"Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus" (Hebrews 12:1–2). Failure is not the opposite of a faithful life; often it is part of the road.
These ten stories about perseverance, failure and success, retold in our own words, include famous figures who failed many times before they succeeded, a turtle that did not need rescuing, a car-park joke, a friend who gave up an Olympic place and a father's tribute that measured success by character. Where popular versions of a story have grown in the telling, we say so. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this collection:
- "Never Give In": What Churchill Really Said
- Success Doesn't Come Easy
- Who Am I? Abraham Lincoln's Setbacks
- J. K. Rowling: "Rock Bottom Became the Solid Foundation"
- "A Short Life, Full of Consequences": Wilbur Wright
- Ole Bull and the Critic
- Always Ask the Turtle
- A Gold Medal in Her Heart: Esther Kim and Kay Poe
- Young and Quick, Old and Rich
- "We Now Know Two Thousand Things That Don't Work"
"Never Give In": What Churchill Really Said
A popular story, corrected.
A famous illustration claims that Winston Churchill, who had struggled at school, was once invited to give a commencement address at Oxford University. According to the story, he arrived with his cigar, cane and top hat, walked slowly to the podium as the audience rose to applaud, and then shouted just three words: "Never give up!" After a long pause he said them again, picked up his hat and cigar and sat down. That, the story says, was the whole speech.
It is a memorable tale, but it did not happen that way. Churchill did struggle at school; he was placed in the bottom class at Harrow and was a poor student in many subjects, though he loved English and history.
The speech behind the legend was real, however. On 29 October 1941, in the darkest days of the Second World War, Churchill returned to his old school, Harrow, and spoke to the boys. Britain had stood almost alone against Nazi Germany for more than a year. His most famous words that day were a call never to give in, never, never, never, in anything great or small, except to convictions of honour and good sense.
His speech was longer than the legend's three words, but the message was the same, and it came from a man who had known failure, defeat and political exile before his finest hour.
Takeaway: Perseverance is rarely glamorous. It is the stubborn decision to keep going when giving up would be easier. "Let us not become weary in doing good" (Galatians 6:9).
Source: Winston Churchill, speech at Harrow School, 29 October 1941; the Oxford "three words" story is a later legend.
Success Doesn't Come Easy
It is easy to look at successful people and assume everything came easily to them. In many cases it did not, although some of these stories have grown in the retelling.
Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of KFC, is said to have been turned down by more than a thousand restaurants before anyone agreed to use his chicken recipe. The exact number is part of company legend, but he was in his sixties and living on a small pension when he began franchising.
Thomas Edison is often said to have tried thousands of times, some versions say nearly 10,000, before he produced a practical electric light. The figures vary from telling to telling, but he and his team really did test an enormous range of materials.
Fred Smith, the founder of Federal Express, is often said to have received a poor grade for the college paper in which he first outlined the idea of reliable overnight delivery. In the company's early days, as the story is told, money was so tight that staff cashed their pay cheques at shops rather than banks, so the money took longer to clear and the firm had a few extra days to cover its payroll.
Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor, reportedly turned down many times and down to his last few hundred dollars, when he found a company willing to make Rocky. He refused to sell the script unless he could play the lead himself. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and the rest is history.
The poet Robert Frost had his early poems returned, unwanted, by The Atlantic Monthly.
Ray Kroc, who built McDonald's into a worldwide chain, also knew the value of persistence. He liked to quote a saying usually attributed to President Calvin Coolidge: nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not, for nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with great talent. Genius will not, for unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not, for the world is full of educated drifters. Persistence and determination alone, the saying goes, are omnipotent.
Takeaway: Behind most success lies a long trail of failure. God's people are called to faithful persistence, trusting him with the results.
Source: Various biographical sources; the persistence saying is attributed to Calvin Coolidge.
Who Am I? Abraham Lincoln's Setbacks
A popular quiz lists a string of failures and asks, "Who am I?" Some versions exaggerate, but the outline is broadly true.
