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Walkup's Way Home

HEROES
PERSISTENCE
 OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

You never really lose until you quit trying. 

 Mike Ditka, NFL Football Coach

Alphabetical Listing of Persistent People Overcoming  Obstacles

 

James Audubon:  He failed miserably in business - trying everything from changing locations, to changing partners & changing businesses.  Then he changed himself: he followed his passion.  He observed and drew birds, creating the famous book,  Audubon's Birds of America

Douglas Bader, British Air Force  Pilot:  He had 2 artificial legs, and during World War II was  captured 3 times by the Germans and escaped 3 times.

Beatles, musicians:  they were turned down by Decca Recording Company in 1962.

Alexander Bell called President Hayes to give him a demonstration of a phone.  Hayes said, “That’s an amazing invention, but who would want it?”

Ludwig van Beethoven, composer:  He was completely deaf by the age of 46, yet wrote his greatest music after becoming deaf.

Bill Bradley, U.S. Senator and New York Knicks basketball star: He practiced relentlessly.  He had 5 spots on the court from which he would shoot 25 balls.  If he didn't get 22 out of 25, he would start again.

Pablo Casals, one of world's greatest cellist:   When asked at age 95 why he still was practicing 6 hours a day, he said, "because I think I'm making progress."

Julia Child, chef:  Julia and 2 partners worked 5 years to create a cookbook.  Publishers rejected it.  They worked for another year, and again it was rejected. They worked again, found a new publisher, and  Mastering the Art of French Cooking has  sold over a million copies.

Tom Dempsy, place kicker in the National Football League:  He was born without toes on his right foot.   In fact, he kicked one of the longest field goals, 63 yards, in NFL history, even though his  kicking foot was half the size of his other one.

Walt Disney - pursued his dream  - despite having to declare his bankruptcy five times.

Thomas Edison, inventor:  His mom pulled him out of school because his Port Huron, Michigan, teachers complained he was too slow. She home-schooled him.    By the age of 10, he set up his own chemistry lab. Eventually he created 1300 inventions..  To create the light bulb he tried over 2,000 experiments.   When asked how it felt to have failed so many times, he said, “I never failed once.  I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process.”

Jim Eisenrich, professional baseball payer:  He has Tourette's syndrome.

Malcolm Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine:   He failed to make the staff of Princeton's school newspaper.

 

Getty
Whenever John Paul Getty was considering a business decision, he would ask, "What's the worst possible thing that could happen in this situation?"

Then, when he was clear about the worst possible outcome, he focused all his attention on making sure that it didn't happen.

You should apply this technique to every risk situation or investment you ever make.   Getty is quoted from www.beliefnet.com



 
Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist & author:  He has Lou Gehrig's disease 

Victor Hanson - co-authorof Chicken Soup For the Soul - Hanson approached thrity-five different publishers. The thirty-sixth finally said , "yes." Over seventy-five million copies have been sold, making it one of the best selling series of all times.

Milton Hershey
He was fired from his first job as a publisher's apprentice. 
So he took up a four-year apprenticeship with a confectioner, then borrowed considerable sums of money from relatives , opened a candy shop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, worked hard for 5 years, and his business failed
He failed in two further candy businesses.
Milton's fourth candy venture, started with a resilient former co-worker, was a success. And within ten years, Milton Hershey was one of Pennsylvania's most prominent citizens. 

Edmund Hillary:  failed in his 1952 attempt to climb Mt. Everest (29,000 feet). Upon his defeat, he made a speech & said he would conquer Mt. Everest next time - and he did.  He became the first man to climb Mt. Everest.

Rafer Johnson, decathlon champion:  He was born with a club foot.

 Michael Jordan:  He was cut from his high school basketball team when he was a sophomore.  He was heartbroken when he read the list of names on the bulletin board at the high school gym, and his was not among them.  His solution:    He  walked each night to the basketball court that was about a mile away from home.  and  practiced every night  (for four to six hours) for a year - be it wind, rain, or any inclement weather. He practiced every shot and move that  would gain him acceptance into the high school team.  [I think Jordan's original rejection was a blessing in disguise, as it provided him with the motivation to practice incessantly - and thus be the very best he could be.]  Read his 2005  autobiography , Driven From Within.

Helen Keller: Helen did not give up and feel sorry for herself. She chose to develop herself in appreciation of the faith invested in her by her instructor

Abraham Lincoln:   he had entered the Blackhawk War as a captain,  yet was demoted to private by the end of the war.
At age 22 failed in business
At age 23 was defeated for the state legislature
At age 25 failed in business again
At age 26 coped with the death of his sweetheart
At age 27suffered a nervous breakdown
At age 29 was defeated for speaker
At age 34 was defeated for congressional nomination
At age 37, was elected to Congress
At age 39 lost renomination for Congress
At age 46 was defeated for the Senate
At age 47 was defeated for the vice-presidency of the US
At age 49 was defeated for the Senate
    BUT at 51, in 1860,  was elected President of the USA

General Douglas MacArthur:  He  was turned down from West Point not once, but twice. He reapplied a third time , succeeded & has marched to power and fame.

