Saturday, January 03, 2004

A REAL WINNER

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

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.

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.

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?"

In the 1940's, 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 the Xerox Corporation we know
today.

Wilma Rudolph was the 20th of 22 children. She was born prematurely
and
her survival was doubtful. When she was 4 years old, she contacted
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 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 actually won a 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.

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.
A REAL WINNER is not one who never fails, but one who NEVER QUITS! In life,
remember that you pass this
way only once! Let's live life to the fullest and give it our best.


Sent by Geselle Bolivar
Author Unknown, Excerpted from "Never Quit" (orig. title)

A BLESSED AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!:)