney Company went on to purchase ABC in 1996. At the time, ABC was owner of the Kansas City Star, meaning the newspaper that once fired Disney had become part of the empire he created. And all thanks to his creativity (and a lot of perseverance).
" - Tom Zeleznock
Friday, February 29, 2008. [Refer http://www.growthink.com/content/7-entrepreneurs-whose-perseverance-will-inspire-you ]
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| [Quote No.54122] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story after true story: about persisting past failure, criticism, ridicule, animosity, setbacks, bad luck, misfortune, illness, rejection and disappointment to success:]
50 Famously Successful People Who Failed at First!
Not everyone who’s on top today got there with success after success. More often than not, those who history best remembers were faced with numerous obstacles that forced them to work harder and show more determination than others. Next time you’re feeling down about your failures in college or in a career, keep these fifty famous people in mind and remind yourself that sometimes failure is just the first step towards success.
----- BUSINESS GURUS:
These businessmen and the companies they founded are today known around the world, but as these stories show, their beginnings weren’t always smooth.
- 1. HENRY FORD: While Ford is today known for his innovative assembly line and American-made cars, he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, his early businesses failed and left him broke five time before he founded the successful Ford Motor Company.
- 2. R. H. MACY: Most people are familiar with this large department store chain, but Macy didn’t always have it easy. Macy started seven failed business before finally hitting big with his store in New York City.
- 3. F. W. WOOLWORTH: Some may not know this name today, but Woolworth was once one of the biggest names in department stores in the U.S. Before starting his own business, young Woolworth worked at a dry goods store and was not allowed to wait on customers because his boss said he lacked the sense needed to do so.
- 4. SOICHIRO HONDA: The billion-dollar business that is Honda began with a series of failures and fortunate turns of luck. Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation for a job after interviewing for a job as an engineer, leaving him jobless for quite some time. He started making scooters of his own at home, and spurred on by his neighbors, finally started his own business.
- 5. AKIO MORITA: You may not have heard of Morita but you’ve undoubtedly heard of his company, Sony. Sony’s first product was a rice cooker that unfortunately didn’t cook rice so much as burn it, selling less than 100 units. This first setback didn’t stop Morita and his partners as they pushed forward to create a multi-billion dollar company.
- 6. BILL GATES: Gates didn’t seem like a shoe-in for success after dropping out of Harvard and starting a failed first business with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen called Traf-O-Data. While this early idea didn’t work, Gates’ later work did, creating the global empire that is Microsoft.
- 7. HARLAND DAVID SANDERS: Perhaps better known as Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, Sanders had a hard time selling his chicken at first. In fact, his famous secret chicken recipe was rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant accepted it.
- 8. WALT DISNEY: Today Disney rakes in billions from merchandise, movies and theme parks around the world, but Walt Disney himself had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, ‘he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.’ After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn’t last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure. He kept plugging along, however, and eventually found a recipe for success that worked.
----- SCIENTISTS AND THINKERS:
These people are often regarded as some of the greatest minds of our century, but they often had to face great obstacles, the ridicule of their peers and the animosity of society.
- 9. ALBERT EINSTEIN: Most of us take Einstein’s name as synonymous with genius, but he didn’t always show such promise. Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. Eventually, he was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. It might have taken him a bit longer, but most people would agree that he caught on pretty well in the end, winning the Nobel Prize and changing the face of modern physics.
- 10. CHARLES DARWIN: In his early years, Darwin gave up on having a medical career and was often chastised by his father for being lazy and too dreamy. Darwin himself wrote, ‘I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.’ Perhaps they judged too soon, as Darwin today is well-known for his scientific studies.
- 11. ROBERT GODDARD: Goddard today is hailed for his research and experimentation with liquid-fueled rockets, but during his lifetime his ideas were often rejected and mocked by his scientific peers who thought they were outrageous and impossible. Today rockets and space travel don’t seem far-fetched at all, due largely in part to the work of this scientist who worked against the feelings of the time.
- 12. ISAAC NEWTON: Newton was undoubtedly a genius when it came to math, but he had some failings early on. He never did particularly well in school and when put in charge of running the family farm, he failed miserably, so poorly in fact that an uncle took charge and sent him off to Cambridge where he finally blossomed into the scholar we know today.
- 13. SOCRATES: Despite leaving no written records behind, Socrates is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the Classical era. Because of his new ideas, in his own time he was called ‘an immoral corrupter of youth’ and was sentenced to death. Socrates didn’t let this stop him and kept right on, teaching up until he was forced to poison himself.
- 14. ROBERT STERNBERG: This big name in psychology received a C in his first college introductory psychology class with his teacher telling him that, ‘there was already a famous Sternberg in psychology and it was obvious there would not be another.’ Sternberg showed him, however, graduating from Stanford with exceptional distinction in psychology, summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa and eventually becoming the President of the American Psychological Association.
----- INVENTORS:
These inventors changed the face of the modern world, but not without a few failed prototypes along the way.
- 15. THOMAS EDISON: In his early years, teachers told Edison he was ‘too stupid to learn anything.’ Work was no better, as he was fired from his first two jobs for not being productive enough. Even as an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. Of course, all those unsuccessful attempts finally resulted in the design that worked.
- 16. ORVILLE AND WILBUR WRIGHT: These brothers battled depression and family illness before starting the bicycle shop that would lead them to experimenting with flight. After numerous attempts at creating flying machines, several years of hard work, and tons of failed prototypes, the brothers finally created a plane that could get airborne and stay there.
----- PUBLIC FIGURES:
From politicians to talk show hosts, these figures had a few failures before they came out on top.
- 17. WINSTON CHURCHILL: This Nobel Prize-winning, twice-elected Prime Minster of the United Kingdom wasn’t always as well regarded as he is today. Churchill struggled in school and failed the sixth grade. After school he faced many years of political failures, as he was defeated in every election for public office until he finally became the Prime Minister at the ripe old age of 62.
- 18. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: While today he is remembered as one of the greatest leaders of our nation, Lincoln’s life wasn’t so easy. In his youth he went to war a captain and returned a private (if you’re not familiar with military ranks, just know that private is as low as it goes.) Lincoln didn’t stop failing there, however. He started numerous failed business and was defeated in numerous runs he made for public office.
- 19. OPRAH WINFREY: Most people know Oprah as one of the most iconic faces on TV as well as one of the richest and most successful women in the world. Oprah faced a hard road to get to that position, however, enduring a rough and often abusive childhood as well as numerous career setbacks including being fired from her job as a television reporter because she was ‘unfit for TV.’
- 20. HARRY S. TRUMAN: This WWI vet, Senator, Vice President and eventual President eventually found success in his life, but not without a few missteps along the way. Truman started a store that sold silk shirts and other clothing–seemingly a success at first–only go bankrupt a few years later.
- 21. DICK CHENEY: This recent Vice President and businessman made his way to the White House but managed to flunk out of Yale University, not once, but twice. Former President George W. Bush joked with Cheney about this fact, stating, ‘So now we know –if you graduate from Yale, you become president. If you drop out, you get to be vice president.’
----- HOLLYWOOD TYPES:
These faces ought to be familiar from the big screen, but these actors, actresses and directors saw their fair share of rejection and failure before they made it big.
- 22. JERRY SEINFELD: Just about everybody knows who Seinfeld is, but the first time the young comedian walked on stage at a comedy club, he looked out at the audience, froze and was eventually jeered and booed off of the stage. Seinfeld knew he could do it, so he went back the next night, completed his set to laughter and applause, and the rest is history.
- 23. FRED ASTAIRE: In his first screen test, the testing director of MGM noted that Astaire, ‘Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.’ Astaire went on to become an incredibly successful actor, singer and dancer and kept that note in his Beverly Hills home to remind him of where he came from.
- 24. SIDNEY POITIER: After his first audition, Poitier was told by the casting director, ‘Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?’ Poitier vowed to show him that he could make it, going on to win an Oscar and become one of the most well-regarded actors in the business.
- 25. JEANNE MOREAU: As a young actress just starting out, this French actress was told by a casting director that she was simply not pretty enough to make it in films. He couldn’t have been more wrong as Moreau when on to star in nearly 100 films and win numerous awards for her performances.
- 26. CHARLIE CHAPLIN: It’s hard to imagine film without the iconic Charlie Chaplin, but his act was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because they felt it was a little too nonsensical to ever sell.
- 27. LUCILLE BALL: During her career, Ball had thirteen Emmy nominations and four wins, also earning the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors. Before starring in ‘I Love Lucy’, Ball was widely regarded as a failed actress and a B movie star. Even her drama instructors didn’t feel she could make it, telling her to try another profession. She, of course, proved them all wrong.
- 28. HARRISON FORD: In his first film, Ford was told by the movie execs that he simply didn’t have what it takes to be a star. Today, with numerous hits under his belt, iconic portrayals of characters like Han Solo and Indiana Jones, and a career that stretches decades, Ford can proudly show that he does, in fact, have what it takes.
- 29. MARILYN MONROE: While Monroe’s star burned out early, she did have a period of great success in her life. Despite a rough upbringing and being told by modeling agents that she should instead consider being a secretary, Monroe became a pin-up, model and actress that still strikes a chord with people today.
- 30. OLIVER STONE: This Oscar-winning filmmaker began his first novel while at Yale, a project that eventually caused him to fail out of school. This would turn out to be a poor decision as the text was rejected by publishers and was not published until 1998, at which time it was not well-received. After dropping out of school, Stone moved to Vietnam to teach English, later enlisting in the army and fighting in the war, earning two Purple Hearts and helping him find the inspiration for his later work that often centered around war.
