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.”Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of 22 children. She was born prematurely and her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years old, she contacted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralysed 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.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?” But today what will the world be without them.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.At age seven, a young boy and his family were sent out of their rented apartment, at nine, is mother passed away. At age twenty-three, his business partner died living him with huge debts that took him years to repay. At age thirty-seven, on his third try he became a congress man, but failed to be re-elected. He lost his son of four years old. At age forty-five, he ran for the senate but failed to be elected. He ran for vice-presidency at age forty-seven, but again lost. Finally at age fifty-one, he became the president of the USA. His name was Abraham Lincoln.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…. If you keep on trying one day you will hit the nail on the head. Remember, the finest steel gets sent through the hottest furnace.A winner is not one who never fails, but one who NEVER QUITS!

Tags: ligthbulb, olympicgoldmedals, Haloid Xerox, Congressman, Senate, President

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