Nobody believed in them — today everyone knows them

You know their names today — but how uncertain was the path at the start?

If you see only the eventual outcome, a great career can seem almost inevitable. At the beginning, however, it was not yet a success story.

‘Nobody believed in them — today everyone knows them’ looks at well-known lives from that earlier perspective. Difficulties and rejection sit alongside the effort to keep learning and stay with a goal.

The article invites a question about your own life: are you judging the entire journey by one moment when much is still undecided? What gets overlooked in the finished hero’s story may be exactly what helps you, without having to copy someone else’s life.

Do you think your life is harder than other people’s, and that you have often faced failure and difficult times? Does achieving as much as others seem impossible because you do not consider yourself “special”? We hope these stories will make you think again.

1. Michael Jordan

Once the world’s best basketball player; today a businessman, multimillionaire and philanthropist. He almost missed out on his career after being dropped from his school basketball team. At first he cried all night. The next morning, however, he set himself a goal: to become the best not only in his team, but on the entire court. During the holidays he asked his coach for help. Every day he got up at six, went to the court and trained. He took the legendary number 23 because he was half as good as his brother, who wore 45. As a child he could not even afford a simple bicycle; later he bought Ferraris.

“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” — Michael Jordan

2. Arnold Schwarzenegger

He was born in a time without the internet, YouTube, personal trainers or modern gyms. Yet his physique is still regarded as an ideal in bodybuilding, and his training methods remain relevant. He grew up in harsh conditions and worked in a glass factory or sawmill. His family did not believe in him: he preferred sport to academic study. After vocational school, he trained in the afternoons. Once he even broke into a closed gym to keep training. His role model was Reg Park. After school Arnold joined the army. When he was denied leave to enter a bodybuilding contest, he went absent without leave, won the competition and was placed in solitary confinement. Afterwards he was allowed to train four hours a day.

“You can have results or excuses. Never both.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

3. J. K. Rowling

After university, attended under parental pressure, she worked as a secretary, without success. She moved to Portugal, taught English and wrote on the side, but nobody wanted to publish her work. Then Harry Potter emerged on a train, shortly after her mother’s death. Her central character was an orphan. Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript. Rowling did not give up. A small publisher accepted it on the condition that she use “J. K. Rowling” to conceal her gender. Today she is one of the world’s best-known authors.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something … unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.” — J. K. Rowling