----- WRITERS AND ARTISTS:
We’ve all heard about starving artists and struggling writers, but these stories show that sometimes all that work really does pay off with success in the long run.
- 31. VINCENT VAN GOGH: During his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only one painting, and this was to a friend and only for a very small amount of money. While Van Gogh was never a success during his life, he plugged on with painting, sometimes starving to complete his over 800 known works. Today, they sell in the hundreds of millions.
- 32. EMILY DICKINSON: Recluse and poet Emily Dickinson is a commonly read and loved writer. Yet in her lifetime she was all but ignored, having fewer than a dozen poems published out of her almost 1,800 completed works.
- 33. THEODOR SEUSS GIESEL: Today nearly every child has read ‘The Cat in the Hat’ or ‘Green Eggs and Ham’, yet 27 different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book ‘To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street’.
- 34. CHARLES SCHULTZ: Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip has had enduring fame, yet this cartoonist had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Even after high school, Schultz didn’t have it easy, applying and being rejected for a position working with Walt Disney.
- 35. STEVEN SPIELBERG: While today Spielberg’s name is synonymous with big budget, he was rejected from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three times. He eventually attended school at another location, only to drop out to become a director before finishing. Thirty-five years after starting his degree, Spielberg returned to school in 2002 to finally complete his work and earn his BA.
- 36. STEPHEN KING: The first book by this author, the iconic thriller ‘Carrie’, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published and the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time.
- 37. ZANE GREY: Incredibly popular in the early 20th century, this adventure book writer began his career as a dentist, something he quickly began to hate. So, he began to write, only to see rejection after rejection for his works, being told eventually that he had no business being a writer and should give up. It took him years, but at 40, Zane finally got his first work published, leaving him with almost 90 books to his name and selling over 50 million copies worldwide.
- 38. J. K. ROWLING: Rowling may be rolling in a lot of Harry Potter dough today, but before she published the series of novels she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination.
- 39. MONET: Today Monet’s work sells for millions of dollars and hangs in some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Yet during his own time, it was mocked and rejected by the artistic elite, the Paris Salon. Monet kept at his impressionist style, which caught on and in many ways was a starting point for some major changes to art that ushered in the modern era.
- 40. JACK LONDON: This well-known American author wasn’t always such a success. While he would go on to publish popular novels like ‘White Fang’ and ‘The Call of the Wild’, his first story received six hundred rejection slips before finally being accepted.
- 41. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT: Most people are familiar with Alcott’s most famous work, ‘Little Women’. Yet Alcott faced a bit of a battle to get her work out there and was encouraged to find work as a servant by her family to make ends meet. It was her letters back home during her experience as a nurse in the Civil War that gave her the first big break she needed.
----- MUSICIANS:
While their music is some of the best-selling, best loved and most popular around the world today, these musicians show that it takes a whole lot of determination to achieve success.
- 42. WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART: Mozart began composing at the age of five, writing over 600 pieces of music that today are lauded as some of the best ever created. Yet during his lifetime, Mozart didn’t have such an easy time, and was often restless, leading to his dismissal from a position as a court musician in Salzberg. He struggled to keep the support of the aristocracy and died with little to his name.
- 43. ELVIS PRESLEY: As one of the best-selling artists of all time, Elvis has become a household name even years after his death. But back in 1954, Elvis was still a nobody, and Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after just one performance telling him, ‘You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.’
- 44. IGOR STRAVINSKY: In 1913 when Stravinsky debuted his now famous Rite of Spring, audiences rioted, running the composer out of town. Yet it was this very work that changed the way composers in the 19th century thought about music and cemented his place in musical history.
- 45. THE BEATLES: Few people can deny the lasting power of this super group, still popular with listeners around the world today. Yet when they were just starting out, a recording company told them no. They were told ‘we don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,’ two things the rest of the world couldn’t have disagreed with more.
- 46. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: In his formative years, young Beethoven was incredibly awkward on the violin and was often so busy working on his own compositions that he neglected to practice. Despite his love of composing, his teachers felt he was hopeless at it and would never succeed with the violin or in composing. Beethoven kept plugging along, however, and composed some of the best-loved symphonies of all time–five of them while he was completely deaf.
----- ATHLETES:
While some athletes rocket to fame, others endure a path fraught with a little more adversity, like those listed here.
- 47. MICHAEL JORDAN: Most people wouldn’t believe that a man often lauded as the best basketball player of all time [NBA champion - six times, All-Star - 14 times , two-time Olympic gold medal winner - 2 times and chosen as the best basketball player in NBA history] was actually cut from his high school basketball team. Luckily, Jordan didn’t let this setback stop him from playing the game and he has stated, ‘I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.’
- 48. STAN SMITH: This tennis player was rejected from even being a lowly ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because event organizers felt he was too clumsy and uncoordinated. Smith went on to prove them wrong, showcasing his not-so-clumsy skills by winning Wimbledon, U. S. Open and eight Davis Cups.
- 49. BABE RUTH: You probably know Babe Ruth because of his home run record (714 during his career), but along with all those home runs came a pretty hefty amount of strikeouts as well (1,330 in all). In fact, for decades he held the record for strikeouts. When asked about this he simply said, ‘Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.’
- 50. TOM LANDRY: As the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Landry brought the team two Super Bowl victories, five NFC Championship victories and holds the records for the record for the most career wins. He also has the distinction of having one of the worst first seasons on record (winning no games) and winning five or fewer over the next four seasons.
" - Katina Solomon
From OnLineCollege.org As reprinted by Bud Bilanich [refer http://myventurepad.com/budbilanich/34399/50-famous-people-who-failed-their-first-attempt-career-success ]
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| [Quote No.54137] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story: about leadership and persistence past failure, rejection and disappointment to achieve success:] Steve Jobs: You probably don’t remember this product, but Jobs was behind an early Apple computer called Lisa. It was a commercial failure and in 1982, it was the latest in his string of professional hiccups. In 1985, Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he started in 1976 only to return in 1996 and brought Apple from near bankruptcy by 1998." - Michael Alarcon
[Refer http://www.ehow.com/ehow-extras/blog/8-famous-failures-and-how-they-overcame-their-setbacks/ ]
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| [Quote No.54139] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story: about leadership and persistence past failure, criticism and disappointment to achieve success:] Walt Disney: Disney started out bad from the very beginning. At 22, he declared bankruptcy after his cartoon company, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, went bust. He sold his only valuable possession (a camera) and moved to Hollywood with $40 in hopes of making movies." - Michael Alarcon
[Refer http://www.ehow.com/ehow-extras/blog/8-famous-failures-and-how-they-overcame-their-setbacks/ ]
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| [Quote No.54205] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story after true story: about focus, drive and persistence overcoming a poor and/or difficult childhood to rise to immense financial success:] 25 Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Stories!
25---Andrew Carnegie:
This Scottish-American industrialist started to work at a cotton mill for a 12-hour, 6-days a week job in America when he was only 13 years old after his father lost his jobs as a hand weaver in Scotland. Hired later as a telegraph messenger at the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he was able to climb the corporate ladder where he used his earnings to invest in ventures that led him to build an empire in the steel industry including his large-scale philanthropic legacy.
24---Oprah Winfrey:
Born to unwed teenage parents in Mississippi, this media mogul wore dresses that her grandmother made out of potato sacks. After being molested, she ran away at the age of 13 and became a mother at 14, but her son died in infancy. Sent to live with his father, a barber in Tennessee, she got a full scholarship in college, won a beauty pageant and was discovered by a radio station. Her empire is now worth $2.7 billion which she shares with the world through her philanthropic works.
23---Maria Das Gracas Silva Foster:
Born in the poverty-stricken shantytown of Morro do Adeus, Brazil to an alcoholic father, she earned extra money by collecting cans and paper to continue her studies. She broke the barriers of the corporate ladder when she was hired as an intern at Petrobras, an oil company, in 1978 and became the first female head of the department of engineering. She also became one of the world’s most influential people as the first female CEO of Petrobras.
22---Sam Walton:
During the Great Depression, Sam Walton and his family lived on a farm in Oklahoma where he milked the family cow and delivered bottles to customers to make ends meet. He joined JC Penny three days after graduating from the University of Missouri with a BA Economics degree. After WW II, with capital of $25,000 that he borrowed from his father along with the $5,000 that he saved from the army, he bought a Ben Franklin variety store which he expanded into the retailer giant Walmart and the membership-only retailer warehouse Sam’s Club.
21---Chris Gardner:
Born without knowing his real father, he was driven out of his home by his abusive stepfather. He enlisted in the Navy and later became a medical supplies salesman. Due to the slump in his job and with his own family to support, he became interested in stock broking after seeing a stockbroker with a Ferrari. His travails of sleeping in a subway station bathroom, being homeless, passing the licensing exam for stockbrokers, and becoming employed by Bear Sterns was documented in his memoirs, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness,’ which became a hit movie as well.
20---Ingvar Kamprad:
Living on a farm most of his growing up years, this Swedish business magnate had always been known for being enterprising even at a young age as he bought matches in bulk and sold them individually to his neighbors. This expanded to fish, pens and Christmas decorations. He also used the cash reward that his father gave him for good grades and used this to create a mail-order business that became the retail company IKEA. Furniture became the company’s biggest seller, which made him one of the richest men in the world today having a net worth of $3 billion.
