7 People Whose Stories are Definitely Inspiring

Life is a struggle. Nobody can deny this fact. Most of the people in the world keep struggling trying to make ends meet and think about securing their lives and saving enough to support their family. These people are seldom remembered. While on the other hand there are some people who face it all, live through an endless struggle filled with difficulties, rejections and failures but surpass all to come out on the top as winners. These are the people whose name goes down in history with special mentions. These people are those who become the leaders in the various spheres of human endeavour while the rest do nothing but follow the trends that they set.

These people are the ones who inspire. So here we are presenting 7 people from the past 200 years whose stories will definitely inspire you.

 

Dhiru Bhai Ambani

If this man was born in the States (where currency minting laws are slightly flexible) he would have his face on at least some dollar note. Such was the immensity of this man’s character and contribution to the Indian Economy. Let me be very straight and tell you that if it wasn’t for him, we would have never seen the 1991 Economic Policy which opened the gates of India to Globalisation, Liberalization and increased Privatization.

A son of a school teacher who sold fitters on weekends as a kid to make ends meet at his home went on to become the richest man of India and one of the wealthiest people in the world. Reliance Industries in one of the largest public companies in the world and its founder had no professional education.

When he was 17, he somehow managed to reach Yemen in search of opportunity and found work as a dispatch clerk for A. Besse. Two years later in 1951, the company became a distributor of Shell’s Products and he was promoted to the post of manager at one of the oil filling stations. That was when he dreamt of owning his own refinery. After returning to India he started his first Textile mill in Ahmedabad and after that there was no stopping him. IN the next 5 decades he achieved more than any old capitalist in India had achieved in the past 100 years. Such was his motivation that by 2007, with a net worth of $ 60 Billion, the Ambani family became the second richest family in the world.

Inspiring isn’t it?

 

 

Jan Koum

Nobody knew Jan Koum 2 years back. But when Watsapp stuck a $19 Billion deal with Facebook, the founder of the world’s largest IM service was the top pick of talks all across the globe. With this achievement we received another stalwart of the information age.

Koum was born in a village on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine. He was raised by a housewife and a construction labourer. According to Forbes, their house had no hot water, and his parents thought that government kept a watch on every one so seldom talked on phones or otherwise.

In search of opportunity, He migrated to California, US with his mother when he was 16. He used to sweep floors at a Grocery Store and stood in line to collect food stamps. Harsh times couldn’t have gotten worse. By 18, he was a master computer hacker later hired by Yahoo in 1997 as an infrastructure engineer. In January 2009, he bought an IPhone and an idea struck him.

Things started to roll and on his birthday on February 24, 2009 he launched Watsapp Inc. in California. The rest as we all know is history. It is a truly inspiring story of how one struggles and come out on top as a leader and innovator.

 

Andrew Carnegie

Have you heard of US steel? Off course you have, it is the largest producer of steel in the world. Well, before it was US steel, it was Carnegie Steel, run by Andrew Carnegie who was born to a poor handloom weaver in Scotland.

Growing up in poverty, he lived in a one room house and his family embraced the tradition of sleeping over dinner as food was scarce. To fight such harsh standards, the family migrated to America where Carnegie got his first job at the age of 13 as a bobbin boy who changed spools of thread in a cotton mill for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. This horrendous environment didn’t stop him from reading as the young boy loved to read about Scottish heroes like Sir William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and what not.

His next job was as a telegraph messenger. A true entrepreneur at heart, Carnegie worked very hard from a young and received frequent promotions. While working on numerous jobs for the railroads he learned a great deal about business and steel and soon started investing to create a reserve. From his huge return, he established Carnegie Steel which by 1889 was producing more steel than the whole of Britain. In 1901, he sold his company to JP Morgan for $480 billion and became a true philanthropist and opened umpteen libraries and colleges to promote education.

From one room and no dinner to becoming the richest man in the world. What could be more inspiring than that!

Steve Jobs

For a person who was left at birth by his parents, adopted thereafter and fought with Drug abuse as a young adult, to become one the leading technological visionaries that the world will never forget is not simple story. Yes Steve Jobs didn’t have a divine lift but had a struggle most couldn’t imagine surviving.

