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30 Rags To Riches Stories Of Common People Who Rose From Poverty To Great Success
The world is full of get-rich-quick schemes and people who have amassed a lot of wealth with a tremendous amount of help. The only problem is that those stories aren’t relatable and don’t give regular folks hope that they can also become wealthy if they try.
That’s why this list is full of inspiring stories of the people who made it on their own. They built their empire and became rich because of their hard work and talent. It truly shows how much grit and determination they had to create the life they wanted to live.
More info: Reddit
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#1
Stephen King
Dad left his mother when he was two. she worked a series of odd jobs to provide for him and his brother.
He worked various odd jobs to pay his way through college, published short stories here and there.
Lived in a trailer with his wife and kids and had just got his phone disconnected because they couldn't afford it when he got the news that his first novel was being published. Received the good news via telegram!
Now he's one of, if not THE, most popular author in the world.
Grace Sssssss 5 months ago
And pays for heating oil for folks in Maine who can't afford it, out of his own pocket.
cecilia kilian 5 months ago
As one of his many "Constant Readers", I wish I could give multiple upvotes. "Uncle Steve" rocks!
RELATED:
#2
Sarah Breedlove. Born in 1867 in Louisiana. Her parents and all her older siblings were born into [servitude]. Orphaned at age 7, employed as a child domestic servant by age 12.
To earn extra money, she began selling hair products geared toward Black women. Eventually developed her own line of hair care products that were sold door-to-door and demonstrated to groups of women decades before the 'Avon Lady' marketing model was developed from her model. When she retired, she had a sales staff of 20,000, her own factory in Indianapolis, and her 'Madam C.J. Walker' hair products were sold nationwide and throughout the Caribbean. First African-American woman millionaire - creating an estate that in today's money would be worth over $30 million.
Marnie 5 months ago
They had to censor s l a v er y. Way to be super right-wing, BP, that you don't want people to acknowledge horrors that we want to prevent in the future!
Roxy222uk 5 months ago
Exactly. Servitude is not at all the same thing as being ens.laved, FFS.
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Michael Largey 5 months ago
We used to go downtown to her movie place, the Walker Theater in Indianapolis.
Heather Gordon 5 months ago
Wonderful achievement but I keep asking myself why, in America, she can’t just be the first American Woman not African American woman. Why does Americans also add the extra wording.
#3
Eminem has to be up there.
PeepPeep the duck 5 months ago
The one in a million that inspired all the other ferals I grew up with to think they were also going to make it as rappers 😂 that era was wild though. (I grew up very poor and I was also feral ).
Huddo's sister 4 months ago
Yes, most with rat's tails and eyebrow rings :)
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Julia Mckinney 5 months ago
Speaking as a short, fat, white, tail-end boomer, woman, I like most of his stuff.
Courtney Christelle 5 months ago
I think he’s funny. My brother listened to his music and, as a kid, I’d sneak into his room when he was gone to steal his CDs. Now as an adult, I can’t believe my mom allowed my brother to listen to his music when he was a teenager.
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Kris 5 months ago
Eminem has been around in the mainstream music business for over 25 years. Not knowing this person is really on you.
Load More Replies...Everyone wants to believe that they can go from rags to riches if they just work hard enough. Those kinds of stories give people the hope that they can better their lives and rise beyond their circumstances. The only problem is that the likelihood of that happening for a person from a poor family is just 1%.
Even though everyone is always rooting for the underdog, research shows that kids born into rich families have a 22% chance of being wealthy as adults. This is because they have better resources handed to them and support that can help them carve out the pathway to success with ease. Poorer people don’t just get everything handed to them, which is why it can be such a struggle.
#4
Tao Huabi was the 8th daughter born to a poor family in rural post-war China who was never taught to read or write. As a teenager she survived the worst famine in human history partially by foraging for wild plants. After the death of her husband some years later, she opened a small food stall to support her children. It was at this stall that she first started selling noodles with her homemade chili crisp sauce. By 1989, she was able to open up a restaurant where she quickly earned the nickname “Gan Ma” or “Godmother” as she was known to frequently give discounts and extra food to impoverished schoolchildren. Her spicy noodles rapidly grew in popularity and before long people were coming just to buy the chili crisp on its own. When construction of a new highway started in the early 90s, she began giving out samples to truckers to promote it by word of mouth which further boosted its popularity. By 1997, she established her own factory to mass produce the condiment. Fast forward to today, the “Lao Gan Ma” (Old Godmother) brand produces 1.3 million bottles of chili crisp per day and is sold in 30 countries alongside numerous knock-off imitations. As for Tao Huabi, whose face adorns every bottle, she’s currently estimated to be worth $1.05 billion and serves on China’s national legislature.