19---J.K. Rowling:
Joanne Rowling, a native of Yate, Gloucestershire in England moved to Porto, Portugal in 1990 when her mother died. While she was already writing the Harry Potter novel even before her mother’s death, the seven-year period that followed entailed a divorce from her husband in 1993, a move to Edinburgh, Scotland and a life with a daughter living on welfare while suffering from clinical depression until she finished the first book in her famous series, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ in 1997. She was able to finish it by writing on scraps of tissue paper from the numerous cafes they visited to let her daughter sleep. With over 400 million books and the worldwide success of the Harry Potter franchise JK Rowling’s net worth is $1 billion.
18---Jim Carrey:
James Eugene Carrey was born in Ontario, Canada to a middle-income family where his musician father worked as an accountant. However, things got worse for his family when his father lost his job and they all had to move to Scarborough. He worked at the Titan Wheels Factory for eight hours a day while attending school, but never finished high school. While living in a camper van, he started doing stand-up routines and eventually landed a gig in the sitcom The Duck Factory. He first gained recognition in 1990 when he became one of the casts in the sketch comedy ‘In Living Colors.’ He later moved on to movies and became one of the highest paid comedians in America.
17---Sheldon Adelson:
The son of a Lithuanian immigrant taxi driver, his mother ran a knitting store from their home. He grew up in a tenement where he shared a bedroom with his parents and three siblings, started selling newspapers at the age of 12, and started his candy-vending machine business at the age of 16. Though he tried his hand at various enterprises from packing hotel toiletries to mortgage brokering his biggest break came from developing a computer trade show. He purchased the Sands Hotel & Casino and later the mega-resort, The Venetian, from the profits of his ventures pegging his net worth today at $21.8 billion.
16---Kirk Kerkorian:
The Armenian-born Kirk Kerkorian grew up at the time of the Great Depression, where he learned English on the street and dropped out of 8th grade to become an amateur boxer. He became a daredevil pilot for the Royal Air Force during WW II and delivered supplies over the Atlantic flying some of the most perilous routes. After quitting gambling in 1947, he bought some charter planes and also engaged in real estate in Las Vegas in 1962. He became the ‘father of the mega-resort’ when he bought The Flamingo and built the stalwarts of the Las Vegas scene, The International and MGM Grand, which made him worth a few billion dollars.
15---John D. Rockefeller:
One of six children born in Richford, New York, Rockefeller might have inherited his good business sense from his father, a traveling salesman who used all the tricks to get out of decent hard work and taught his son to always get the best deal in all things. His mom struggled to raise them and though they moved a number of times, he was able to finish school and get his first job as a bookkeeper where he earned $50 in three months. He decided to put up a firm and built an oil refinery with his friend Maurice B. Clark in 1859. He later bought out the Clark brothers’ refinery firm and renamed it Rockefeller & Andrews. He also founded the Standard Oil Company to become the world’s first billionaire and the richest person in history.
14---Leonardo Del Vecchio:
Del Vecchio was sent to an orphanage when his widowed mother could not support all five of her children. He worked in a factory that made molds for auto parts and eyeglass frames where he lost part of his finger during an accident. He opened his first molding shop called Luxottica at the age of 23 which expanded to be the world’s largest maker of sunglasses and prescription eyeglasses. Luxottica, the known maker of Ray-Ban and Oakley eyewear, also owns 6,000 Sunglass Hut and Lenscrafters retail shops. The second richest man in Italy is now worth $11.5 billion.
13---Li Ka-shing:
Born to a family that fled mainland China for Hong Kong in 1940, his father died of tuberculosis which made him quit school at the age of 15 to support his family by working for 16 hours in a factory that made plastics and plastic flowers for US export. He founded Cheung Kong Industries in 1950, which manufactured plastics at first but later on ventured into real estate. The 9th richest person in the world has ownership in a number of multi-range companies from cellular phones, banking, satellite television, steel industries, and shipping.
12---Howard Schultz:
Howard Schultz came from a poor family living in the Canarsie Bayview Houses, a housing project in Brooklyn, New York, which made him want to have a lifestyle beyond what his truck-driver father couldn provide. As he saw escape in sport, he became a football scholar at the University of North Michigan where he graduated with a degree in communication, the first in his family to do so. While working for Xerox, he discovered a small coffee shop called Starbucks and became captivated by it. He left Xerox and became the first CEO of Starbucks in 1987, which he expanded from its first 60 shops to over 16,000 outlets worldwide, giving him a net worth of $1.5 billion.
11---Ursula Burns:
Ursula Burns grew up in a housing project in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a hub for gangs. She was raised by her Panamanian-immigrant single mother who ran a daycare center at her home and ironed shirts for a fee so that she could send Ursula to Cathedral High School. She earned her Mechanical Engineering degree at NYU and became an intern at Xerox. Ursula Burns became the first African-American woman to ever lead a Fortune 500 Company and the 14th most powerful woman in the world.
10---John Paul DeJoria:
Before John Paul Mitchell Systems became a success, its founder, John Paul DeJoria had a rough life. After his parents divorced when he was just 2 years old, he sold newspapers and Christmas cards to help his family until the age of 10 when he was sent to live in a foster home. An LA gang member before he joined the military, he was also employed by Redken Laboratories. He loaned $700 and founded JPM Systems to sell his company’s shampoo door-to-door while living out of his car. Today JPM Systems’ annual profit is nearly $900 million.
9---Guy Laliberté:
Before Cirque du Soleil came to life, its founder, Canadian-born Laliberté started his acts in circus as a fire-eater that walks on stilts. His venture paid off when he brought his successful troupe in 1987 from Quebec to the Los Angeles Arts Festival with no guarantee of a return fare for the cast. He now commands a total net worth of $2.5 billion.
8---Do Won Chang:
Do Won Chang had to work three jobs as a janitor, gas station employee, and coffee shop attendant to support his family when they moved from Korea to America in 1981. After three years of thrift-spending, he was able to open his first retail store Fashion 21, which grew to be the retail clothing giant Forever 21, a pioneer in fast fashion. The multinational clothing empire with over 480 outlets worldwide generates an annual income of $3 billion.
7---George Soros:
After surviving the Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1947, George Soros escaped the country to stay with his relatives in London. He supported his studies by working as a waiter and railway porter and then sold goods at a souvenir shop after graduating. He also wrote every merchant bank in England until he gained an entry-level job at Singer & Friedlander. He became ‘the man who broke the bank of England’ due to his famous bet against the British pound in 1992, where he earned more than a billion dollars in profit in one plunge in the Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.
6---Zdenek Bakala:
With just a $50 bill wrapped in plastic and hidden in a sandwich, Zdenek Bakala fled communist Czechoslovakia in 1980 when he was 19 years old and made it to Lake Tahoe. He worked as a dishwasher at Harrah’s Casino while studying for his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Dartmouth. He later on ventured in banking, opened his first company Credit Suisse First Boston in Prague after the fall of the Berlin Wall and presided over a coal company that has a $2.52 billion market.
5---Harold Simmons:
Harold Simmons grew up in a shack in the poor rural town of Golden, Texas with no plumbing or electricity. He still managed, however, to graduate with a B.A. and masters in Economics from the University of Texas. His first venture was a series of drugstores which were almost entirely funded with a loan. This became a 100-store chain which he sold to Eckerd for $50 million. He became famous as a master of the corporate buyout and currently owns 6 companies that trade on the NYSE including the world’s largest producer of titanium, Titanium Metals Corporation.
4---Richard Desmond:
Richard Desmond was raised by a single mother living on top of a garage. He quit school at the age of 14 to focus on being a drummer while working as a coat-checker to help pay bills. Though he never became famous for his musical abilities, he later opened his own record store and published his first magazine, ‘International Musician and Recording World’ and expanded the Desmond magazine empire with publications such as the British version of ‘Penthouse’ and ‘OK!’. He now owns a number of publications around the world and was listed on the 2011 ‘Sunday Times’ Rich List with a net worth of £950 million.
3---Harry Wayne Huizenga:
Harry Wayne Huizenga was born in Chicago, Illinois to an abusive father. His family moved to Florida to save his parents’ marriage but his father never changed. He moved back to Chicago to go to college but soon dropped out and then signed up to be a reserve in the Army. He went back to Florida after his training and bought his first dump truck to start a trash disposal business. This venture became highly profitable so he purchased more garbage trucks and later built his company, the Waste Management Inc., which became well-known all over the US. He also purchased Blockbuster stores, which later merged with Viacom. He is credited for founding three Fortune 500 companies.
2---Richard Branson:
Born to a family of lawyers in Blackheath, London, he had poor academic performance due to his dyslexia. Therefore, he focused more on his business which included growing Christmas trees and raising parakeets. He later started his own record mail-order business at the age of 16. In 1972, he established the record store Virgin Records, which prospered in the 1980s with a number of outlets. He also created Virgin Atlantic Airwaves, which expanded Virgin Records into a music label, making him the 245th richest person in the world today.
1---Roman Abramovich:
An orphan at the age of four, this Russian business tycoon was raised by his uncle and grandmother. He got his first break from an expensive wedding gift given by his in-laws. He dropped out of college to pursue his business, which included selling imported plastic ducks from his Moscow apartment. He then ventured into managing the oil giant Sibneft after taking it over in 1995. He continued to flip his investments with profitable ventures such as Russian Aluminum and the steelmaker Evraz Group. He is now the 5th richest person in Russia and owns the $1.5 billion yacht ‘Eclipse,’ the largest private yacht docked in New York City and the Chelsea Football Club, among others.
