50 Famous People Who Failed Before Becoming Successful

In my book, How to Reinvent Your Career, I write about how some things we see as failures may actually lead us to something better. The following is a list of 50 famous people compiled by Katrina Solomon from onlinecollege.org who failed before they became successes:

Henry Ford
R. H. Macy
F. W. Woolworth
Soichiro Honda
Akio Morita (Sony)
Bill Gates
Harland David Sanders (KFC)
Walt Disney
Albert Einstein
Charles Darwin
Robert Goddard (rocket researcher)
Isaac Newton
Socrates
Robert Sternberg (President of APA)
Thomas Edison
Orville and Wilbur Wright
Winston Churchill
Abraham Lincoln
Oprah Winfrey
Harry S. Truman
Dick Cheney
Jerry Seinfeld
Fred Astaire
Sidney Poitier
Jeanne Moreau (actress)
Charlie Chaplin
Lucille Ball
Harrison Ford
Marilyn Monroe
Oliver Stone
Vincent Van Gogh
Emily Dickinson
Theodore Seuss Giesel (Dr. Seuss)
Charles Schulz
Steven Spielberg
Stephen King
Zane Grey
J. K. Rowling
Monet
Jack London
Louisa May Alcott
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Elvis Presley
Ludwig van Beethoven
Igor Stravinsky
The Beatles
Michael Jordan
Stan Smith
Babe Ruth
Tom Landry