5 rags to riches stories

Rags to riches stories always motivate and inspire people. Even if you don’t want immense wealth, these stories will demonstrate to you, that with action and perseverance, you too can have what you desire.

Some of these stories you may have heard of, but it’s good to be reminded.

1. Chris Gardner

Like most rags to riches stories, Chris Gardner’s consists of many ups and downs. When he was a child, his father left him. His mother remarried, to a man who was anything but a father figure. He made Chris’ life and his mother’s life a living hell. Chris was chased out of the house and really had nowhere to go. He eventually found a place in the Navy.

After the Navy, he became a medical supplies salesman. He then had a child with his wife, Sherry. His career in the medical industry was doing well for him then, but the future was uncertain. The industry was changing, so Chris had to look to somewhere else for employment.

One day Chris saw a man parking a red Ferrari. He went up to him to ask what he did for a living. The man told Chris he was a stock broker. That’s all Chris needed to hear. Now he wanted to pursue a career as a stock broker.

Chris left his job as a supplies salesman. He had little money and his wife left him. Chris had no job, no money, no wife, and no home. But he did have his son. His son gave him immense motivation to do what he had to secure a better life.

The two of them were homeless and slept wherever they could, including a bathroom at the subway station. While they were homeless, Chris studied for the licensing exam, which he passed.

They were still struggling, but they had more hope than ever before. Chris got a job at Bear Sterns in San Francisco. He made cold calls to get new clients and worked as many hours as he possibly could.

As Chris worked harder, their situation began to get better. They were able to find a place to live and Chris was starting to earn more money. In 1987, Chris was able to start his own brokerage firm called Gardner Rich & Co. in Chicago.

There is much more to Chris’ story, enough to fill a book and make a movie out of. I recommend you research more about him.

2. Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey was born in Ontario, Canada. He grew up with his mother and father and with an older brother and two older sisters. In the beginning things for the Carrey were doing okay. Jim’s father, Percy was supporting his family as an accountant. But when Jim was a young teenager, the family’s situation began to deteriorate.

They all had to relocate to Scarborough, another town in Ontario. To help make ends meet all of them took up jobs at the Titan Wheels Factory, including Jim. They worked in the janitorial and security departments. While working an eight hour shift Jim was still attending school.

They eventually moved on from the factory but things still didn’t get any better. The family was living out of a camper van. Jim decided enough is enough and took a shot at comedy, his main passion.

Jim did a few stand-up routines at local comedy clubs and was instantly hooked. At sixteen he dropped out of high school and performed celebrity impressions. Then he made a major choice to move to Los Angeles.

In LA he performed a regular gig at The Comedy Store. His talent impressed many people including Rodney Dangerfield.

Jim didn’t stop at stand-up. He began to look around for work in other areas of entertainment. He landed a part on a short-lived sitcom called The Duck Factory. After that, Jim played a few more parts in some movies.

Jim also did a film entitled, Earth Girls Are Easy. One of his costars, Damon Wayans called his brother Keenen. Keenen was creating a show called In Living Color. Jim joined the cast of In Living Color. This became Jim’s breakout role because of his many memorable characters.

After this show, Jim moved into bigger film roles. His hits included Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. Jim became one of the highest paid comedians and actors in Hollywood history.

3. H. Wayne Huizenga

Wayne was born in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois to Harry and Jean Huizenga. When Wayne was in his early teens, he along with his father, mother, and younger sister moved to Florida.

His father, Harry, wasn’t an ideal male figure. He was abusive to his wife Jean. They were close to a divorce until they moved to Florida. The move was Harry’s plan to save the marriage and start over.

But Harry didn’t really want to change. He still was abusive to both Jean and their children. It was tough for all of them but Wayne didn’t let this stop him. He used it as motivation to get a better life.

After high school, Wayne moved back to Chicago and tried attending college but dropped out after about a year and a half. Wayne then enlisted in the Army reserves. He trained with them for about a year.

