1. 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."

2. Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of 22 children. She was born prematurely and
her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years old, she contracted double
pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralyzed 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 actua! lly won 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.

3. 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 round. Groups of guitars are on the way out." The group
was called The Beatles.

4. In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modeling Agency,
told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, "You'd better learn secretarial work
or else get married." She went on and became Marilyn Monroe.

5. 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.

6. 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?"

7. 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.

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.
And even the GOLD is tested against fire.

A winner is not one who never fails, but one who NEVER QUITS!

We have no right to ask when sorrow comes, "Why did this happen to me?"
unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our
way.

Life's Good! Live it!