" - David Pegg
August 12, 2013. [http://list25.com/25-inspirational-rags-riches-stories/ ]
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| [Quote No.54208] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story: about focus, drive and persistence overcoming a poor and difficult childhood to rise to immense financial success: an Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Story!]
Dhirubhai Ambani was an Indian entrepreneur who rose from impoverished circumstances to found and run Reliance Industries Limited making it one the largest private sector companies in India. " - thefamouspeople.com
[http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/dhirubhai-ambani-3748.php ]
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| [Quote No.54211] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story after true story: about focus, drive and persistence overcoming a poor and/or difficult childhood to rise to immense financial success:] Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Stories!
Kenny Troutt: Net worth: $1.27 billion: Country: US: ---
Troutt made his fortune by founding a long distance telephone service company Excel Communications. He sold his company in 1998 to Teleglobe for $3.5 billion.
Troutt had an alcoholic father who worked as a bartender and oil-rig worker. After his parents divorced, he was forced to move in a city housing project along with his mother and siblings.
While in college Troutt used work as a part-time insurance salesperson.
Howard Schultz: Net worth: $2 billion: Country: US: ---
Howard D. Schultz is best known as the chairman and CEO of Starbucks.
Schultz was the first person in his family to attend college. His father worked as a truck driver. As the family was poor, Schultz find saw an escape in sports such as baseball, football, and basketball.
After graduating, Schultz started working as a salesperson for Xerox Corporation. After changing jobs and rising through the ranks, Schultz joined Starbucks as Director of Marketing but later resigned and opened his own store 'Il Giornale'.
He bought Starbucks for $3.8 million two years after becoming an entrepreneur.
Kenneth Langone: Net worth: $2.1 billion: Country: US: ---
Kenneth Langone is an investment banker, best known for his association with Home Depot, a company that retails home improvement items and construction products. He had been a board member of the company for 30 years.
Langone’s father was a plumber and his mother a cafeteria worker. As a student, Langone worked as a butcher's assistant and a ditch digger.
He did his part-time business management and worked full time in the finance field and became an investment banker.
He helped Home Depot co-founders arrange the necessary capital after they were fired from Daylin Corporation.
Oprah Winfrey: Net worth: $2.9 billion: Country: US: ---
Oprah Winfrey is famous for her award-winning talk show ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’. She owns the production company that made the talk show. She also co-founded women’s cable television network Oxygen.
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, saying she was raped at age nine and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy, according to Wikipedia.
Shahid Khan: Net worth: $3.8 billion: Country: US: ---
Shahid Khan is a Pakistani-born American billionaire who owns the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League (NFL) and the English Premier League team Fulham F.C. But his source of wealth is the automobile parts manufacturer Flex-N-Gate.
When he came to the United States from Pakistan, he spent his first night in a $2/night room at the University Y-YMCA, and his first job was washing dishes for $1.20 an hour, according to Wikipedia.
He graduated from the UIUC School of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering with a BSc in Industrial Engineering.
Khan started Bumper Works, a company that manufactured bumpers for pickup trucks. Later he acquired Flex-N-Gate, a company he worked in right after graduating.
Khan has been featured in ‘Forbes’ Magazine on the cover depicting him as the face of ‘American Dream’.
Kirk Kerkorian: Net worth: $3.9 billion: Country: US: ---
Kirk Kerkorian is the casino mogul and an important figure in shaping Las Vegas.
Kerkorian was born to immigrant parents. He dropping out of school in eighth grade and took up boxing under the tutelage of his older brother.
He started investing in Las Vegas property in the early years. For example, he bought 80 acres across the Las Vegas Strip. When he sold this to Caesars, he made almost 10 times his original investment.
The Las Vegas Hilton and the Flamingo Hilton were both this hotels that he sold to the Hilton Hotels Corporation.
After he purchased the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio in 1969, Kerkorian (with architect Martin Stern Jr.) opened the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, larger than the Empire State Building and the largest hotel in the world at the time it was finished, according to Wikipedia.
John Paul DeJoria: Net worth: $4 billion: Country: US: ---
John Paul Jones DeJoria is well known as a co-founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair products and The Patron Spirits Company.
John Paul Jones DeJoria’s parents were immigrants. His parents divorced when he was two years old. To support his family, he started selling Christmas cards and newspapers by the time he was nine.
When his single mother proved unable to support both children, they were sent to an East Los Angeles foster home.
After graduation he joined US Navy after which he took on small jobs including janitor and insurance salesperson.
DeJoria entered the world of hair care as an employee of Redken Laboratories. He was fired from this position, he claims over a disagreement on business strategies, according to Wikipedia. And it adds that in 1980, he formed John Paul Mitchell Systems with hairdresser Paul Mitchell.
DeJoria also has a majority stake in The Patron Spirits Company, which sells an ultra-premium tequila brand.
Do Won Chang: Net worth: $5 billion: Country: US: ---
Do Won Chang is the founder of clothing retail store Forever 21.
When he migrated to the US, he worked as a janitor. He also did jobs at coffee shop and pumping gas stations.
The beginning was humble. He and his wife, Jin Sook, opened a clothing store after migrating to the US. It was called Fashion 21. The store took off and as he expanded to other locations, the store's name was changed to its current title Forever 21.
Ralph Lauren: Net worth: $7.7 billion: Country: US: ---
Ralph Lauren is a fashion designer renowned known for Polo Ralph Lauren clothing brand.
After serving the US Army briefly, he started working as a sales assistant for Brooks Brothers and then took a job as salesperson for a tie company.
When he was 26, he designed a tie that was rejected by his company. He was told that his designed tie was commercially unviable.
He quit his job and started out on his own. He took rags and turned them into ties. And in 1967 with financial help from Norman Hilton, a clothing manufacturer in New York, Lauren opened a necktie store where he sold ties under the brand name Polo.
From there on he kept rising and winning awards for his designs.
Francois Pinault: Net worth: $15 billion: Country: France: ---
Though you may not have heard of Francois Pinault, his company (Artemis S.A) owns or has owned many successful brands. Some of them include Converse shoes, Samsonite luggage, Chateau Latour, the Vail Ski Resort, and Christie's auction house.
Pinault quit high school and started working at his father’s lumber mill because his classmates made fun of his poor background.
He is known to be a ruthless businessman who sold his businesses when the economy and share markets were doing well and later bought them back at a fraction of what he sold them for when the economy and markets crashed.
Leonardo Del Vecchio: Net worth: $15.3 billion: Country: Italy: ---
Leonardo Del Vecchio is the founder and chairman of Luxottica, a designer and manufacturer of eyeglass frames. The firm owns the Sunglass Hut and Lenscrafters chains with a total of over 6000 stores, according to Wikipedia.
Some of the brands that belong to Luxottica include Ray-Ban, Oakley and Persol.
Vecchio was given to an orphanage by his mother because she was unable to support him financially.
He began his career as an apprentice to a tool and dye maker in Milan, but decided to turn his metal working skills to make spectacle parts and started Luxottica. This was in 1961.
From there his business grew and he took the firm international and listed the company in New York in 1990.
George Soros: Net worth: $20 billion: Country: US: ---
George Soros is one of the most successful investors ever and he runs Soros Fund Management.
Soros emigrated to England in 1947 and became an impoverished student. He worked as a railway porter and as a waiter to survive.
While selling fancy goods on the sea side and souvenir shops, one day Soros realised that this not what he wants to do in his life. He wrote to every managing director in every merchant bank in London and ended at an entry-level position in Singer & Friedlander.
He then moved to US and worked with few more banks before starting the Quantum Fund in partnership with Jim Rogers. Later he founded his own Soros Fund Management.
Li Ka-shing: Net worth: $31 billion: Country: Hong Kong: ---
Li Ka-shing is the Chairman of the Board of Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) and Cheung Kong Holdings; through them, he is the world's largest operator of container terminals and the world's largest health and beauty retailer, according to Wikipedia.
Due to his father's death, Ka-shing was forced to leave school before the age of 15 and found a job in a plastics trading company where he laboured 16 hours a day.
By 1950 he was able to start his own company, Cheung Kong Industries. From manufacturing plastics, Li led and developed his company into a leading real estate investment company in Hong Kong that was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972, according to Wikipedia. It adds that Cheung Kong expanded by acquiring Hutchison Whampoa and Hong Kong Electric Holdings Limited in 1979 and 1985 respectively.
Harold Simmons: Net worth: $10 billion: Country: US: ---
Harold Simmons is famous for giving the world the concept of leveraged buyout that is used in acquisition of company.
He was the owner of Contran Corporation and of Valhi. He also controlled listed firms such as NL Industries; Titanium Metals Corporation, Waste Control Specialists, CompX, and Kronos Worldwide.
Simmons grew up in a ‘shack’ that has no plumbing or electricity. Despite the tough conditions, he got himself admitted in the University of Texas where he earned a bachelors and masters in economics.
His first leverage buyout deal was of a drugstore where he invested $5,000 of his own money and a loan of $95,000. He parlayed this store into a chain of 100 stores and sold it to Eckerd Corporation for over $50 million. This launched his career as an investor.
Larry Ellison: Net worth: $41 billion: Country: US: ---
Larry Ellison is the co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation.
Larry Ellison was born in New York City to an unwed mother of Jewish heritage and after he contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption, according to Wikipedia.