When he was seven, his family moved from Kentucky to Indiana, partly because of problems with the title to their land. When he was nine, his mother died. As a young man in Illinois he lost his first election for the state legislature, and the store where he worked as a clerk closed. He went into partnership in another small store, which failed; when his partner died, he was left with debts that took years to repay.
A woman he courted turned down his proposal of marriage. He was later elected to Congress, but served only a single term. His young son Eddie died when the boy was not yet four. He twice tried and failed to become a United States senator, and he lost a bid for his party's vice-presidential nomination.
Then, in 1860, at the age of 51, he was elected President of the United States. His name was Abraham Lincoln. He led the nation through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and is remembered as one of the greatest presidents in American history.
Takeaway: Failures are not the end of the story. God can use every disappointment to shape us for what lies ahead (Romans 5:3–5).
Source: Biographical accounts of Abraham Lincoln; popular "Who am I?" illustration, corrected.
J. K. Rowling: "Rock Bottom Became the Solid Foundation"
In June 2008 J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, gave the commencement address at Harvard University. She called it "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination".
She told the graduates that seven years after leaving university, she had failed on an epic scale. Her short marriage had collapsed, she was jobless, a single parent and about as poor as it was possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. By every usual measure, she said, she was the biggest failure she knew.
Yet, she explained, failure had stripped away everything that was not essential. She stopped pretending to herself that she was anything other than who she was, and poured all her energy into the one piece of work that mattered to her. If she had succeeded at anything else, she thought, she might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where she truly believed she belonged.
She was set free, she said, because her greatest fear had come true and she was still alive. She still had a daughter she adored, an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which she rebuilt her life.
Takeaway: Failure can clarify what truly matters. When everything else is stripped away, we may discover what God has really called us to do.
Source: J. K. Rowling, Harvard commencement address, 5 June 2008.
"A Short Life, Full of Consequences": Wilbur Wright
Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first controlled, powered aeroplane flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December 1903. They came from a close family. Their father, Milton Wright, was a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.
Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912, aged only 45. His father recorded the event in his diary on 30 May 1912. Wilbur had passed away at 3.15 that morning, he wrote, aged 45 years, 1 month and 14 days. It had been a short life, full of consequences.
The bishop then described his son not by his inventions or his fame but by his character: an unfailing intellect, an even temper, great self-reliance and equally great modesty. Wilbur, he wrote, had seen the right clearly and pursued it steadily, and so he lived and died.
Takeaway: For Wilbur's father, the true measure of success was not being first in the air but being a person of character. God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).
Source: Diary of Bishop Milton Wright, 30 May 1912.
Ole Bull and the Critic
A popular story whose details we have not been able to verify.
How a person reacts to criticism often makes the difference between success and failure. Ole Bull was a celebrated Norwegian violinist of the nineteenth century. According to the story, his practical father, a chemist, sent him to the university in Christiania (now Oslo) to study for the ministry and forbade him to play his beloved violin. The young man promptly failed his studies and, defying his father, devoted all his time and energy to music.
He had great natural ability, but his teachers had been relatively unskilled, and when he set out on his first concert tour he was not truly ready. In Italy a Milan newspaper critic wrote that he was an untrained musician: if he was a diamond, he was certainly a rough and unpolished one.
Bull could have reacted in one of two ways. He could have let the criticism make him angry, or he could learn from it. He chose to learn. The story goes that he went to the newspaper office and asked to see the critic. The astonished editor introduced him to the reviewer, a man of about seventy, and Bull spent the whole evening with him, asking about his faults and seeking the older man's advice on how to correct them.
Then he cancelled the rest of his tour, went home and spent the next six months studying under genuinely able teachers. He practised for hours upon hours to overcome his weaknesses. When he finally returned to the concert stage, still only in his mid-twenties, he became the sensation of Europe.
Takeaway: How we respond to criticism can decide whether we fail or grow. "Whoever heeds correction is honoured" (Proverbs 13:18).
Source: Traditional anecdote about Ole Bull; unverified.
Always Ask the Turtle
An anecdote Gloria Steinem has told about her student days.
