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42 Times Celebrities And Successful People Were Badly Rejected But Later Proved Everyone Wrong
Mick Jagger, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, once famously said, "You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometime / You'll find / You get what you need." To further illustrate his point and show that the road to success is paved with failure, actors, writers and other creatives are using the hashtag #ShareYourRejections to share the times they were not good enough.
Author Saeed Jones started the initiative, saying "Sometimes I dig up old rejection letters from publishers and literary journals to remind myself that it’s just part of the process." He added the hashtag and others quickly joined him.
For example, writer and former children's laureate Malorie Blackman said that her novel, Noughts & Crosses, which deals with racial discrimination, was rejected for a literary award because "it would've shown more insight if a white author had written it". Scroll down to get your daily dose of motivation and upvote your favorites.
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Reminds me of that joke in the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School" where Rodney has Kurt Vonnegut HIMSELF write a paper on Kurt Vonnegut for Rodney ('cause Rodney's mad rich), and the professor, knowing Rodney didn't write it himself, says something like "Whoever *did* write this doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut!"
She was amazing in the part either way, cant imagine anyone else doing it as well as her.
We had a similar situation with an undergrad student that had done a rather bad job at reviewing a case study on the degradation of bones in an acidic environment in order to age biological remains. As she stood in front of the class and the professor, she proceeded to say "The guy that wrote this screwed up his data. The guy that wrote that got all of his conclusions wrong." Apparently the most important thing she should have read was the name of "the guy that wrote this." Maybe then she would have realized that he was the professor that was in the room currently grading her presentation.
Ouch.... I just go to my corner and quietly hold my stuffed lamb. Then... I write about how lonely it must be to live the life of those who rejected me and I weave a verse about their dark desperation to find ... love. Maybe scribble a few notes about how I hope the zombie apopalypse begins and ends in their offices.
Maybe he did want to focus on his career; what's the bottom line here? You being a film director doesn't mean he's not successful or enjoys his acting career, and you're certainly not better than him for getting to cast for your project.
The rejections aren't fun but I hope you always liked writing during that time.
Plenty of coaches/managers in sports that have never played professionally, yet still have a job.
Saw another story of a guy from Compton that was rejected from Google three times until they wrote to him and asked him to re-apply. He's been working with them for several years now and has a program that helps other kids from poor impoverished areas get the training they need to become members of the tech industry.
Some of the stories were a little bit 'Oooh, but I'm marvellous and no-one realised until X happened'. Unfortunately sometimes people get rejected as they aren't ready and that's why it works out several stages later on. Though in some others instances? Fantastic turnarounds and success. Kudos to those people.
Load More Replies...While working as an editor (newspaper), emailed a rejection of a submitted story without bothering to look at who wrote it. Then my phone buzzed because I just got an email.
This is actually a better rejection story than everything I just read!
Load More Replies...My grade 8 English teacher (who pronounced idea as "i-deer") recommended I drop out because I was not capable of finishing high school. I graduated high school at 17 and went on to earn 3 college degrees, graduating with a 3.8 GPA while working 2 jobs, one full time and one part-time.
Congratulations but you must have really sucked at 8th grade to have a teacher recommend you drop out of school
Load More Replies...I once was rejected for a job as a psychologist because I was no psychologist. I am. Stupid comittee didn’t read my resumé properly
Think you had a luck escape if they're that c**p at assessing candidates!
Load More Replies...When I was young and an avid gamer, they used to tell me "video games won't give you no bread". Well, guess what... They give me rice, bread and even cakes! I'm now working in the video games industry, and our company provides us with free lunch, birthday cakes, business dinners, business trips too sometimes.
A Dutch poet and writer, famous, had one of his grandchildren visiting him. The boy asked his grandfather to help him with his homework, since it was about some poems the grandfather wrote himself. Most of the questions were in the style of: what did the poet mean by this metaphore.... He answered all the questions honestly, and the grandson got an F.
I love these. I have the first part of this down: tons of scathing rejections.
The concept of this post is good...you need to persevere to succeed...but what bad entries! I found myself thinking I would reject you too!
I need to remember this when the I interview for a job and am not their first choice.
Am I the only person who basically knew no one that was on this list? They probably all are great in their field and deserved their break I just honestly wouldn't call most of these people celebrities since there really wasn't any huge break out stars on this list that have that major name recognition such as Denzel, Wynonna, Oprah, Reba ext. Those celebrities are actually so famous that you don't even need to say their last names because everyone already knows who they are and who you are talking about. Obviously not everyone is as lucky but I'd say about 95% of the people on this list even with reading both their first and last name I still had no idea who they were.
Some of the stories were a little bit 'Oooh, but I'm marvellous and no-one realised until X happened'. Unfortunately sometimes people get rejected as they aren't ready and that's why it works out several stages later on. Though in some others instances? Fantastic turnarounds and success. Kudos to those people.
Load More Replies...While working as an editor (newspaper), emailed a rejection of a submitted story without bothering to look at who wrote it. Then my phone buzzed because I just got an email.
This is actually a better rejection story than everything I just read!
Load More Replies...My grade 8 English teacher (who pronounced idea as "i-deer") recommended I drop out because I was not capable of finishing high school. I graduated high school at 17 and went on to earn 3 college degrees, graduating with a 3.8 GPA while working 2 jobs, one full time and one part-time.
Congratulations but you must have really sucked at 8th grade to have a teacher recommend you drop out of school
Load More Replies...I once was rejected for a job as a psychologist because I was no psychologist. I am. Stupid comittee didn’t read my resumé properly
Think you had a luck escape if they're that c**p at assessing candidates!
Load More Replies...When I was young and an avid gamer, they used to tell me "video games won't give you no bread". Well, guess what... They give me rice, bread and even cakes! I'm now working in the video games industry, and our company provides us with free lunch, birthday cakes, business dinners, business trips too sometimes.
A Dutch poet and writer, famous, had one of his grandchildren visiting him. The boy asked his grandfather to help him with his homework, since it was about some poems the grandfather wrote himself. Most of the questions were in the style of: what did the poet mean by this metaphore.... He answered all the questions honestly, and the grandson got an F.
I love these. I have the first part of this down: tons of scathing rejections.
The concept of this post is good...you need to persevere to succeed...but what bad entries! I found myself thinking I would reject you too!
I need to remember this when the I interview for a job and am not their first choice.
Am I the only person who basically knew no one that was on this list? They probably all are great in their field and deserved their break I just honestly wouldn't call most of these people celebrities since there really wasn't any huge break out stars on this list that have that major name recognition such as Denzel, Wynonna, Oprah, Reba ext. Those celebrities are actually so famous that you don't even need to say their last names because everyone already knows who they are and who you are talking about. Obviously not everyone is as lucky but I'd say about 95% of the people on this list even with reading both their first and last name I still had no idea who they were.