He dropped out of college after his adoptive mother died and held odd jobs for eight years.
Ellison founded software Development Laboratories with two partners in 1977, which was renamed Relational Software in 1979, and finally Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982 after its flagship product, the Oracle database.
Gautam Adani: Net worth: $3.1 billion: Country: India: ---
Adani was doing a bachelor’s in Commerce from Gujarat University but had to drop because of family’s financial problems.
He started out as a diamond sorter in Mumbai and later went back to Gujarat to help his brother in plastic business. He progressed to trading in Polyvinyl Chloride and never looked back thereafter.
" - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54214] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story after true story: about focus, drive and persistence overcoming a poor and/or difficult childhood to rise to immense leadership power and success:] Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Stories from the distant past!
- Genghis Khan, who was homeless with just his mother and his siblings. He went on to create the largest land empire in history.
- The Roman Emperor Diocletian, born in poverty and whose father was a former slave (by some sources, the emperor himself was born in slavery).
- Pope Leo III was of commoner origin and attained the high position in spite of violent opposition from the nobility, who considered the papacy as their preserve.
- Pope Gregory VII, Hildebrand, was a commoner, perhaps the son of a blacksmith. His bad reputation was partially due to horror at his high social mobility.
- Chandragupta Maurya of India, who from a humble beginning founded the Maurya Empire.
- China's Hongwu Emperor and Emperor Gaozu of Han, who were born into peasant families, but eventually founded two of the nation's most illustrious imperial dynasties.
- Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, also known as the Last Great Conqueror from Asia.
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a famous example in modern times, as a he unified pre-modern Japan.
" - wikipedia.org
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rags_to_riches ]
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| [Quote No.54220] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story after true story: about focus, drive and persistence overcoming a poor and/or difficult childhood to rise to immense financial success:] 7 Inspiring Rags-To-Riches Stories Of Entrepreneurs!
This is one genre of stories that has enjoyed an ever-lasting appeal: rags to riches tales. Stories of heroic struggle against odds, survival and eventual triumph have always inspired people, given them hope, courage to fight, and egged them on to persevere. Here, [are] 7 such fabulous stories from around the world, which we believe, would ignite your never-say-die spirit and inspire you to become all that you can be.
1. The steel tycoon who grew up in a one-room weaver’s cottage: Andrew Carnegie:
This American industrialist, the founder of Carnegie Steel – a company that produced more steel than all of Great Britain at one point – was born to a poor handloom weaver in Scotland.
He grew up in poverty, living in a one-room house, often sleeping to ‘forget the misery of hunger’. To fight starvation, his family migrated to the US. His first job was at age 13 as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. In his spare time, he would read works of Robert Burns and historical Scottish heroes like Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Rob Roy. His next job was as a telegraph messenger boy. A true entrepreneur, he was a hard worker, and soon was promoted as an operator. Colonel James Anderson, who opened his personal library of 400 volumes to working boys each Saturday night, gave a good boost to his education and passion for reading. Carnegie went on to do a series of railroad jobs. There, he learnt about the industry and business in general. It was during this stint that he began making investments in steel and oil companies that earned him huge returns. By 1889, Carnegie Steel Corporation was the largest of its kind in the world. He went on to become the richest man in the world.
Known as one of the ‘builders’ of America who helped shape the nation, in 1901, he sold Carnegie Steel to JP Morgan for $480 million and became a philanthropist. He donated millions to the New York Public Library, established the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, which is now known as Carnegie-Mellon University, created the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and formed the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Remember, the journey began in a one-room weaver’s cottage in Dunfermline.
2. The retail giant who had to milk cows, deliver newspapers: Samuel Walton:
This American entrepreneur who built a small grocery store into the giant Walmart supermarket chain, amassing a fortune of over $23 billion, grew up during the Great Depression.
He had numerous chores to help make financial ends meet for his family as was common at the time. He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus, and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver Columbia Daily Tribune newspapers on a paper route. In addition, he also sold magazine subscriptions. During his college, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals. After graduation, he joined the US Army during the World War II. After the war, he left the military and started managing a variety store at the age of 26.
He took a loan to buy his first store, and thanks to simple innovations in business, he soon bought his second store. Within 3 years, his sales volume grew to $225,000. The first true Wal-Mart opened on July 2, 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. The rest is history. Forbes ranked Sam Walton as the richest person in the United States from 1982 to 1988. At the time of his death in 1992, he had 1,960 Wal-Mart stores, employed 380,000 people and clocked annual sales of about $50 billion.
3. The Queen of all media who was raped at age 9: Oprah Winfrey:
Best known for her multi-award-winning talk show ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ — the highest-rated program of its kind in history — Oprah Winfrey is dubbed as the ‘Queen of all media’ and ranked as the richest African-American of the 20th century.
She was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother. She was later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She has often spoken about the hardships she experienced during childhood, saying she was raped at age 9 and at 13, after suffering years of abuse, she ran away from home. She became pregnant at 14. Her son, she said, died in infancy. While in high school, she landed a job in radio and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. She got transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena because of her emotional ad-lib delivery.
She became a millionaire at age 32 when her talk show went national. She is credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication. Forbes’ international rich list has listed her as the world’s only black billionaire from 2004 to 2006 and as the first black woman billionaire in world history. As of 2014, she has a net worth in excess of 2.9 billion dollars and has overtaken former eBay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America.
4. The CEO of Oracle who was born to an unwed Jewish mom: Larry Ellison:
Larry Ellison was born in New York City to an unwed Jewish mother. His father was an Italian American US Air Force pilot. According to Wikipedia, Ellison contracted pneumonia when he was nine months old and his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption. His adoptive mother was warm and loving, while his adoptive father was unsupportive and distant.
He was a bright but inattentive student. He left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after his second year without taking his final exams because his adoptive mother had just died. Later, he attended the University of Chicago for one term, where he first encountered computer design. In 1966, aged 22, he moved to northern California.
In 1977, he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL) with two partners and an investment of $2,000. In 1982, the company became Oracle Systems Corporation after its flagship product, the Oracle database. Currently, Ellison owns stakes in Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Quark Biotechnology Inc. and Astex Pharmaceuticals. In September 2011, Ellison was listed on the Forbes List of Billionaires as the fifth richest man in the world. Ellison is still the third richest American, with a net worth of about $36.5 billion.
5. The richest man in Asia who had to quit school at 15: Li Ka-shing:
This Hong Kong business magnate, investor, and philanthropist is the richest person in Asia, with a net worth of $31.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of April 16,2014.
He was born in Guangdong province, China. After his father’s death, he was forced to leave school to support his family before he turned 15. He found work at a plastics trading company where he laboured 16 hours a day. After years of back-breaking work, he was able to start his own company, Cheung Kong Industries.
According to a Harvard Business School article:
‘From his humble beginnings in China as a teacher’s son, a refugee, and later as a salesman, Li provides a lesson in integrity and adaptability. Through hard work, and a reputation for remaining true to his internal moral compass, he was able to build a business empire that includes: banking, construction, real estate, plastics, cellular phones, satellite television, cement production, retail outlets (pharmacies and supermarkets), hotels, domestic transportation (sky train), airports, electric power, steel production, ports, and shipping.’
Today, Li’s businesses cover almost every facet of life in Hong Kong, from electricity to telecommunications, from real estate to retail, from shipping to the Internet. The Cheung Kong Group operates in 55 countries and employs over 260,000 staff worldwide.
6. The poor Ukrainian immigrant who became a Silicon Valley mogul: Jan Koum:
When Facebook announced that it was buying mobile messaging startup WhatsApp for $19 billion in February 2014, that caused quite a stir. Jan Koum, the startup’s cofounder became the most talked about entrepreneur overnight. Media reported that the WhatsApp floored Mark Zuckerberg so much that the record offer was made so that the two could become ‘friends.’
A true rags to riches hero, Koum was born and raised in a village on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine, as the only child of a housewife and a construction labourer. Forbes reported that his house had no hot water, and his parents feared that their phone was tapped by the State and so rarely talked on it. He immigrated to California with his mother when he was 16. He used to sweep the floor of a grocery store and stood in line to collect food stamps. By 18, he was an expert computer hacker.
In 1997, Koum was hired by Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer, shortly after he met Brian Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester. In January 2009, Koum bought an iPhone and realized that it would spawn a whole new industry of apps. On his birthday, February 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California.
7. The polyester prince who sold bhajia at village fairs: Dhirubhai Ambani:
India too has its share of rags to riches heroes. And Dhirubhai Ambani is one of the best known among them. This founder of Reliance Industries was one of the three sons of Hirachandbhai, a school teacher, and Jamanaben. He also had two sisters. An anecdote from his childhood is that he once bought a tin of groundnut oil on credit from a local wholesaler and sold the oil in retail on the roadside. He earned a few rupees as profit from this transaction. Apparently, during weekends when his school was closed, he used to set up bhajia stalls at village fairs to make ends meet at home.
According to R-ADAG, when he was 17, he went to Aden (now Yemen) in search of opportunity, and worked as a dispatch clerk for A. Besse. That was in 1949. A couple of years later, the company became a distributor for Shell products and Dhirubhai was promoted to manage the company’s oil-filling station at the port of Aden. It was here that he dreamed of setting up and owning a refinery, which he later realized with his petrochemicals venture. After returning to India, he started his first textile mill in Ahmednagar. Though his businesses were a huge success, there were also issues regarding Ambani’s control over the stock exchange. His detractors accused him of illegal or unethical transactions and acts but an investigation by the RBI did not find any evidence of it. By 2007, the combined fortune of the Ambani family stood at $60 billion, making Ambani’s the second richest family in the world.
