Rejected But Not Dejected: Oprah, Spielberg, Disney and Others

Don't let anyone, or any rejection, keep you from what you want.

-         Ashley Tisdale

In this post I will be sharing stories of people who refused to allow rejection define them, limit them or kill their dreams. They are stories of phenomenal success in the face of rejection and failure. I believe you will find them informative and inspiring.

In 1919, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star. According to his editor, he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas."  Disney would later found the Walt Disney Productions, now known as The Walt Disney Company, a company that has become one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world.

Disney became particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. Years later, The Walt Disney Company bought ABC which owned The Kansas City Star, the same outfit that fired Disney ‘for lacking imagination and good ideas’

Talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist, Oprah Winfrey, is best known for her show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. But before her rise to fame Oprah was removed from her job as a news reporter for Baltimore’s WJZ-TV. Oprah, who now runs her own TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) is one of the most influential women in the world. She is said to be currently North America's only black billionaire and the greatest black philanthropist in American history.

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen was rejected by over 140 publishers before it was finally accepted. The Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, currently has nearly 200 titles and 112 million copies in print in over 40 languages. According to USA Today, Chicken Soup for the Soul and several of the series titles were among the top 150 best-selling books of the last 15 years

American film director, screenwriter, producer, and business magnate, Steven Spielberg’s application to attend the film school at University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television was rejected on two different occasions but he went ahead to become one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. In 2006, he was named as the most powerful and influential figure in the motion picture industry by Premiere, an American and New York City-based film magazine.

He is on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 Most Important People of the Century. Life Magazine named him the most influential person of his generation and in 2009, Boston University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Regarded as the highest grossing filmmaker of all time; his films having made nearly $8 billion internationally, Spielberg was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Southern California (the same university that had rejected his application for admission) in 1994. He became a trustee of the university in 1996. This was after he had become famous.

In 1936, Japanese engineer, industrialist and founder of Honda, Soichiro Honda, sent 30,000 piston rings to Toyota, 50 were accepted for consideration out of which only three pieces passed quality control tests but this did not stop him from producing piston rings. In 1937, he founded Tokai Seiki, a company that specialised in producing piston rings. A US B-29 bomber attack destroyed Tōkai Seiki's plant in 1944 during World War II. In 1946, he founded the Honda Technical Research Institute in October and the company started with the production of a motorised bicycles.

Honda went on to turn the company into a billion-dollar multinational that produced the best-selling motorcycles in the world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. In 1967, he starred in three successful films: To Sir, with Love, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; making him the top box-office star of that year. Before his achievements, it is reported that a casting director had made this statement to Poitier, “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?” In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.

On August 12, 2009, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama.

American businessman who founded the department store chain R.H. Macy and Company, Rowland Hussey Macy, Sr. had a history of failed investments and business adventures. Between 1843 and 1855 he opened four retail dry goods stores but they all failed. He also ventured into a needle-and-thread store which also went bankrupt. Lady Luck would eventually smile on him when he moved to New York where his store became known for its then-innovative policy of clearly marking prices which reduced haggling with customers and advertising his prices in the newspaper. He also employed the first in-store Santa Claus. By the time of his death in 1877, Macy's store had grown to a tangle of eleven connected buildings on New York's 13th and 14th Streets making his business to be one of the largest department store retailers in the world

The foregoing stories have shown to us what happens when we refuse to give up in the face of rejection, embarrassment or failure. You may be down but you don’t have to be out. You may be down and out but you can still bounce back stronger. So how do you deal with rejection? Realise that the fact that an individual/organisation is not interested in you doesn't mean the rest of the world is also not interested in you. It is equally important to settle it with yourself that you will not define or see yourself based on another person’s opinion of you or their attitude toward you.

YOU ARE UNIQUE!

YOU HAVE YOUR OWN CROWD THAT IS ROOTING FOR YOU!

YOUR BEST IS ON THE WAY!

"What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson