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| Times of success are interspersed through times of defeat |
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| Written by Ryan |
| Thursday, 14 May 2009 05:58 |
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Looking back over 15 NHL seasons as a player (now coaching) the one fact that jumps out at me is that times of success were interspersed through times of defeat. History has shown us that the most celebrated winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. Holtz, football coach of the University of South Carolina, once said, "Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity."
- Chester Carlson, a young inventor, took his idea to 20 big corporations in the 1940s. After seven years of rejections, he was able to persuade Haloid, a small company in Rochester, N.Y., to purchase the rights to his electrostatic paper- copying process. Haloid has since become Xerox Corporation. - Thomas Edison tried over 2,000 experiments before he was able to get his light bulb to work. Upon being asked how he felt about failing so many times, he replied, "I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected President of the United States for four terms, had been stricken with polio at the age of 39. - Persistence paid off for General Douglas MacArthur. After applying for admission to West Point twice, he applied a third time and was accepted. The rest is history. - In 1927 the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, instructed student Lucille Ball, to "Try any other profession. Any other." - Buddy Holly was fired from the Decca record label in 1956 by Paul Cohen, Nashville "Artists and Repertoire Man." Cohen called Holly "the biggest no-talent I ever worked with." - Academy Award-winning writer, producer and director Woody Allen failed motion picture production at New York University (NYU) and City College of New York. He also flunked English at NYU. Helen Keller, the famous blind author and speaker, said it well: "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. Silver is purified in fire and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed." Harvey Mackay summarized what we now know, “There is no education like the university of adversity.” |