Some of these well-known people were either well on their way to success at 25, or far from it.
It stands to reason that some people in the world were just born with it, while others weren’t. But you will be fascinated to find out what these 10 now-successful people were doing when they were in the middle of their second decade of life, and you will be surprised by many of them.
LifeDaily’s What 10 Successful People Were Doing At Age 25:
Mark Cuban was a bartender in Dallas.
Jay Z was already in the rap scene but was relatively anonymous.
Born Shawn Carter, Jay Z grew up in a housing project in Brooklyn, NY. For the next few years he appeared alongside various rappers, but became anonymous until he founded the record label Roc-A-Fella Records at age 27 with two other friends. That year, he released his first album, Reasonable Doubt.
J.K. Rowling came up with the idea for the Harry Potter series on a train.
Rowling was 25 years old when she came up with the idea for Harry Potter during a delayed four-hour train ride in 1990. It took her years to complete, and wasn’t published until 1997. During that time, Rowling was fired from her job as a secretary for the London office of Amnesty International for daydreaming too much about Harry Potter, she got married, had a daughter, got divorced, and was diagnosed with clinical depression before finishing the book in 1995.
Martha Stewart was a stockbroker for the firm of Monness, Williams, and Sidel, the original Oppenheimer & Co.
Martha Stewart worked on Wall Street for five years as a stockbroker, and before that, she was a model, booking clients like Unilever and Chanel. In 1972, she left Wall Street to be a stay-at-home mom, and one year later she starting a catering business.
Warren Buffett was working as an investment salesman in Omaha.
Warren Buffett worked as an investment salesman for Buffett-Falk & Co. in Omaha in his early 20s. He moved to New York shortly after at 26 to work as a securities analyst. During that same year, he started Buffett Partnership, Ltd., an investment partnership in Omaha. On leaving New York, Buffet said: “In some places it’s easy to lose perspective. But I think it’s very easy to keep perspective in a place like Omaha.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook was cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users
By the time Zuckerberg hit age 25, he had already been hard at work on Facebook for 5 years. In that year- 2009, the company turned cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users. Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook: “The way we think about this is that we’re just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.” The next year, he was named “Person of the Year” by Time magazine.
Tim Allen was arrested and served the next two years in federal prison.
While Allen was working as a stand up comedian, he was arrested at age 25 at an airport for possessing more then 650 grams of cocaine. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and received two years instead of life in prison for providing the names of other dealers. The experience was so bad for Allen that he decided to turn his life around. He said: “When I went to jail, reality hit so hard that it took my breath away, took my stance away, took my strength away. I was there buck naked, humiliated … this is a metaphor. My ego had run off. Your ego is the biggest coward.”
Ralph Lauren was a sales assistant at Brooks Brothers.
Ralph was born Ralph Lifshitz and lived in the Bronx, New York, but changed his name at the age of 15. He went on to study business at Baruch College and even served in the Army until the age of 24 when he left to work for Brooks Brothers. At 26-years-old, Lauren decided to design a wide European-styled tie, which eventually led to an opportunity at Neiman Marcus, and the next year, he launched the label Polo.
Tina Fey was a child care registrar at the YMCA before joining famed improv troupe Second City
After graduating from the University of Virginia, Tina Fey moved to Chicago and hung around acting workshops and even worked as the child care registrar at a YMCA before improv troupe Second City invited her to join. Fey joined Second City because she “knew it was where a lot of SNL people started,” and in 1997 she sent scripts to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, who later hired her as a writer.
Richard Branson had already started the Virgin Records record label.
At age 20, Branson opened his first record shop, and then a studio when he was 22. By age 30, his company had gone international. His early years were tough, he admits: “I remember them vividly. It’s far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces. It’s difficult to hold your family life together; it’s bloody hard work and only one word really matters — and that’s surviving.”
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What 10 Successful People Were Doing At 25 is a post from: LifeDaily