" - Malavika Velayanikal
May 04, 2014. [http://yourstory.com/2014/05/rags-to-riches/ ]
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| [Quote No.54223] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[True story after true story: about focus, drive and persistence overcoming a poor and/or difficult childhood to rise to immense financial success:] 6 Women's Inspirational Rags-To-Riches Stories!
1. Hilary Devey - Founder and CEO of Pall-EX:
‘I had no money and went without Christmas presents. I only owned three dresses, even though it was important I looked smart every day.’
After her father was declared bankrupt, Hilary Devey's family lost everything. Devey left school at the age of 16 to earn some money, landing herself in sales and logistics. She admits that it was hard work, and gave up her social life in order to work extra shifts for cash.
After two failed marriages, Devey finally grabbed hold of that one idea that would make her a millionaire within three years. There was just one problem: none of the banks would back her. She had to sell her house to get the financial backing she needed.
Now, she is not only CEO of freight distribution network Pall-EX, but even garnered a TV spot on BBC's Dragons' Den.
2. Indra Nooyi - Chairwoman and CEO of PepsiCo:
‘You need to start off saying that you have got to work twice as hard as your male, or any, counterparts.’
Although Nooyi did not grow up in the poorest conditions, her story is one of humble origins, set in middle-class India.
Nooyi moved to the US in pursuit of a management degree with barely any money. She worked as a receptionist from midnight to sunrise to earn enough to buy her first suit for a job interview and to pay for her college fees. All her hard work paid off, however, when she landed positions at Johnson and Johnson and Motorola upon graduation.
After six years of directing international corporate strategy projects at Boston Consulting Group and another four years as vice-president at Asea Brown Boveri, Nooyi joined PepsiCo as CEO.
3. J. K. Rowling – Author:
‘I was as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. But rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.’
Rowling first came up with the idea of a boy discovering he was a wizard on a delayed train to Manchester. But it would be seven years before that idea would become a book.
After her mother's death, Rowling left for Portugal to become a teacher and married a Portuguese TV journalist. They were only married for eleven months, and Rowling was fired from her teacher job for day-dreaming. She was now an unemployed and single parent. She admits to having lived in a mice-infested flat, struggling to raise her daughter on a welfare check of £70 a week. Unable to spend money on heating, she regularly warmed up in cafés, where she revisited the idea of Harry Potter.
‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone’ was initially rejected 12 times. But the rest is history; today, Rowling is author of the best-selling book series in history.
4. Michelle Mone - Co-founder and CEO of MJM Ltd:
‘I was naïve, I didn't realise what I was getting into. Just remember that you need to work your socks off, there's no shortcut.’
Mone grew up penniless in a one-bedroom flat and started working at the age of ten, running a paper round. At the age of 12, she was working in a fruit shop. When she was 15, however, her father suffered an illness that left him paralysed. Mone left school, with no qualifications, to support her family and started working as a model.
When she turned 17 she met her soon-to-be husband and landed a job at Labatts by lying on her CV. Within 18 months she was head of sales and marketing, but the company was bought over and Mone was made redundant.
For a dinner-dance she would attend with her husband, Mone bought a cleavage enhancing bra. She found it uncomfortable and was convinced she could make a better product; the idea for Ultimo was born. After extensive research, three years later and £100,000 in debt, Mone invented the ‘perfect’ bra. To get public attention, she hired nine actors, dressed as surgeons, to demonstrate in Oxford Street. They were all arrested, but the stunt had the desired effect.
5. Oprah Winfrey - Media proprietor:
…When she was a baby, Winfrey's parents separated and left their daughter to live with her grandparents. For the first six years of her life, Winfrey wore dresses made out of potato sacks. When she turned six, her mother came to get her. Winfrey was abused by her mother's relatives until she was sent to live with her father at the age of 14.
He was strict and would not accept anything less than what he thought was the best for her. This change of environment turned her life around. She became an honour student, won a scholarship and became the first African American woman to become a news anchor, all at the age of 19.
She later became the host for an early morning talk show named ‘AM Chicago’, which was later renamed ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’.
6. Ursual Burns - Chairwoman and CEO of Xerox:
‘The lower east side of New York City was really bad. Gangs and drug addicts were all there. The common denominator and great equaliser was poverty.’
Burns, one of three children who shared two absentee fathers, was raised by a single mother in a housing project in Manhattan. The area was known for its gangs. Despite their poverty, however, Burn's mother rigorously worked two jobs to send her children to school. It paid off and Burns went on to study at NYU.
As she was completing her master's degree, Burns signed on to work at Xerox as a summer intern. She permanently joined the staff a year later and quickly rose through the ranks and became CEO.
" - Shané Schutte
19 June 2013 [http://realbusiness.co.uk/article/20983-6-womens-inspirational-rags-to-riches-stories ]
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| [Quote No.54247] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story – with a message about the importance of persistence past failure, defeat, disbelief, criticism and even poverty:-]
James J. Hill met with temporary defeat when he first endeavored to raise the necessary capital to build a railroad from the East to the West, but he, too turned defeat into victory through new plans." - Napoleon Hill
‘Think and Grow Rich’ [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/tgr/index.htm ]
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| [Quote No.54273] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A story – with a message about how you let adversity affect you:-] 'Are you a Carrot, an Egg or Coffee Bean?'
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life, and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it, and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose. Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first pot, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, ‘Tell me what you see?’ ‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied. She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they got soft. She then asked her to take the egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, she asked her to smell and sip the coffee. The daughter smiled, as she smelled and tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, ‘What's the point, mother?’ Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity- boiling water-but each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water. ‘Which are you?’ she asked her daughter. ‘When trials and adversity knock on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?’ ‘Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a passive heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside, am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart? Or, am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you become better and change the situation around you. When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level?
How do you handle adversity? Like the CARROT, the EGG, OR the COFFEE BEAN?" - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54276] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about persisting past failure and rejection to find success on their other side:] In the 1940s, a young inventor named Chester Carlson took his idea to 20 corporations, including some of the biggest in the country. They all turned him down. In 1947, after 7 long years of rejections, he finally got a tiny company in Rochester, NY, the Haloid Company, to purchase the rights to his invention -- an electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid became Xerox Corporation!" - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54285] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about recognising an opportunity to serve others:-] 'When You Solve A Problem For Yourself, See If The Solution Would Help Others' - 'The Story of Charles Darrow and his Wife' - Back in 1932 Charles Darrow was out of a job and broke, and his wife was expecting a baby. Although he was a heating engineer, there were no jobs available as The Great Depression was at its worst and Darrow and his wife were just barely subsisting on the few odd jobs he could get as a handyman. Things were bleak. Fate didn’t reckon with the courage of this man and his wife, however. They laughed at it, literally. In the evenings, to take their minds off their troubles, they made a little game in which they could pretend they were millionaires, recalling pleasant vacations in nearby Atlantic City. They reconstructed the area adjoining the boardwalk. Darrow carved hotels and houses out of small pieces of wood, and they called the game 'Monopoly'. Three years later, in 1935 the game was marketed by Parker Brothers, and Darrow and his wife became millionaires because they solved their problem of a cheap way to pass the time and shared the fun game with others; they allowed adversity to make them instead of break them." - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54287] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about persisting past failure and criticism to eventually find leadership, power, success and fulfilment:] 'Struggle'
Let me share someone's life history with you: This was a man who failed in business at the age of 21; Was defeated in a legislative race at age 22; Failed again in business at age 24; Overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26; Had a nervous breakdown at age 27; Lost a congressional race at age 34; Lost a senatorial race at age 45; Failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47; Lost a senatorial race at age 49; And he was elected president of the United States at age 52. This man was ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Remember every success story is also a story of great failure - that did not stop the person." - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54293] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about the importance of persisting past failure and getting back up to try again with more knowledge and experience:-] 'Learning To Get Back Up'
Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe falls 10 feet from its mother’s womb and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over and tucks its legs under its body. From this position it considers the world for the first time and shakes off the last vestiges of the birthing fluid from its eyes and ears. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its offspring to the reality of life. In his book, 'A View from the Zoo', Gary Richmond describes how a newborn giraffe learns its first lesson:- The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby, so that it is sent sprawling head over heels. When it doesn’t get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts. Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs. Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with the herd, where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all enjoy young giraffes, and they’d get it too, if the mother didn’t teach her calf to get up quickly and get with it. The late Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin. Stone was once asked if he had found a thread that runs through the lives of all these exceptional people. He said, 'I write about people who sometime in their life have a vision or dream of something that should be accomplished and they go to work.
They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified, and for years they get nowhere. But every time they’re knocked down they stand up. You cannot destroy these people. And at the end of their lives they’ve accomplished some modest part of what they set out to do.'" - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54296] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about persistence past failure, criticism and poverty to eventually find massive success:- Chuck Lorre in 2015 had 4 very successful comedy shows in production: 'Two and a Half Men', 'Big Bang Theory', 'Mike and Molly' and 'Mom'. But all of this came fairly late for him.] I was a struggling musician 'til I was about 35 years old [in 1987]. I remember vividly what it's like to put 38 cents in the gas tank and drive to my second cousin's house, so they would feed me ...I can remember getting a ticket for making an illegal U-turn. It was a $50 ticket, and I broke down and I sobbed because it wiped me out. [He'd had some mild successes as a guitarist and songwriter, including the time he heard an animation shop needed a song. He became co-writer of the eternal 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' theme. Still, Lorre was near 40 before he had comedy success, writing for hit comedy show 'Roseanne' and being a creator and producer of 'Grace Under Fire,' 'Cybill' and 'Dharma & Greg.']" - Chuck Lorre
(1952 - ) Very successful American television writer, director, producer and composer. His full name is Charles Michael Levine.
