A Lesson in Persistence We Can Learn From Heinz, Hershey, Ford, Disney, and Trump
From our experiences growing up, we all have different ideas on how to make money in the world.
But even with these ideas, most of the times starting out, we have no idea if they will work out or not. We’re afraid of failing so we let are dreams disappear and settle for the next best thing.
This type of approach is common in most people that begin to face adversity.
Realize that even with every failure we make, it is a lesson that we can learn from that will eventually lead you towards your goal only if you make the decision to be persistent enough to make it through the end.
If you went bankrupt today, would you consider that a big problem? Imagine if you went bankrupted today, how would it affect you? Would you give up?
Here are five people, each who went bankrupt, and made it to success despite failing numerous times.
Henry Heinz
Heinz began by selling vegetables to his community as a kid since his family tended a garden. He was successful in doing that, and then narrowed it down to horseradish, the best horseradish in town.
With the goal in mind that someday he would build a business selling the things he had a passion for, he and a friend created the Heinz Noble & Company selling horseradish.
In 1875 however, the company went bankrupt as a result of not being able to pay his workers due to the popularity of horseradish, driving the price of it down.
Despite being in a great amount of debt, Heinz didn’t give up. He started another company called F & J Heinz, this time producing tomato sauce. The company manufactured quality ketchup and became an instant success, allowing Heinz to recover from bankruptcy and turning his company into a multimillion dollar corporation.
Because of his persistence of turning his idea into reality, today we enjoy one of the most delicious and quality ketchups – H & J Heinz Company Ketchup.
Milton Hershey
Hershey started out working for a printing press, but realized that type of work didn’t suit him.
Afterwards, he worked for a candy maker for four years, and developed a passion for different types of candy, realizing this time that distributing quality candy to the world would be his dream.
He started his first candy-making business in Philadelphia, but it failed. He then started another candy-making business in Chicago, but that failed as well, and one in New York, which also failed again.
Doing all of this caused him to go bankrupted, and his family had a hard time helping him pay some of the debts that he owed for his early attempts. Under a lot of pressure and criticism, he decided not to give up.
He created one more company called the Lancaster Caramel Company, this time using a caramel recipe he had learned from his past hoping that this recipe would work. It finally did and people loved his caramel chocolates.
From the money he had earned, he then went onto to create the Hershey Company using fresh milk available to him to create milk chocolates.
Today, we enjoy that very milk chocolate formula from one of the most delicious milk chocolate bars ever created – the Hershey Chocolate Bar.
Henry Ford
Ford started out with the reputation of a watch repair man. Having a talent and always ambitious to fix things and make them better, Ford began experimenting with gasoline engines. He created his first automobile called the Fordricycle and kept on thinking of new ways to improve it.
His dream was to be able to offer a reliable and affordable automobile to every American. He then started a business around cars when the Detroit Automobile Company was launched.
The company failed however, as the cars was of low quality and the cost too much.
He tried again with the Ford and Malcomson, Ltd. but failed again when sales were too slow and the owners of the car parts demanded their first payment from Ford, since he was using their parts to make cars.
On the brink of going bankrupt, Ford tried his best to persuade the owners to join his company. They finally gave in.
With a third attempt, he created the Ford Motor Company. Within a couple of years, Ford and company came up with higher wages, better production with the creation of the assembly line, and better cars, including the Model T and Model A.
He was able to turn the company into a multimillion dollar corporation and provide one of the most reliable and affordable brand of cars that we have today – Ford Cars.
Walt Disney
Disney started out working with what he loved to do, draw, and got paid drawing pictures for his neighbor, a retired doctor. He carried his love for drawing until high school, where in between, he was influenced by motion pictures.
He wanted to become an artist, drawing comic strips for the newspaper, but no one wanted to hire him.
It was until his brother gave him an opportunity to work at an art studio. He took the opportunity, where he created ads for newspapers, magazines, and movie theatres.
After the art studio job was over, Disney worked for the Kansas City Film Ad Company making commercials based on cutout animations. He then created an animation studio that produced animation called Laugh-O-Grams, successfully airing at a local theatre.
Problems arose however when Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram studio was loaded with too my debt because of the salaries he had to pay to all his employees.
As a result of all the debt Disney owed, the studio went completely bankrupt and he was left with nearly nothing.
He decided to move, despite all his debt, to pursue his dream of producing great animation to the world. From Hollywood, California, he was able to create his greatest works and his company went on to become a multi-million dollar corporation.
Since then, we have enjoyed all the works that Disney has given to us, from his cartoons and movies, to his theme parks and hotels.
Donald Trump
Finally, we have Mr. Trump. This ambitious man started out working after college to creating many million dollar projects that involved real estate.
He was very successfully early in his career buying and creating million dollar projects and eventually selling them to make million dollar profits. These included apartment complexes, hotels, convention centers, and casinos.
However, during the recession of 1989, he was unable to cover the debt of casinos, especially the one billion dollar Taj Mahal.
By 1991, he had lost control of his most valuable assets including the Trump Plaza Hotel and declared bankruptcy, being $900 million dollars in debt.
Taking a decade to recover from his debt, he eventually was able to erase it all through incredible deal makings and a line of other successful projects.
Trump is now not only a billionaire who owns many famous hotels, casinos, and real estate property, but also a well known celebrity with the popular reality TV show, The Apprentice.
Despite each of these people going into financial troubles, debt, company problems, and bankruptcy, they were still persistent enough to make their business work out – Heinz with produce, Hershey with candy, Ford with automobiles, Disney with animation, and Trump with real estate.
We are all used to their product names now, and even though they are all famous, there was a time where they were just normal, common, everyday people.
The only difference between what separated them and everybody else who failed in business was that they had big dreams and decided to be persistent enough to make those dreams happen.
You may be facing difficult times right now or your business is not going your way you planned, but just remember that these five people were able to come out of adversity despite bad starts, low sales, and even total bankruptcies.
Take a lesson in persistence from successful people. They don’t just become successful right away. It may take a couple months or it may take years and years of trying.
And even when the world is giving you all the signs to stop, if you just say to yourself, “No, I will make this happen no matter what until the very end,” eventually, you’ll see that it will.
About the Author
Tristan Lee is a writer who enjoys helping others with self-improvement and personal success. Read more of his self-improvement posts at his blog, http://www.tristanleesblog.com/.
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