Carson McCullers, author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter:   She suffered 3 strokes before the age of 29.  she suffered through her husband's suicide.   She endured constant pain.  Yet, she wrote one page a day, having become a famous author.

John Milton, author of Paradise Lost:  He was blind.

In  1944 Marilyn Monroe was told by the director of Blue Book Modeling Agency: “You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married.”

Itzhak   Perlman, world-class violinist:  He was paralyzed from the waist down.

Wilma Rudolph, winner of  3 Olympic gold medals:   She was the 20th of 22 children and born prematurely.  Survival was iffy.  At age 4 she contracted  double pneumonia and scarlet fever at age 9 she removed a metal brace on her leg she had worn all her life and learned to walk;   doctors said it was a miracle  She eventually entered races and lost every one.  eventually, however, she became an Olympic gold medal winner.

Hershell Walker, winner of the Heisman trophy:   He had been told in junior high that he was too small to play football.  without any encouragement or support, he went into training and built himself up.

Sam Walton: Was told by his mentor, J.C. Penny, "You don't have a future in retail."

Heather Whitestone, 1994 Miss America:  She is deaf.

Read more examples of true hero stories at http://yourtruehero.org/

Please email me  further examples for this page. Thanks, Louise Walkup
  Lnwalkup@aol.com 


Statistics
    54 million Americans have some form of disability
    People with disabilities comprise approximately 20% of the population
    One in three families are touched by disability  

  • Causes of Disabilities:
    56% Physical
    27% Medical 
    9% Sensory
    8% Mental 

information taken from St. Patrick Church Bulletin 12/5/2000


Student Reports on Disabilities 

 

    Students with special needs are welcome at Three Rivers Community College.  The college is committed to providing help to students with learning disabilities.  Providing equal educational opportunity to students with disabilities as in section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1991.  Both of these acts state basically the same thing:  a student cannot be refused education because of a learning disability.  The institution must provide adequate facilities for these students.

    Any student that wants to officially enroll at Three Rivers must  provide government or federal documentation to be eligible for these services.  To receive these services, students must register at the Student Development Center on both campuses.    The services are provided on a case-by-case basis, and all students who anticipate these services should contact a disability advisor as soon as possible.

    The following services are available through Three Rivers:  auxiliary aids, academic advisement, reasonable academic accommodations, priority registration, basic skill remediation, study skill development, compensatory skill development, alternative testing arrangements, note takers, readers and interpreters, large type print copies and other such things like this.  the list goes on and on.


7 Steps to Success for students with learning disabilities

(written by FYE student 2000)

  1. Set realistic goals & priorities for course work
  2. Request reasonable accommodations so you can learn and demonstrate knowledge  of course work
  3. Sit towards the front to minimize distractions
  4. Use a tape recorder
  5. If overwhelmed, talk to the prof  immediately
  6. Seek help from campus support
  7. Study in a quiet environment, free from distractions

Success Quotes

 

The will is free;
Strong is the soul, and wise and beautiful;
The seeds of godlike power are in us still;
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!
Matthew Arnold 1822-1888

 

We will  see when we are grown
And trod wearily  into heaven
That our  heavy crosses have been
Transformed into our royal crown.
Our priceless gift from heaven
That we never would have chosen.
L. Walkup

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
Katharine Lee Bates (1859–1929), U.S. author. America the Beautiful (l. 17–20).

To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self.
Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929), U.S. sociologist

The heroes and discoverers have found true more than was previously believed, only when they were expecting and dreaming of something more than their contemporaries dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they were in a frame of mind fitted to behold the truth. Thoreau

:Heroes create circumstances; circumstances create heroes. Chinese Proverb
 

Necessity makes heroes of us all. Mason Cooley (b. 1927), U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms, New York (1984)

:Troubled times produce heroes. Chinese proverb

:Cowards suffer, heroes enjoy. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They re just braver five minutes longer. : Ronald Reagan,

Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.  W. Hegel

And in that time 
When men decide and feel safe 
 To call the war insane, 
 Take one moment to embrace 
 Those gentle heroes
 You left behind.
From a 1970 poem written three months before Maj Michael Davis O’Donnell's, death in Vietnam, chosen for inscription across top of NY Vietnam War Memorial, Newsweek 20 May 85

. There will be other McCarthys to come who will be hailed as its heroes. Max Lerner

 

Aim at nothing and you'll succeed.  -- Anonymous

The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success. --B. C. Forbes

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.  Albert Einstein 

It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.
-- Harvey S. Firestone

Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to  succeed. Corita Kent

Always aim for achievement, and forget about success. -- Helen Hayes

The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success.  Irving Berlin

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. --Theodore Roosevelt

There is no point at which you can say, "Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap."  --Carrie Fisher

Don't take anyone else's definition of success as your own.  --Jacqueline Briskin

Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Christopher Lasch

Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.  --Coco Chan.

Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.  --Peter Drucker.


"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. -Calvin Coolidge.

Attitude is more important than aptitude when it comes to reaching one's altitude