An independent entrepreneur, especially in the creative arts, must never give up. Here are some examples: Walt Disney - one of the greatest business leaders who created the global Disney empire of film studios, theme parks and consumer products didnt start off successful. Before the great success came a number of failures. Believe it or not, Walt was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was not creative enough! In 1922 he started his first company called Laugh-O-Gram. The Kansas based business would produce cartoons and short advertising films. In 1923, the business went bankrupt. Walt didnt give up, he packed up, went to Hollywood and started The Walt Disney Company. Richard Branson - He is undoubtedly a successful entrepreneur with many successful ventures to his name including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Music and Virgin Active. However, when he was 16 he dropped out of school to start a student magazine that didnt do as well as he hoped. He then set up a mail-order record business which did so well that he opened his own record shop called Virgin. Along the way to success came many other failed ventures including Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Clothes, Virgin Vie, Virgin cards, etc. Oprah Winfrey - who ranks No 1 in the Forbes celebrity list and is recognised as the queen of entertainment based on an amazing career as iconic talk show host, media proprietor, actress and producer. In her earlier career she had numerous set-backs, which included getting fired from her job as a reporter because she was unfit for television, getting fired as co-anchor for the 6 Oclock weekday news on WJZ-TV and being demoted to morning TV. and my personal favourite: J.K. Rowling - who wrote the Harry Potter books selling over 400 million copies and making it one of the most successful and lucrative book and film series ever. However, like so many writers she received endless rejections from publishers. Many rejected her manuscript outright for reasons like it was far too long for a childrens book or because children books never make any money. J.K. Rowlings story is even more inspiring because when she started she was a divorced single mum on welfare.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 14:26:55 +0000