From an article posted in the Costco Connection by Andrew Lock on "Don't Give UP".

Elton John

"A friend of mine in the music industry personally auditioned a singer by the name of Reg Dwight in the 1960s. He unceremoniously shoved the singer out of his office for wasting his time. That singer is now better known as Elton John."

From an article posted in the Costco Connection by Andrew Lock on "Don't Give UP".

The Beatles

Decca Records turned down a recording contract with the Beatles with this fascination evaluation: "We don't like their sound. Guitar groups are on their way out."

From an article posted in the Costco Connection by Andrew Lock on "Don't Give UP".

Fred Astaire

After his first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, "Can't sing. Slightly balk. Can dance a little." Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

Why we struggle in our public schools…

I am reading a very inspirational book by Malcolm Gladwell called "Outliers".

Gladwell's interview sounds like a conversation that I have had with many people about being a creative artist…

"We sometimes think of being good at mathematics as an innate ability. YOu either have 'it' or you don't. But to Schoenfeld, it's not so much ability as ATTITUDE."

Gladwell quotes this math professor, Alan Schoenfeld, from Berkeley, "Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds." 

From an article posted in the Costco Connection by Andrew Lock on "Don't Give UP".

Charles Schulz

"every cartoon that Charles Schulz (creator of the comic strip Peanuts), submitted to the yearbook staff at his high school was rejected.

 

From an article posted in the Costco Connection by Andrew Lock on "Don't Give UP".

Albert Einstein

"did not speak until he was 4 years old and did not read until he was seven. His parents thought he was 'subnormal,'  and one of his teachers described him as 'mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in foolish dreams.' He was expelled from school.

From an article posted in the Costco Connection by Andrew Lock on "Don't Give UP".

Thomas Edison

"…teachers said he was 'too stupid to learn anything.' he was fired from his first two jobs for being 'nonproductive.' As an inventor, Edison made more than 1,000 unsuccessful attempts to invent the light bulb. When a reporter asked him how it felt to fail 1,000 times, Edison said that he didn't fail all those times, but that the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."

From an article posted in the Costco Connection by Andrew Lock on "Don't Give UP".

Walt Disney

"…was fired by a newspaper editor because 'he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.' Disney went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim, California, on the grounds that it would only attract 'riffraff'."