Famous People Who Flourished After Being Fired

#1 Being Fired

It's not the end of the world, but when it happens to you it's devastating. How will you pay your bills, where will you stay, don't they realize you're kept that place running? These are all questions we ask ourselves when we lose a job. But termination papers enabled these now famous people to explore their real callings in life and we are thankful for that. Just for inspiration, if they can move on and keep rolling then you should be able to as well.

#2 Walt Disney

Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star newspaper in 1919 after his editor told him that he wasn't creative enough and said he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas." With his savings, he purchased Laugh-O-Gram, an animation studio he later drove into bankruptcy. When he set his mind on Hollywood, his creativeness took sail and everyone knows how that turned out.

#3 J.K. Rowling

Before J.K. Rowling was writing about wizards and warlocks, the best-selling author was working as a secretary for the London office of Amnesty International. When Rowling's dreams of becoming a writer got in the way of her secretarial work, she got fired. Rowling used her severance check to support her as she began to write the book series that would change her life forever. Today, she's the multi-billionaire author of one of the most successful book series of all time and is credited with bringing people back to reading.

#4 Thomas Edison

Today, Thomas Edison is regarded as one of the most prolific inventors in history. However, during Edison's early years, he was called stupid by his teachers and was fired from his first two jobs for not working hard enough. He secretly conducted experiments in his office at Western Union until one night in 1867, he spilled some acid that ate through his entire floor. Of course, he lost that job as well but it made him decide to focus on his inventions. Despite his failures and firings, Edison went on to invent some of the most remarkable devices like the light bulb, the phonograph. and the motion picture camera.

#5 Elvis Presley

He is now considered the King of Rock and Roll, but he wasn't always on top, especially when he was first starting out and trying various musical genres. After a lackluster performance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, the concert hall's manager told the singer he was better off returning to Memphis and his old career, driving trucks. He didn't give up, however, and went on tour with Hank Snow, one of the biggest country music singers at the time. Eventually, and luckily for us, he broke out into a sound of his own and made music history as one of the undisputed top performers ever.

#6 Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban wasn't always a successful Internet mogul and NBA owner. In the '80s, Cuban worked as a salesman at a computer store but found himself more interested in working on computers and developing business plans rather than manning a cash register and sweeping the floors. Cuban was laid off, and this was the last time he worked for someone else ever again. Shortly after his termination, Cuban started his first company, MicroSolutions. Since then, he's made over $3.1 billion.

#7 Oprah Winfrey

Long before Oprah Winfrey became the most successful female talk show host in television history, she was working as a TV news reporter at WJZ in Baltimore. After seven and a half months of co-anchoring at WJZ, Winfrey was pulled off the air because the producer felt she was too emotionally invested in her stories and was "unfit for television news." Of course, she was heartbroken, so the station offered her a position on a daytime talk show, which at the time was considered a huge step-down since talk shows were not that popular in the afternoons. Her sadness quickly faded as the show, People Are Talking, became a huge station hit, and the rest, as they say, is her-story!

#8 Jerry Seinfeld

Jerry had a very tiny role on the ABC series, Benson, and never knew he was fired until he showed up to work. The producers didn't like the way he played the part and after just 3 episodes he got canned. In true Seinfeld fashion, nobody told him he was fired and he showed up for a read-through one day and found his part was missing. He went back to his stand-up shows to pay his bills and was eventually discovered by an agent from The Tonight Show who gave him an on-air gig. He later went on to make sitcom history with his series, Seinfeld.

#9 Bill Belichick

Bill Belichick may be best known for leading the New England Patriots to several victories, including three Super Bowl championships, but this isn't the first NFL team Belichick has coached. From 1991 to 1995, Belichick was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, but after facing a losing season, Belichick was let go. Although the chances of Belichick getting another head coaching job looked bleak, he got the opportunity to join the Patriots in 2000.

#10 Lucille Ball

Before her iconic show I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball was considered a failed actress, a B-list actress. So much so that her drama instructors urged her to try another profession. They suggested she try secretarial work. She had already made several films, none of which were successful. She was dumped by her studio and even her acting coach gave up on the comedian. That didn't stop her, however, as she was soon offered a part on a radio show called My Favorite Husband, which was a big hit. After marrying Desi Arnaz and forming her own studio, Desilu, she took that radio character, revamped her, and filmed one of television's classic sitcoms, I Love Lucy.

#11 Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour is best known as the successful and cut-throat editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine. Despite her success, this hard-nosed leader has been booted from a few demanding positions before. When Wintour was starting her career as a junior fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar, her work was heavily criticized by editor Tony Mazzola, and she was fired nine months later. Shortly after working at Harper's, Wintour went on to work at a couple different magazines including Viva, before landing her spot at Vogue. The movie, The Devil Wears Prada, was loosely based on her career in the fashion business.

#12 Michael Bloomberg

Billionaire businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn't reach this level of success without failing a little here and there. When Bloomberg was a partner at the investment bank, Salomon Brothers, he and 62 colleagues were fired because the company was bought out by Citigroup. Bloomberg used his severance check to develop his own financial services company, which has made him the 18th richest person in the country.

#13 Robert Redford

Award-winning actor and director Robert Redford didn't always shine on the job. When Redford was a teenager he worked as an unskilled worker at Standard Oil. After he got caught falling asleep on the job and making several mistakes, Redford got fired. His boss wrote on his pink slip that he was lazy and sloppy, and his talents could be used elsewhere. This incident led the young man to pursue his dreams of moving to New York and going to college and eventually becoming an actor, director, screenwriter, and producer.

Categories

More