All washed up, too old, a failure …

Are you washed up? Too old to make a new start? Tried before and failed? Did you used to have dreams and now all you have is regrets? Don’t quit! I’m here to tell you to shake off that bad attitude, it’s bringing you down. And it’s probably bringing lots of other people down too; a bad attitude spreads like a virus, and it infects everyone it touches.

Lots of the great achievers didn’t make it till late in life. Some didn’t make it till everyone else had given up on them. Then something happened. Something clicked. Some freakish coincidence occurred. Or they just plain kept on plugging away at what they were doing. And maybe then they suddenly, after decades of failing, became an ‘overnight’ success.

Clint Eastwood was too gangly and didn’t project

Way back before he made it, Clint Eastwood went to an agent to see if he could get any film work. After listening to him, the agent told him he was wasting his time. He told him he was too tall and skinny and he didn’t look right. He said he could barely understand a word he said, he spoke so quietly. He reckoned there was no chance of him getting work in the industry and no, he wouldn’t waste his time signing him up. He advised him to stop wasting his own time too. Fortunately, Clint didn’t take much notice of him.

Fred Astaire could ‘dance a bit’

When Fred Astaire was still unknown he went for a screen test for a film part. The guy doing the testing watched him and later wrote down on his report “Can’t sing. Can dance a bit.” He didn’t have much else to comment.

Fred didn’t let it get him down too much. He liked to dance so he carried on.

Harrison Ford was fitting doors

Harrison Ford was a carpenter working on a film set when someone noticed him and suggested he try for a part. I guess you know the rest!

J K Rowling stayed in the coffee shop all day to keep warm

I remember reading about J K Rowling’s amazing rise to fame some years ago. It detailed how, before she had anything published, she had spent her days in a coffee shop with a single cup, writing her first Harry Potter novel in a stack of exercise books. She liked to stay in the coffee shop to keep warm, since she couldn’t afford to keep her flat heated. At the end of the piece, the writer said she was so successful now, with the whole Harry Potter series selling all over the world, and in dozens of languages, and with the films in production, that she was earning a cool half million dollars … a day!

Stephen King didn’t know how to write as a girl

Stephen King was working on what later became his first published novel but it wasn’t going well. He would write seated on a chair, with an old typewriter on his knee, in an alcove in their mobile home. He lost patience with his writing and angrily tossed the manuscript in the bin. Fortunately, his wife saw it later and picked it out, wiped off all the garbage, and read it. She said it seemed okay and asked him why he’d thrown it out. He told her it was about a girl reaching puberty, and discovering she had psychokinetic powers, and he didn’t really have a clue how to write from the girl’s perspective. What guy would?

She told him she could help; he should start again, and this time ask her for her input anytime he wanted to know how the girl would feel, or what she might do in any given situation. That became Carrie, and the career of one of the most successful and prolific authors in history had finally taken off.

They didn’t quit … and neither should you

If you look into the careers of some of the most successful people in the world, you’ll find stories of personal tragedy, of grinding poverty, of failure and disappointment, and sometimes utter despondency. Fortunately for us, they didn’t give up. They didn’t quit and the world is so much richer for them.

You’re one of life’s successes. Maybe the penny hasn’t dropped yet, but you’re a success waiting to happen. I know you sometimes think you’ve failed. You think you’ve tried everything and there’s nowhere left for you to go. You might think you just don’t fit in. You don’t look right. You haven’t got what it takes. But listen carefully … it’s not too late. Your best is yet to come. You have it in you to shine, and to find your niche. You will be successful. The only way you can possibly fail is to quit and stop trying.

Don’t quit. Don’t stop believing. You will prevail. And your future, the future you always secretly imagined for yourself, is just beginning.

Take a look at this short video. You’ll see a few other people, just like you, who thought it was too late, who thought they were too old, who thought they’d missed the bus. They went on to great things. You can too! Never give up on your dreams!