Steve was a rebel at the start. From his early days he rejected the concept of formal schooling but that didn’t supress his academic grades. This also shows how hell bent on achieving he was.

Following high school graduation in 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon which was very expensive and took a toll on his foster parents. He dropped out of college and then sneaked around creative classes, learning all that he could. During that time, he slept on floors of college dorms and returned used bottles for food money and had to take free meals at a Hindu Temple nearby, every now and then.

After stints at a few firms, Jobs visited India and returned a changed man. Along with his friends like Steve Wozniak, he created Apple Inc. which today is one the best computer and tech companies in the world. Everybody knows that apple products sell like hot cakes.

Moreover, what truly is inspiring that at a point in Apple he was forced to leave the very company that he had created. But, that did not stop him from going forward with his innovative ideas like Pixar Animation and Next Computers. Apple became crippled without him and he was called back. Now that is when people know that you have left your mark in history when your reputation and name changes the way people see things.

His story is really an inspiring tale of struggle, hardship and success.

 

 

John D Rockefeller

There are rich people, then there are the richest and then there is John D. Rockefeller, the worlds all time richest person in history. He is the person who revolutionized the petroleum industry across the world once and forever. Imagine no oil pipelines! How costly would be the petrol you put in your car then! But thanks to Rockefeller, we have some relief.

He was born in a poor household with 5 other siblings and a conman for a father who disappeared for years at a time. Being the eldest son, he played his hand in trying to provide for his family at a very early age. He raised turkeys, sold potatoes and candy and eventually started lending small sums of money at an interest. A true genius isn’t it? Soon he partnered with a chemical engineer and invested in opening an oil refinery which later on became Standard Oil, the largest producer and distributor of oil and petroleum products in the world, propelling Rockefeller’s wealth and reputation to the highest of standards. Seldom have we seen a man rise from deep below the ashes and then embrace the sunlight as if it belonged to him but when such a thing happens, the beauty of it is quite inspiring.

 

Oprah Winfrey

Everybody knows her as the best TV show host in the history of television. The Oprah Winfrey Show has won many awards and has been rated the best show of its kind in media history. Oprah herself has been crowned as The Queen of All Media.

Born in poverty to a single teenaged mother in Mississippi she was later raised in an inner Milwaukee neighbourhood. She suffered severe child abuse as she was raped at the age of 9 and then 13 and later escaped from her home in search of something better.

For a person to receive such scars, rise from then and go on to become the queen of media is no easy task. Troubles were more as time went on as she became pregnant at the age of 14 but the child died during infancy. This did not stop her pursuit of happiness!

While still in high school, she got a job in radio and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her qualities were noticed soon and she was given a day time talk show because of her emotional and ad-lib delivery.

She became a millionaire at the age 32, the same time when her show went national and then international in the years to come. Today everybody knows her as she has become a household name across the globe.

The richest self-made woman in America was once raped as a kid and then was impregnated at the age of 14. If this cannot inspire you… then nothing can. In my opinion this is one the most inspiring personal stories in history.

 

JK Rowling

Every educated person who was born in the 1990s has read and loved Harry Potter which was authored by JK Rowling, our last inspirational person on this list. It can be safely said that Rowling spawned a new generation of readers and writers by taking the level of imagination and creativity to a transcendent level through her magical writing.

Divorced at the time and struggling to take of her children as a single, Joanne Keith Rowling put all that she had into her book which she had been outlining for years. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published in 1997 and the rest is history. The publishers thought that a woman’s name would not add appeal to the book and hence the pseudonym of JK Rowling came into being. Breaking through these stereotypes, Rowling’s books kept on coming and shattering historical records and making her a household name everyone would come to love and respect. It spawned one the most successful movie franchises in the history of Hollywood.

In the end, it was her dreams which she strongly believed in and never gave up upon which propelled her to success, money and fame.  She is truly an inspiring woman, for all the people in the world whose work will be remembered as a landmark in literature throughout the ages to come.

 

Why these people were or are so successful in what they did. It’s something we all could think about but if you read their quotes it will become quite clear. They never gave up on their dreams and loved and believed in what they did.

When you find the will to face all failures and still rise up to try again, that is when all doors start opening for you and success and opportunity come knocking on your own door.

So stay inspired, stay motivated and live a great life.