[Refer http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/entertainment/television/2015/02/18/tvs-comedy-boss-chuck-lorre-penniless-dissolute/23564675/ ]
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| [Quote No.54300] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete [or get one]." - Jack Welch
American business executive, author and chemical engineer. He was chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001. During his tenure at GE, the company's value rose 4000%.
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| [Quote No.54312] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about the value of persistence, leadership and setting a good example:-] 'How to change the world' The ninth week of SEAL training is referred to as Hell Week. It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment and one special day at the Mud Flats. The Mud Flats are an area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slues — a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you. It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing-cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure from the instructors to quit. As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some ‘egregious infraction of the rules’ was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold. Looking around the mud flat, it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up—eight more hours of bone-chilling cold. The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night—one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing. We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing — but the singing persisted. And somehow, the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away. If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person — Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan named Malala — can change the world by giving people hope. So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud." - Admiral William H. McRaven
Ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, at the commencement address, University of Texas at Austin on 17 May 2014.
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| [Quote No.54320] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about leadership:] 'Rafting'
By good fortune, I was able to raft down the Motu River in New Zealand twice during the last year. The magnificent four-day journey traverses one of the last wilderness areas in the North Island.
The first expedition was led by ‘Buzz’, an American guide with a great deal of rafting experience and many stories to tell of mighty rivers such as the Colorado. With a leader like Buzz, there was no reason to fear any of the great rapids on the Motu.
The first half day, in the gentle upper reaches, was spent developing teamwork and co-ordination. Strokes had to be mastered, and the discipline of following commands without question was essential. In the boiling fury of a rapid, there would be no room for any mistake. When Buzz bellowed above the roar of the water, an instant reaction was essential.
We mastered the Motu. In every rapid we fought against the river and we overcame it. The screamed commands of Buzz were matched only by the fury of our paddles, as we took the raft exactly where Buzz wanted it to go.
At the end of the journey, there was a great feeling of triumph. We had won. We proved that we were superior. We knew that we could do it. We felt powerful and good. The mystery and majesty of the Motu had been overcome.
The second time I went down the Motu. the experience I had gained should have been invaluable, but the guide on this journey was a very softly spoken Kiwi. It seemed that it would not even be possible to hear his voice above the noise of the rapids.
As we approached the first rapid, he never even raised his voice. He did not attempt to take command of us or the river. Gently and quietly he felt the mood of the river and watched every little whirlpool. There was no drama and no shouting. There was no contest to be won. He loved the river.
We sped through each rapid with grace and beauty and, after a day, the river had become our friend, not our enemy. The quiet Kiwi was not our leader, but only the person whose sensitivity was more developed than our own. Laughter replaced the tension of achievement.
Soon the quiet Kiwi was able to lean back and let all of us take turns as leader. A quiet nod was enough to draw attention to the things our lack of experience prevented us from seeing. If we made a mistake, then we laughed and it was the next person's turn.
We began to penetrate the mystery of the Motu. Now, like the quiet Kiwi, we listened to the river and we looked carefully for all those things we had not even noticed the first time.
At the end of the journey, we had overcome nothing except ourselves. We did not want to leave behind our friend, the river. There was no contest, and so nothing had been won. Rather we had become one with the river.
It remains difficult to believe that the external circumstances of the two journeys were similar. The difference was in an attitude and a frame of mind. At the end of the first journey, it seemed that there could be no other way. Given the opportunity to choose a leader, everyone would have chosen someone like Buzz. At the end of the second journey with the Kiwi, we had glimpsed a very different vision and we felt humble - and intensely happy." - Anonymous
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| [Quote No.54331] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about becoming your best self and giving extraordinary service by always giving extra-ordinary effort:] - 'Going The Extra Mile!' -
I was 20 and had just finished my first degree when I asked my father's advice on how to approach the world of work. He had a long and distinguished career in the Indian Army and rose to become commander-in-chief of a million men. He was a soldier's soldier and his men adored him. His manner was strict and firm, but he was very friendly. He appreciated and trusted people and gave then freedom.
‘Come and see me in my office if you want to talk to me about work’ he said. So I made an appointment with his ADC and went to see him. He had a huge office and I felt very small.
‘You are starting out and you will be given a lot of tasks to fulfil’ he said. ‘The first thing is always to do something to the best of your ability. Then the second time you do it, give it that little bit extra’. What he was saying was: ‘Take the initiative; be innovative; be creative. Always go the extra mile.’" - Karan Bilimoria
Founder and chief executive of Cobra Beer.
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| [Quote No.54336] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about learning to be grateful that things are not worse and so becoming the cheerful, happy sort of person people like to be around:-] 'Who you are speaks louder to me than anything you can say' -
At the beginning of my 8:00 a.m. class one Monday at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), I cheerfully asked my students how their weekend had been. One young man said that his weekend had not been very good. He'd had his wisdom teeth extracted. The young man then proceeded to ask me why I always seemed to be so cheerful. His question reminded me of something I'd read somewhere before: ‘Every morning when you get up, you have a choice about how you want to approach life that day’, I said to the young man. ‘I choose to be cheerful’. ‘Let me give you an example’, I continued.
The other 60 students in the class ceased their chatter and began to listen to our conversation.
As soon as I got there, I called AAA and asked them to send a tow truck. The secretary in the Provost's office asked me what had happened. ‘This is my lucky day’, I replied, smiling. ‘Your car breaks down and today is your lucky day??’ She was puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I live 17 miles from here’, I replied. ‘My car could have broken down anywhere along the freeway. It didn't. Instead, it broke down in the perfect place: off the freeway, within walking distance of here. I'm still able to teach my class, and I've been able to arrange for the tow truck to meet me after class. If my car was meant to break down today, it couldn't have been arranged in a more convenient fashion.’ The secretary's eyes opened wide, and then she smiled. I smiled back and headed for class.' So ended my story to the students in my economics class at UNLV.
I scanned the 60 faces in the lecture hall. Despite the early hour, no one seemed to be asleep. Somehow, my story had touched them. Or maybe it wasn't the story at all. In fact, it had all started with a student's observation that I was cheerful. A wise man once said: ‘Who you are speaks louder to me than anything you can say’. I suppose it must be so!" - Lee Ryan Miller
From his book ‘Teaching Amidst the Neon Palm Trees’. [Refer http://www.leeryanmiller.com/ ]
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| [Quote No.54339] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about remembering that each individual of the team is important:] - 'Everyone Is Important' -
During Mark's first month of business college, the management professor gave his students a pop quiz. He was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until he read the last one: ‘What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?’ Surely this was some kind of joke. He had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would he know her name? He handed in his paper, leaving the last question blank.
Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward the quiz grade. ‘Absolutely,’ said the professor. ‘In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They each deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say 'hello'‘. Mark never forgot that lesson. He also learned her name was Dorothy." - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54373] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A story - with a message about not making money your god:-] - 'WHO IS POOR?' -
Once upon a time, there was a renowned saint. Many people used to visit him to get his blessings. Once a rich and greedy merchant went to him and offered him a bag full of gold coins. The saint refused to accept the offerings and said, ‘I don't accept money from people who are very poor.’ The merchant said, ‘But I'm very rich.’ ’Don't you wish to earn more money?’ asked the saint. ’Yes’, said the merchant. ’Those who wish for money always run after it. They will do anything to acquire it - including lying and defrauding, coercing and forcing others against their wills, breaking ethical and moral rules, ruining their relationships with their staff, family and friends, and even ruining their health. No one is as poor as these people’ said the saint. The merchant felt ashamed and went back to his home, with a new commitment to become a more balanced individual with a more fulfilling life, and a better set of priorities." - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54402] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story - with a message about persisting past difficulties - including health and wealth challenges - to find career success and go from 'rags-to-riches':] - Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash, the American country singer, was born in Arkansaw in 1932 during the American depression. Rural living was hard and the Cash family was dirt poor. His father rode the rails traveling the length and breath of the country by train in search of work. Johnny started working in the cotton fields at age five, singing along with his family while working. From the age of twelve he began playing and writing songs. Throughout his career he suffered from periods of severe drug addictions and was suicidal at least on one occasion. Despite this his work ethic was legendary and his contribution to music immense." - Unknown
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| [Quote No.54406] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[Keeping a close eye on your financial affairs - your (assets and) income, taxes, savings, investments [for example your superannuation) and your spending (budgets, etc) - is a necessary success skill for the ordinary person as well as the very successful. The following four stories from the worlds of music, arts and entertainment should reinforce this need to take your financial responsibilities seriously - learn, be interested and put in the time and never, ever completely delegate these responsibilities!]
1-Badfinger:
Badfinger was an up and coming band from Great Britain. The Beatles got them on the map, but they were an extremely talented and driven band led by guitarist Pete Ham. Their manager, took all of their money and put them millions in the hole resulting in the suicide of Ham in 1975. The rest of the band tried to go on, but unfulfilled record contracts had them owing millions more. In 1983, Bass player, song writer, and vocalist Tom Evans also took his own life. A truly tragic story of financial treachery and mismanagement.
