Thursday, March 27, 2008

Inspirational Stories

Inspirational Stories

(Short Readings; January 2002)

 

 

In 1962, four nervous young musicians played their first

record audition for the executives of the Decca recording

Company. The executives were not impressed. While turning

down this group of musicians, one executive said, “We don’t

like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.”

The group was called The Beatles.

 

*****

 

In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book

Modelling Agency, told modelling hopeful Norma Jean Baker,

“You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married.”

She went on and became Marilyn Monroe.

 

*****

 

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry,

Fired a singer after one performance. He told him, “You

ain’t goin’ nowhere son. You ought to go back to drivin’

a truck. “He went on to become the most popular singer in

America named Elvis Presley.

 

*****

 

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?”

 

*****

 

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.”

 

******

 

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.

 

******

 

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.

 

*****

 

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…

 

You must do the thing you cannot do.

And remember, the finest steel gets sent through the

hottest furnace.

 

A winner is not one who never fails, but one who

NEVER QUITS! In LIFE, remember that you pass this way

only once! let’s live life to the fullest and give it our

extreme best…!

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