Optimism, Hope and Motivation

1. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2000
experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him
how it felt to fail so many times. He said, "I never failed once. I
invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step
process."

2. Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of 22 children. She was born
prematurely and her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years
old, she contracted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralyzed left leg. At age 9, she removed the metal leg brace she had been
dependent on and began to walk without it. By 13 she had developed
a rhythmic walk, which doctors said was a miracle. That same year
she decided to become a runner. She entered a race and
came in last. For the next few years every race she
entered, she came in last. Everyone told her to quit, but she kept
on running. One day she actually won a race. And then another. From
then on she won every race she entered. Eventually this little
girl, who was told she would never walk again, went on to win three
Olympic gold medals.

3. In 1962, four nervous young musicians played their first record
audition for the executives of the Decca recording Company. The
executives were not impressed. While turning down this group of
musicians, one executive said, "We don't like their round. Groups
of guitars are on the way out." The group was called The Beatles.

4. In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modeling
Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, "You'd better learn
secretarial work or else get married." She went on and became Marilyn Monroe.

5. In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired a singer after
one performance. He told him, "You ain't goin' nowhere....son. You
ought to go back to drivin' a truck." He went on to become the most popular
singer in America named Elvis Presley.

6. When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it
did not ring off the hook with calls from potential backers. After
making a demonstration call, President Rutherford Hayes said,
"That's an amazing Invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?"

7. In the 1940s, another 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 seven
long years of rejections! He finally got a tiny company in
Rochester, New York, the Haloid Company, to purchase
the rights to his invention an electrostatic
paper-copying process. Haloid became Xerox Corporation we know
today.

The Moral of the above Stories: Character cannot be developed in
ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can
the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success
achieved. You gain strength, experience and confidence by every
experience where you really stop to look fear in the face.... You
must do the thing you cannot do. And remember, the finest steel
gets sent through the hottest furnace. And even the GOLD is tested
against fire.

A winner is not one who never fails, but one who NEVER

QUITS!

We have no right to ask when sorrow comes, "Why did this happen to
me?" unless we ask the same question for every moment
of happiness that comes our way.

Life's Good! Live it!