2-Billy Joel:
In the words of Billy Joel, whose brother-in-law stole millions from him (Christy Brinkley's brother) ‘Hire an accountant and then hire a second accountant to watch the first accountant’. NEVER have any family member whatsoever do any of your finances whether you're rich and famous or just a common person. Have a separate bank account from your husband or wife and check your bank account every day!
3-Leonard Cohen:
Leonard Cohen is an iconic and massively successful rocker through and through, but when he returned to the road in 1998 after a 15-year absence, he had little to show for it. After years of mishandling by his former manager, Kelley Lynch, Cohen had almost nothing in the bank for retirement. Cohen took her to court, but following a 2004 ruling that she repay $9.5 million in losses accrued, Lynch ignored the order. In 2008, financial desperation forced Cohen to mount his first world tour in nearly two decades. Five years later, he's still performing live -- at the age of 78.
4-Courtney Love:
Courtney Love has probably never slept underneath a bridge, but Kurt Cobain's widow has claimed that somewhere in the vicinity of $530 million was somehow stolen from the vast fortune she inherited from the late Nirvana front-man's estate. ’I have never seen such greed and moral turpitude,’ said Love’s lawyer Rhonda J Holmes. ‘This case is going to make Bernard Madoff look warm and fuzzy.’ Things got so bad, in fact, that in 2010, Love was forced to borrow $2.75 million from her daughter Frances’ own trust fund -- or she could've ended up sleeping under a bridge.
" - Unknown
[http://diffuser.fm/rockers-that-went-broke/?ucr&trackback=tsmclip ]
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| [Quote No.54425] Need Area: Work > Leadership
"[A true story – with a message about persisting past criticism, disappointment, rejection, years of unrewarded effort, physical danger and the challenges of leadership to eventually achieve success, even if the success is a little different from what was originally imagined:-] 'Christopher Columbus' - We think the world has changed and that somehow the experiences of today's entrepreneurs are different than yesterday's. Is it really different? ...let's step back and take a look at Columbus through the eyes of today's entrepreneurs and start-ups. Columbus was an explorer and an adventurer, but today he would simply be called an entrepreneur.
Early Background:
Christopher Columbus was born around 1451 to a father, who worked in the textile industry, and was of small means.
Today's Perspective: Christopher Columbus was not well-connected and he had to build his professional network to achieve his goals. Certainly funding was not to be found among family and friends of his early childhood.
Professional Background:
Columbus spent his youth sailing on small vessels. In one of his writings, Columbus claims to have gone to the sea at the age of 10. Yet, a contradictory statement by the admiral has him becoming a sailor at 14. In the early 1470s, he served on a ship associated with the failed attempt to conquer Naples. However, during the same years of 1470-1473 he can be found in the family weaving business. In 1476, he sailed on a convoy attacked by a privateer - two of the four ships escaped. His voyages continued into northern Europe. In 1479, Columbus settled in Portugal, where he worked with his brother as a mapmaker.
Today's Perspective: Columbus had some experience in his industry. His resume was spotty. Nothing stands out or is remarkable at this point. Being part of some failed voyages was not optimal for asking investors for funding in later years.
Personal Background:
In 1478, he married a lady of some rank, Felipa Moniz de Perestrello, daughter of Bartholomew Perestrello, a captain in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator, and also cousin of the archbishop of Lisbon.
Today's Perspective: Now here's some potential to get family and friends as investors, or at the very least, some introductions and connections to those institutional investors (monarchs) and the super angels (noblemen).
Identifying the Problem:
In 1453, the Ottoman Turks took over the land-based trade routes to Asia, which made travel through the region dangerous. Thus, the urgent need to discover a new sea route to reach India and China - vital sources of silk, spices and other products.
Today's Perspective: The political winds changed, causing profits to be curtailed from a sole source supplier with no other geographic location able to provide suitable replacements. There we have it: customers desperately seeking a solution to an urgent problem. Surely they tried other solutions, but apparently none were adequate. And where there is profit, there is progress, and the greater the profit, the greater the progress. Here the investors were trying to solve a big problem.
The Product Concept:
How Columbus arrived at his idea is not known, and the details are disputed. It is said while working as a mapmaker, he came in contact with many mariners. There were books written about previous explorations to the east. He corresponded with some of the thought leaders of the day concerning his proposal.
Today's Perspective: Columbus had a spark. He didn't take a half-baked idea directly to the investors. He spent some time researching it, discussing it with current day experts - the mariners that required maps, and corresponding with the thinkers of the day. He refined his proposal. Columbus' investment community was rather small. There were only a few that could afford to fund him, likewise there simply aren't a huge number of venture capitalists today and word gets around quickly.
Rejection:
In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to the King of Portugal. He proposed the king provide three ships and grant Columbus one year to search for a route to Asia. The king submitted the proposal to his experts, who rejected it. In their opinion, Columbus' proposed route of 2,400 miles was far too short.
Although the king's council was negative, the king favored Columbus' proposal. The king brought the proposal to the bishop of Ceuta, who suggested the plan be carried out in secret and without its author's knowledge. A ship was dispatched, but it returned shortly after beginning its voyage as the sailors lost heart and refused to venture far.
Today's Perspective: It would be a miracle today if an unknown and unproven entrepreneur could secure major funding from the first investor meeting. The king did exactly what the venture capitalists and angel investors do today; they validate the technical aspects of the proposal through their network of experts in many fields. In Columbus' case, the experts weighed in with serious concerns about the technical merits of his proposal - and rightly so. Columbus' inexperience in sailing made him underestimate the circumference of the earth.
As to the secret voyage, well ... that's when investors like the idea, but don't like the entrepreneur. It's when investors feel they want to appoint a more suitable management team. In Columbus' case, the investors didn't feel he would be adding much to the execution phase.
Investors' Motives:
In 1488, Columbus approached the King of Portugal once again and was rejected. Henry the Navigator had revived an old proposal for Portugal to pursue a sea route around the southern tip of Africa. In 1487, the Portuguese mariner Bartholomeu Dias set sail to round the Horn of Africa. Shortly after Columbus' second meeting, Dias successfully returned and Portugal was no longer interested in seeking a westward sea route to Asia.
Today's Perspective: The investors liked Columbus' proposal, they tried it, but it didn't work. So they sought a solution elsewhere and chose to fund a solution that was proposed by a successful and proven mariner - Prince Henry the Navigator. The entrepreneur is never the only proposal being presented to the investor; there will be many. Once Portugal had solved its problem, it was time to seek funding elsewhere, perhaps with a competitor.
Persistence and Searching Harder for an Investor:
Columbus had difficulty finding funding. His proposals were rejected by the various European monarchs. While presenting his proposal to the monarchs, he continued to meet with noblemen, seeking their advice and securing connections. Columbus persisted as the royal experts debated his proposal and subsequently denied its merits. Columbus often fell into deep despair. When he presented his proposal to Ferdinand and Isabella, it received the same rejection. One appraoch was poorly timed, as the Spanish were in the middle of a struggle that resulted in the conquest of the Granada Moors. However, the Spanish monarchs offered him an annual allowance and provided him food and lodging at no cost in all cities and towns under their control, just to keep him from taking his proposal to someone else.
Queen Isabella rejected Columbus' plan three times before changing her mind. Columbus' terms - the position of Admiral, governorship for him and his descendants of discovered lands, and ten percent of the profits for all trips made by Spain to the new lands, for all time. Finally in 1492, the monarchs approved his proposal. In August, his expedition departed and arrived in America on October 12. Columbus stumbled upon America. He returned the next year and presented his findings to the monarchs, and Spain entered a Golden Age.
Today's Perspective: Persistence matters a great deal in the start-up game. Unless you've got a spectacular track record, funding won't happen quickly - not in a week, not in a month. Entrepreneurs have to persist for some time and there will be those times when the entrepreneurs wonder why they are doing it. Cisco was rejected by 77 VC's before securing funding and it was near a 1,000 rejections for Colonel Sanders of KFC. It takes a strong ego to survive that much rejection. Timing is everything in capital markets. If the entrepreneur is seeking any kind of outside funding, it is all somehow connected to the capital markets. In Columbus' case, it was the struggles between countries.
The Spanish monarchs essentially put a no-shopping gag on Columbus - they paid him not to take his proposal elsewhere. This is green-mail. Once Portugal had a sea route around the Horn of Africa, Ferdinand and Isabella had to find a route to the East in order to keep their competitor from grabbing the lion share of the market. Hence, their sudden interest in Columbus and willingness to accept his terms. In today's terms, Columbus demanded to be CEO and locked in a succession plan for his children to be appointed CEO, he and his family were to receive 10% of corporate profits forever - equity was out of the question, but salary and profit sharing seemed acceptable to the monarchs. To have demanded those terms for the monarchs, Columbus must have been quite an ambitious man. Imagine the response a first-time entrepreneur, with no track record of success, would get from a VC today with those terms.
The world is not so different today than 500 years ago. Technology advances as we further the improvements of previous generations, but how people behave and react has not changed at all.
" - Cynthia Kocialski
Cynthia Kocialski has founded three companies and has been actively involved in more than 25 hi-tech start-up. Cynthia has held various technical, marketing and management positions at IBM and Matrox Electronics. She is a graduate of the University of Rochester and the University of Virginia. She writes a blog at http://www.cynthiakocialski.com [Refer http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2253.php ]
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