From Denis Waitley:
It may motivate you more toward your own goals to 
know that some of the most famous and well-known people in modern times had to overcome obstacles as difficult as anyone’s before they finally reached the top. It takes persistence and total commitment to your goals, but it’s possible.
Thomas Edison’s father called him a dunce. His headmaster in school told Edison he would never make a success of anything.
Henry Ford barely made it through high school.
The machines of the world’s greatest inventor, Leonardo da Vinci, were never built, and many wouldn’t have worked anyway. Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid Land camera, failed absolutely at developing instant movies. Setbacks and failures mean little or nothing in themselves. The whole meaning of any setback – or success, for that matter - is in how we take it and what we make of it.
