#Leadership : 29 Famous People who Failed Before they Succeeded…Consider This: Some of the World’s Most Successful People have Failed — Sometimes More than Once.

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But Winfrey rebounded and became the undisputed queen of television talk shows before amassing a media empire. Today she is worth a cool $3 billion, according to Forbes.

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He went on to create the first summer blockbuster with “Jaws” in 1975, has won three Academy Awards, 4 Emmys, 7 Daytime Emmys, and his 27 movies have grossed more than $9 billion.

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But at the age of 36, Macy launched R.H. Macy & Co., which grew to become Macy’s, one of the largest department store chains in the world.

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Honda was a mechanical genius who idolized Edison and rebelled against the norm. His passion for aggressive individualism was more fit for the United States, and he found himself alienated him from Japanese businessmen, who valued teamwork above all else. Honda then boldly challenged the American automotive industry in the 1970s and led a Japanese automotive revolution.

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He traveled across the U.S. looking for someone to sell his fried chicken, and after finally getting a business deal in Utah, Kentucky Fried Chicken was born. KFC is now one of the most recognizable franchises in the world, with over 18,000 locations.

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George W. Bush once joked: “So now we know if you graduate from Yale, you become president. If you drop out, you get to be vice president.”

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Realizing her son was not meant to till the land, she let Newton finish his basic education and was eventually persuaded to allow him to enroll in Cambridge University. Newton went on to become one of the greatest scientists of all time, revolutionizing physics and mathematics.

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She began designing wedding gowns at age 40 and today is one of the premier designers in the fashion industry, with a business worth over $1 billion. (She also found another way back into skating, designing costumes for skating champion Nancy Kerrigan.)

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After that, things stayed bleak for a while, as Edison went onto be fired from his first two  jobs, for not being suitably productive.

Edison went on to hold more than 1,000 patents and invented some world-changing devices, like the phonograph, practical electrical lamp, and a movie camera.

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Poitier worked on his craft and eventually became a hugely successful Hollywood star. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor (“Lillies of the Field,” 1963) and helped break down the color barrier in the American film industry.

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Of course, Einstein’s communication and behavioral problems were not indicative of a lack of intelligence. He went on to win the Nobel prize in physics for the discovery of the photoelectric effect, and his special theory of relativity theory corrected the deficiencies of Newtonian physics.

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Astaire went on to become a Hollywood and Broadway legend.

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Rowling is now internationally renowned for her seven-book Harry Potter series and, in US currency, became the first billionaire author in 2004.

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But as Darwin studied nature, he found his true calling and traveled the world to uncover nature’s mysteries. His writings, especially “On the Origin of Species,” fundamentally changed the world of science by spreading the discovery of evolution.

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If he had given up his artistic career after it proved to strain his financial and emotional well-being, the art world would be missing hundreds of paintings from a true master.

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Ford’s career went on to span six decades, and has included timeless starring roles in blockbuster films like the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” series.

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Dr. Seuss became a legendary children’s author known around the world for classics like “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham.” His books have sold over 600 million copies.

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Then she got her big break when CBS picked up her and her husband Desi Arnaz’s vaudeville act and turned it into the highly influential sitcom “I Love Lucy.”

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At the outbreak of World War II on Sep. 3, 1939, Churchill was appointed to the British Admiralty, thus ending his “exile.” The next year, he was elected prime minister at the age of 62.

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However, after conducting a search, he was finally able to find a partner who had faith in him. Ford proved he had learned from his mistakes when Ford Motor Company forever changed the automotive industry and culture with his assembly line mode of production.

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But the 5,127th prototype worked, and the Dyson brand became the best-selling bagless vacuum brand in the United States. He is now worth an estimated $4.9 billion, according to Forbes.

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King’s wife Tabitha found the manuscript in the trash and took it out. “Carrie” became a hit and launched his career. His novels have since sold over 350 million copies.

“They were like, ‘Go home! Or at least experience something other than boarding school,'” she recalls. She did, and has since gone onto starring roles on Broadway (“Skylight,” “The Seagull”) and in Hollywood (“An Education,” “Shame”).

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A newly graduated English major, Gross did what many of us do: she took a teaching job in Buffalo’s toughest inner city junior high. “I couldn’t keep the students in the classroom, I couldn’t teach them a lesson, I couldn’t do anything,” she told Marc Maron onstage at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her tenure lasted all of six weeks.

Gross then discovered radio, and her long-running interview show, “Fresh Air” now reaches more than 5 million listeners on 450 stations.

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Bellow — who went onto write masterworks like “The Adventures of Augie March” and “Humboldt’s Gift” — ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, a Guggenheim, and the National Medal of Arts. He is also the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three separate times, and received the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

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Now, Stefani Germanotta is a pop icon, the winner of six Grammy awards and a Songwriters Hall of Fame award. She’s a regular on Billboard’s Artists of the Year lists, is known for her activism (LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention), and is worth $59 million, according to Forbes.

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“I was always in shame that I could not focus on books,” Lee told ABC News. “And I failed the college examinations. My father was my high school principle…That was bad.” In theater school, he fell in love with the stage, but his English wasn’t good enough.

Now, he’s an a three-time Academy Award-winning director, and the man behind mega hits like “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,” “Life of Pi,” and “Brokeback Mountain.”

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Growing up in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, Jay-Z worked to perfect his flow, his lyrics, and his references. When he couldn’t get a single bite on his first CD, he and his friends sold the record “out of the boot of their car next to Gray’s Papaya.”

Now, the musician — who’s also an investor and entrepreneur —  is worth $550 million, according to Forbes.