After Army training, Wayne moved back to Florida, where he moved towards the waste management industry. He bought a truck and began to take out the garbage in Broward county. Broward was seeing a huge population boom at this time.

In less than ten years, Wayne grew that one garbage truck into a fleet and a successful business. The business stretched across much of the southern part of Florida and eventually grew into Waste Management Inc.

WMI became one of the largest waste management firms in the United States. Wayne wasn’t settling down though, he wanted more.

Wayne set his sights on a new industry. One of his friends mentioned a small company called Blockbuster, which at the time only had a few stores. Wayne was intrigued when he visited one of the stores and decided to buy the company.

Wayne again turned another company into a huge success. Blockbuster grew and grew and eventually merged with Viacom for $8 billion. Wayne moved on to pursue more ventures, many which also have become very successful.

Through his career, Wayne has founded three Fortune 500 companies and has owned three professional sports teams.

4. Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey’s rags to riches story is probably one of the most well-known. Oprah was born to unwed, teenage parents in Mississippi. After Oprah was born, the two teenagers broke up.

For the first six years of Oprah’s life, she was raised by her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee. Her grandmother was poor and couldn’t provide much, but did provide Oprah with a great ability, the ability to read before the age of three.

When Oprah was six, she moved to the inner city of Milwaukee to live with her mother, Vernita Lee.

Oprah still didn’t have much except her academics. She excelled in school and was even awarded a scholarship to attend Nicolet High School.

As Oprah grew older, she became a rebellious teenager, running away from home. Her mother decided to send Oprah to live with her father, Vernon in Tennessee.

Oprah continued to do well in school and other areas of life. Her success impressed WVOL, a local black radio station. She got a job with them to do the news part-time. This was Oprah’s first taste of the media world. She liked it very much and chose that as the industry where she wanted to pursue a career.

After the radio, Oprah moved to television. She worked as a news anchor for WLAC-TV in Nashville. There she was the first black female anchor and the youngest ever. Oprah then moved to Baltimore, Maryland where she became an anchor of the six o’clock news. Then she co-hosted a local talk show called People Are Talking.

Oprah then moved on to Chicago where she hosted a show called AM Chicago. At the time, the show was very low rated. Ms. Winfrey however took it to a whole new level. It became the highest rated talk show in Chicago.

After the success, the show was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show and became nationally broadcasted. I guess you could say the rest is history.

Oprah has been nominated for an Academy Award, runs a successful magazine, TV show, website, and will launch her own cable network in 2009.

5. Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was one of the titans of the industrial age. But before this time he was a poor boy from Scotland.

His father, William, was a hand loom weaver. When the industrialization of society began to spread across the world, William’s job became obsolete. The family had difficulties making ends meet. Then like most people of their time, they decided to start a new life in America.

In 1848 when Andrew was thirteen, they arrived in the US. Andrew quickly got to work at a cotton mill. He worked six days a week and twelve hours each day. Three years later Andrew got another job as a telegraph messenger for the Ohio Telegraph Company.

Andrew quickly excelled at the job and showed a great work ethic. A man from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company offered him a job as his secretary and telegraph operator. With each new job, Andrew worked harder and harder and earned more money.

Andrew quickly became the superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the railroad company. Thomas Scott, the man who offered Andrew the job became his mentor. Thomas helped him with investing. Andrew early investments were very successful. With each profitable investment, Andrew put the money into another company.

These investments gave him enough capital to continue investing in other businesses and industries. Andrew remained with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and continued to advance his career there.

Andrew eventually started investing in the steel industry. Andrew moved away from the railroad industry but kept his contacts with those he met in the industry. His investments grew into a steel company that became one of the largest in America.

Andrew’s company was eventually bought out for the equivalent of 120 billion in 2007 dollars.

After this, Andrew became a philanthropist and donated a large amount of his fortune. His donations went to build schools and libraries across the country and the world.

