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Phil Cooke, the author of The Change Revolution blog, posted a great list of famously bad predictions.  Here they are:

1. “640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Bill Gates, 1981
2. “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” –Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
3. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” –Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
4. “I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” –The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
5. “But what … is it good for?” –Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
6. “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” –Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
7. This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” –Western Union internal memo, 1876.
8. “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” –David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
9. “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” –A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
10. “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” –H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
11. “I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” –Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”
12. “A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” –Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.
13. “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” –Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
14. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” –Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
15. “If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.” –Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M “Post-It” Notepads.
16. “So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.'” –Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.
17. “Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” –1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work.
18. “You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.” –Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus.
19. “Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” –Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
20. “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” –Marshall Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
21. “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” –Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
22. “Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction”. –Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
23. “The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon”. –Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
24. “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” –Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

I appreciate Phil compiling this list since it casts such a great and poignant spotlight on how sometimes other people (who we esteem to a level of all near omniscience) are quite often wrong.  Unfortunately, there are so very many dreamers, be it actors, writers, inventors, singers, musicians, or engineers, that give up on their dreams based on the opinions of others.  What we so often forget is despite these people’s education or career status, they are fallible humans who have acute ability to let their emotions, lack of foresight, jealousies, fears or what they had for breakfast dictate their responses.  In the end, the only thing that can keep you from reaching your God-given destiny and achieving your dreams is you.

Habakkuk 2:3 reads, “Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.” Just because your dream doesn’t manifest quickly or other people don’t rally around it immediately doesn’t mean that it will never happen.  LIkewise, Micah 7:8, AMP tells us, “Rejoice not against me, O my enemy! When I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me.” If you have a setback, man up and keep going.  Sure, they’re a part of life, but setbacks should never be end of your dreams.  We should all make a quality decision that ever time we encounter a trial or tribulation concerning the achievement of our dream, that we’ll refuse to quit and forget how to lose.

The Apostle Paul encountered quite a few setbacks as he fulfilled his life’s dream.

Acts 14:19-20, NIV – “Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city.”

That’s some Rocky versus Ivan Drago stuff right there.  Remember, that your quality will be determined by how you respond to adversity.  I love the story of Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest.  He failed the first eight times he attempted to climb the 29,000 foot mountain.  On the eighth time, he got within 800 meters of the summit, which means he climbed 90% of the mountain before he had to be lifted off.  As he was flying away after the eighth time, he looked at the mountain and shouted, “You’re not getting any bigger, but we are!”  He begun to train and better himself and on his ninth attempt, he succeeded.

The mountains in your life aren’t getting any bigger.  The obstacles that stand before you and your dreams can’t get any bigger, but you can.  Make a quality decision to build yourself up spiritually, emotionally and intellectually and even if obstacles come, use them as motivation to grow even more.  Just think if the Beatles would have quit after having been rejected.  Or Steve Jobs?

Throughout your life, you’ll have many marvelous opportunities to quit – just choose not to take them.