Don't let the bastards get you down.
In 1956, (Gene) Hackman began pursuing an acting career. He joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended another aspiring actor, Dustin Hoffman. Already seen as outsiders by their classmates, Hackman and Hoffman were voted "The Least Likely To Succeed", and Hackman got the lowest score the Pasadena Playhouse had yet given. Determined to prove them wrong, Hackman moved to New York City. A 2004 article in Vanity Fair described Hackman, Hoffman and Robert Duvall as struggling California-born actors and close friends, sharing NYC apartments in various two-person combinations in the 1960s. To support himself between acting jobs, Hackman was working at a Howard Johnson restaurant when he encountered an instructor from the Pasadena Playhouse, who said that his job proved that Hackman "wouldn't amount to anything". A Marine officer who saw him as a doorman said "Hackman, you're a sorry son of a bitch". Rejection motivated Hackman.
So what motivates Tom Brady? 
Walt Disney was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was not creative enough! His first two businesses failed.
Oprah Winfrey was publicly fired from her first television job as an anchor in Baltimore for getting "too emotionally invested in her stories."
Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts multiple times.
R.H. Macy had a series of failed retail ventures throughout his early career.
Colonel Harland David Sanders was fired from several jobs before founding a fried chicken empire.
Vera Wang failed to make the 1968 US Olympic figure-skating team. Then she became an editor at Vogue, but was passed over for the editor-in-chief position. Part of her made it to the Olympics as she designed costumes for skating champion Nancy Kerrigan.
Thomas Alva Edison was fired by Western Union.
When
Sidney Poitier first auditioned for the American Negro Theatre, he flubbed his lines and spoke in a heavy Caribbean accent, which made the director angrily tell him to stop wasting his time and go get a job as a dishwasher.
In one of
Fred Astaire's first screen tests, an executive wrote: "Can't sing. Can't act. Slightly balding. Can dance a little."
J.K. Rowling was a single mom living off welfare when she began writing the first "Harry Potter" novel.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as
Dr. Seuss, had his first book rejected by 27 different publishers.
Henry Ford's first car company failed. He left his second company, the first a name Ford, which became the Cadillac Car Company.
Talk about persistence! While developing his vacuum,
Sir James Dyson went through 5,126 failed prototypes and his savings over 15 years.
Saul Bellow's college English professor, the famed Norman Maclean, said he showed no signs of literary greatness and ultimately dismissed him as "a dud."
Ang Lee failed Taiwan's college entrance exams — twice. Then he tried to go to acting school, but his English wasn't good enough.
Then there are those did not become famous until after the age of 30:
Colonel Sanders 62
Alan Rickman 42
Stan Lee 39
Bob Ross 41
Samuel L. Jackson 46
Morgan Freeman 50
Steve Carell 43
Christoph Waltz 53
Harrison Ford 35
J.K. Rowling 32
Susan Boyle 47
Bryan Cranston 44
Danny Trejo 41
Viola Davis 43
Julia Child 50
Billy Bob Thornton 41
Oprah Winfrey, 32
Jonathan Daniel Hamm 37
Sylvester Stallone 30
James Gandolfini 38
Kathryn Joosten 60
Jane Lynch 49
Toni Morrison 39
Ray Kroc,52
Kerry Washington 35
Donald Fisher 41
etc., etc., etc.