Their stories may be different but they all demonstrate that your current circumstances cannot prevent you from where you want to be in the future.

Photo by jpre86

People, Success | April 21st, 2008 | Published by Andrew Galasetti

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This article was published on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 7:03 am and is filed under People, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

24 Responses to “5 rags to riches stories”

5 rags to riches stories says:
April 21st, 2008 at 7:17 am
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Allen Taylor says:
April 21st, 2008 at 7:34 am
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.

Allen Taylor
Andrew says:
April 21st, 2008 at 7:35 am
Excellent Allen! Glad you enjoyed my writing.

-Andrew
Tom Humes says:
April 21st, 2008 at 7:45 am
Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.

Tom Humes
Andrew says:
April 21st, 2008 at 7:54 am
Thank you Tom. The layout is simple but effective.

-Andrew
Sj says:
April 21st, 2008 at 11:51 am
Great article.Proves the point that there is a light at the end of every tunnel.
Andrew says:
April 21st, 2008 at 11:53 am
Thanks Sj. And very true! For there to be a bottom, there has to be a top.

-Andrew
blanne says:
April 28th, 2008 at 8:54 am
That was amazing. Great job for posting this up. It sure will inspire people out there.
Andrew says:
April 28th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Thanks blanne. Glad you enjoyed it.

-Andrew
Amy says:
April 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
These are all inspiring stories. Thanks for posting.
Andrew says:
April 29th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
No problem Amy! Thanks for reading.

-Andrew
neha seth says:
September 4th, 2008 at 5:12 am
Awesome. One must try to win over the ideas. Achieve what you want. Drink the life to the last.work harder and make your parents proud. Obstacles do come and will remain coming until. Very easy to preach and too difficult to grab your fate. But try harder!!!!!!!!!!
Elsa says:
September 5th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I always like this kind of story. Thanks for the article.
Andrew Galasetti says:
September 6th, 2008 at 12:13 am
No problem Elsa.

-Andrew
P.M.W.1 (E.T.) says:
October 16th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I am actually Korean who is in the Philippines.
I am a student. Still young. Aged 14. My name up there is just my silly nickname.^-^

I love your article!!!
It inspired me very much to work hard.
I like how you write. It’s simple and short but very meaningful and affective!!
This is long~story but the point is it gave me very good inspiration and helped me in my homework in Accounting.

Thank you very much!!
And keep it up!!

^0^
Andrew Galasetti says:
October 16th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Glad you liked it! And thanks for the compliments.

-Andrew
Prakash says:
October 21st, 2008 at 2:00 pm
By reading such useful stories, people from all walks of life can certainly benefit from it. All they need is persistance and determination and the will to succeed. Please inspire more and more people with lot more success stories so that everyone is benefited. Best Wishes.
Andrew Galasetti says:
October 21st, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Very true Prakash. It’s amazing to see how such successful people had such humble beginnings.

-Andrew
How to get rich: the magic that will take you there | Factoidz says:
November 12th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
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David says:
January 1st, 2009 at 11:27 am
Excellent articles. Great writing.
Domngo Bunagan says:
January 6th, 2009 at 1:31 am
A very interesting, heart warming, motivating, and inspiring article you’ve done. I myself is strugling and hoping to be there at the top. Your story adds to my passion, I’m fired up and I thank you for giving me such a wonderful and moving feeling. Hope to hear more from you. Your a good fellow.
Andrew Galasetti says:
January 6th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Glad it got you fired up! There’s even more rags to riches stories out there if you look around.

-Andrew
Munir Desai says:
January 6th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
It was Amazing and i am sure many of us have that guts courange and fire in us to make it BIG…and you did a great job by getting such motivational and inspiring incident that can give ideas to many of us to make it may be bigger than what all they did…thanks for sharing this with us…
Andrew Galasetti says:
January 6th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Happy to share these stories with you Munir!

Everyone has it in them, not everyone brings it out.

-Andrew