Gloria Steinem, the American feminist writer and activist, studied at Smith College in Massachusetts. Years later, speaking about the lessons of her life, she described something that happened while she was a student on a geology field trip.
Near the Connecticut River she noticed a large turtle that had hauled itself out of the water, climbed a couple of steep embankments and was now heading towards the road. Afraid it would be killed by a car, she turned it round and pushed, shoved and dragged the now very angry turtle all the way back down to the river.
At that moment her geology professor came along. He told her that the turtle had probably spent weeks of exhausting effort climbing up those embankments, and that it was almost at the place where it would lay its eggs. Just as it was nearly there, she had turned it round and sent it back to where it started.
Steinem has said that the lesson stayed with her: always ask the turtle. Before we rush in to help, we should find out what the one we are helping actually needs.
Takeaway: Our help is not always helpful, and our interference can undo someone else's long, patient effort. "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak" (James 1:19).
Source: Anecdote told by Gloria Steinem about her years at Smith College.
A Gold Medal in Her Heart: Esther Kim and Kay Poe
Esther Kim and Kay Poe had been best friends since childhood, training together in taekwondo. In 2000 both were competing for a single place on the US Olympic team in their weight class for the Sydney Games.
Working through opposite sides of the draw at the Olympic trials, they both reached the final. Whoever won would go to Sydney. But in her semi-final, Poe badly injured her knee. She could barely stand, and she would almost certainly lose the final.
Kim knew that her friend's knee would heal in time for the Games, and that Poe was the stronger competitor. So she made an astonishing decision. She bowed to her friend and forfeited the match, giving Poe the place on the Olympic team that she herself had dreamed of for years.
Kim later explained that while her friend would have a gold medal around her neck, she felt she had a gold medal in her heart. There are other ways to be a champion, she said; a true martial artist is a champion every day of life.
Takeaway: True success is sometimes found in giving up our own dream for someone else. "Value others above yourselves" (Philippians 2:3–4).
Source: Reported by CNN and other media, May 2000.
Young and Quick, Old and Rich
A traditional joke, popular in Australia.
A woman in a brand-new Volvo had been driving round and round a crowded car park. At last she found an empty space and was just about to reverse into it when a young driver, still on his provisional P plates, whizzed into the spot ahead of her in his souped-up Holden Torana.
As he got out of his car and strolled away, the woman called after him. She had found that space first, she said. What gave him the right to push in and take it?
The young man laughed. "Because I'm young and quick," he said, and kept on walking.
All of a sudden he heard the horrible sound of a car being smashed. He turned round to see the woman in the Volvo ramming his car, reversing, and ramming it again. She caught his eye and called out, "That's because I'm old and rich!"
Takeaway: Pride and revenge leave everyone poorer. "Do not repay anyone evil for evil" (Romans 12:17). Winning an argument is rarely worth what it costs.
Source: Traditional joke; author unknown.
"We Now Know Two Thousand Things That Don't Work"
A well-known anecdote; its exact wording is uncertain.
Thomas Edison's search for a practical light bulb filament was long and frustrating. He and his team tried material after material, carbonised thread, paper, bamboo and many more, watching each one fail.
After one long series of failures, the story goes, an assistant despaired that all their work had been in vain and they had learned nothing. Edison disagreed. They had come a long way, he said, and learned a great deal: they now knew two thousand materials that would not make a good light bulb.
Takeaway: Failure is not wasted if we learn from it. Each "no" can bring us closer to the "yes" God has prepared.
Source: Traditional anecdote about Thomas Edison.
Final thoughts
A wartime speech, a list of rejections, a president's setbacks, a writer at rock bottom, a father's diary, a humbled violinist, a turtle on its way home, a friend's sacrifice, a car-park quarrel and two thousand failed filaments. Each reminds us that failure is not final, and that true success is measured by faithfulness and character.
For further reading, Sopranu has a complete guide to the Harry Potter series, whose author famously persevered through many rejections, and a review of Sylvester Stallone's The Steps.
What failure in your life might God be using to build something new?
More stories you may like:
These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.
Comments
Post a Comment