Stepping stone to greatness

AS children we are often taught that failure is bad.

Doing badly in a school test often ends in some sort of punishment.

bines psychological rigour with spiritual power - helping you to become the best version of yourself and create a life of happiness and abundance.

It’s only fair to let the boys play too, so we’ve included this global bestseller on our list to help optimise every spare minute of your busy work day.

The Miracle Morning: The 6 Habits That Will Transform Your Life Before 8AM, Hal Elrod What’s widely regarded as “one of the most life changing books ever written” may be the simplest approach to achieving everything you’ve ever wanted, and faster than you ever thought possible. A must-read.

As a result, many of us enter adulthood thinking our failures are a negative, a sign we’re just not good enough at something, or a reason to be ashamed of our attempts.

But what if the reality was actually the opposite? What if it’s our failures that in fact give us the tools we need to achieve massive success?

Here we have rounded up a selection of household names who initially struggled to get where they are today.

Oprah Winfrey, the American talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist had a rocky start to life. She was brought up in a low-income family and says she was once sexually abused. She became pregnant at age 14, but lost the baby and went to live with her father.

She was fired from her first job on a local television station, but has since gone on to become one of the most popu- lar, influential and wealthiest women in media with television shows and even her own TV channel.

In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Forbes state her net wealth as around $2.9 billion (€2.7 billion).

In her own words: “Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”

J K Rowling, the woman behind the most famous wizard of all time, Harry Potter, has said she believed she was a failure before penning the novels.

She was a single, divorced mother suffering from depression and struggling to make ends meet when she wrote Harry Potter. In 1995 all major publishers rejected her book, but a year later Bloomsbury accepted it and in 1997, the book was published with only 1,000 copies.

Today, Harry Potter is a multi-million franchise with books, films and even a West End show and J K Rowling is now considered to be the most successful female author in the UK. Her net worth is said to be around $1.1 billion (€1.02 billion).

She said: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you’ve failed by default.”