The names Oprah Winfrey, Walt Disney, and Steven Spielberg aren't usually associated with failure.
But before these super successful stars made it big in Hollywood, they first failed, were fired, or heard the word "no" countless times.
But they never gave up.
See what 13 game changers had to overcome before becoming famous.
Beyoncé lost on "Star Search" in 1993.
Before people bowed down to Queen Bey, Beyoncé and her Houston, Texas-based hip hop group Girl's Tyme weren't considered winners on popular talent show "Star Search."
The group, who would later become known as Destiny's Child, appeared on a 1993 episode of "Star Search"— but lost to the Skeleton Crew.
Now 20 years later and one half of the most powerful couple in the music industry, Beyoncé included the "Star Search" footage in her new "Flawless" music video off her record-breaking visual album.
Walt Disney was told a mouse would never work.
Before Walt Disney built the empire he has today, he was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas."
In 1921, Disney formed his first animation company in Kansas City, where he made a deal with a distribution company in New York, in which he would ship them his cartoons and get paid six months down the road. He was forced to dissolve his company and at one point could not pay his rent. He reportedly survived by eating dog food.
Also, When Walt first tried to get MGM studios to distribute Mickey Mouse in 1927, he was told that the idea would never work because a giant mouse on the screen would terrify women.
Entrepreneur Walt had a whole slew of bad ideas before coming up with good ones, read about them here.
J.K. Rowling was on welfare.
Before J.K. Rowling had any "Harry Potter" success, the writer was a divorced singled mother on welfare struggling to get by while also attending school and writing a novel.
Luckily, that novel turned into the "Harry Potter" franchise, which has since made Rowling a billionaire as of April 2012.
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