inspirations

 

Good Evening. Here is a great thought for the day:

  • After Fred Astaire's first screen test, a 1933 memo from the MGM testing director said: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

  • An expert said of famous football coach Vince Lombardi: "He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation."

  • Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, was advised by her family to find work as a servant or seamstress, because they said she couldn't write.

  • Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.

  • Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper for lacking ideas. He also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

  • Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach's 10,000 word story about a soaring seagull before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 1975, Jonathan Livingston Seagull had sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. alone.

At age 65, when most fry cooks retire broke and unfulfilled, Harlan Sanders didn't just shuffle off to the Lard Manor Retirement Home. The white-haired old gentleman took a seemingly worn-out idea and built it into a huge chain of stores. The old Colonel had a dream that turned feathers into a fortune. Ironically, he had been offered nearly $200,000 for his restaurant/motel/service station, but he turned it down because he wasn't ready to retire.

Two years later, he was flat broke because a new state highway bypassed his business and killed it. He only had Social Security to keep his boat afloat. At that time it was $105 a month. He didn't give up. He set out in his old car with a pressure cooker and a can of specially prepared flour. Many nights he had to sleep in his car because he couldn't afford a motel room. Ten years later, at age 75, he sold Kentucky Fried Chicken for $2,000,000 and a substantial lifetime salary. Never quit. It ain't over till it's over.

Have a
wonderful day.

"Each morning is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When the sun rises tomorrow this day will be gone forever, in its place will be something you have left — may it be something good. Follow your heart, it knows what to do."

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Some of our stories may be excerpts from books published by Simple Truths. Others have been collected over the past 45 years. Enjoy.

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