"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: and it is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill
"I didn't see it then, but it turned out getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years I started a company named Next, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events Apple bought Next! And I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at Next is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lauren and I have a wonderful family together. I am pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't had been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it."
The Story
Steve Jobs co-created one of, if not the most, influential and successful companies in America. From the ground up Jobs shaped his dream and created something out of nothing. Spending his nights sleeping on dorm room floors, and returning spare glass Coke bottles for the 5 cent return to buy food, Jobs had a vision and drive beyond reason. Shortly after Apple finally had a boom of success, he was fired from the company he loved. There are very few people who would dare to dream as big as Jobs, and even fewer who would continue to dream after a loss like that. But instead of quitting, Jobs built another company that competed with Apple, and in the end earned his way back into the spotlight. From there the story continues to unfold, Apple has out lived Jobs and has gone on to become a household name in America, and dominates the tech scene.
The Lesson
Persistence and attitude. James Watkins once said, "A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence." If Jobs had given up on his dream, the world of computers as we know it would be completely different. But because he kept his head up, and his attitude right, Jobs has become an iconic American figure.