Famous Failure – Elvis Presley

Born on 8 January 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, United States, Elvis Presley sold over 1 billion music records worldwide, making him an undisputed legend of the music industry.

Most people overlook failures and focus on celebrating their successes. While it’s good to celebrate them,  knowing of the failures can lead us on a better path and can help us to fulfil our dreams. Sometimes the vision becomes blurred and such failures who wrote their names in world history through their sheer iron will help us to dust off our clothes and keep moving forward.

When things go wrong, don’t go with them

Due to the financial crisis and an inability to make their payments on time, the Presley family had to leave their shotgun house. In 1948, When Elvis was 13, his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee from Mississippi, USA. For years, they lived in boarding houses until they had sufficient money to rent a two-bedroom apartment in a public housing complex.

Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.

At the age of 18, he recorded his first demo at Sun Records, but found no success out of it and again the following year, he did the second demo at the same place but failed to make an impact with it. Nonetheless, he failed in an audition the same year and missed an opportunity to become a part of a vocalist quartet called the Songfellow.

“They told me I couldn’t sing” were the words of disappointed Elvis to his father for not getting selected for the vocal group.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

In frustration, he then decided to join the trucking industry and became a trucker in the process. His friend Ronnie Smith became a link between him and the glory. Through Ronnie, Elvis met the lead singer of Smith’s professional band.

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