OneHappyPuppy 5 months ago
So Lao means old in Chinese. Interesting. It means People in Greek (λαός)
Huddo's sister 4 months ago (edited)
I have a friend who was telling me they fell in love with this when they lived in China and now they will buy it any time they drive near Clayton (south eastern suburb of Melbourne) which is 1.5 hours away from where they live. There aren't really any Asian supermarkets in woop woop :) (not an actual town, a term for a town in the middle of nowhere)
Julia Mckinney 5 months ago
She sounds great. Although, I'm sorry I'll never be able to try her condiment seeing as I have trouble with anything spicier than regular ketchup (what can i say? I have Scandinavian tastebuds so I need non-spicy foods)
Mabelbabel 5 months ago
Its not that spicy, honestly. I'm Irish, we generally don't like too much spice either (our national dish is basically mashed potato and boiled cabbage!). The oil in the crispy chili oil she developed smoothes out a lot of the tongue-numbing spiciness, leaving you with a gentle heat. Its far more flavourful than just hot spice.
Load More Replies... #5
She didn’t come from absolute poverty, but Sara Blakey the founder of Spanx essentially spent a decade trying to convince people to believe in her product.
When she finally did, Spanx exploded. She refused to take outside investment and built the whole thing on high risk loans + one single mill owner in North Carolina who agreed to take a chance on her product.
At 41 she finally took on investment from a PE firm and became the youngest self-made female billionaire ever. She celebrated by giving every single one of her employees $10,000 and two free plane tickets anywhere on Earth.
Jrog 5 months ago (edited)
The brand got famous overnight because Oprah featured it on her show at the peak of celebrity. They strive really hard to push that "working girl invents something to fix an everyday problem, believes in her dreams, fights opposition from estabilishment and becomes billionaire out of hard work", but always forget how she had industry connections to put her product into major retail chains such as Neiman Marcus, Saks and Bloomingdale, and had a PR backchannel that featured her on an iconic TV show boasting a gullible public ready to buy any c**p featured on the show. They also parrot the "started the company on her own money" but that may have been true for a short time, the sale to a financial fund *connected to Oprah* in 2021 apparently involved other equity holders.
Sudeep Sarkar 5 months ago
Wasn't her mother Bree and forbade her to make or sell the s*x harness?
StrangeOne 5 months ago
If you're spending a decade trying to convince people to believe in your product, then that's a sign you'll have a better chance of convincing the North Sentinelese to believe in the Bible.
Grace Sssssss 5 months ago
Shapewear. Girdles, basically, but newer and updated.
Load More Replies... #6
Ching Shih was a female Chinese pirate in the 18th-19th centuries whose life reads like a bonkers romance novel.
She was born poor, and ended up working a brothel, where she caught the eye of a pirate captain who - according to lore - attacked the brothel specifically to liberate her. They married, and she sailed by his side for years, until his death.
At that point, she managed to gain control of his modest pirate alliance... and proceeded to kick all the a*s. She built up one of the largest pirate fleets ever, with hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors, one so large that it was able to fight the Imperial Chinese navy to a standstill. Ultimately, the Chinese government had to offer pardons to her and the vast majority of her crews, for them to agree to stand down. They even got to keep their loot.
And then she retired to run a casino/brothel, and live off her accumulated booty, dying sometime in her late 60s.
To this day, she's widely considered the most successful pirate in history.
PeepPeep the duck 5 months ago (edited)
I always find it funny in pirate history that a man who stuck smoking sticks in his beard and was a pretty s****y pirate and womaniser is more famous than the most successful and coolest pirates due to a cool nickname. Edward is cool too but then when you learn about the others, he becomes so average and mediocre 😂
What’s interesting to note is that many of the folks on this list were once a ‘nobody,’ and now, they’re well-known for all that they’ve achieved. One such person is the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz. He grew up in a housing complex for the poor, and now his net worth is over four billion dollars.
His journey started because of his ambitions to be as successful as the rich people he saw around him. His biggest goal was to prove to people that he could do so much more than they believed he could. Through his hard work, he won a football scholarship at university, went on to work for Xerox, and then took Starbucks over and grew it into the global chain it is today.
#7
Bee Gees - The Gibb brothers came from abject poverty.
Gingersnap In Iowa 5 months ago
There's an excellent documentary How to mend a Broken Heart, on HBO.
#8
Jim Carrey lived in a van with his family and wrote himself a $10 million check for “acting services” long before he got famous, then actually cashed it years later for Dumb and Dumber.
#9
Giannis Antetokounmpo has a unique story.
Child of refugees, born and raised in Greece but the government refused to acknowledge him and give him.his passport (took years fighting against a racist government)
His parents were poor, there were days they did not have food. He and his brothers had to share basketball shoes to practice. They were all selling stuff on streetlights as teenagers.
His coach and teammates (on an amateur team) helped him a lot when he was a teenager. They gave them shoes and food.
Then he got drafted on the NBA...
Sara Frazer 5 months ago
I'm not familiar with sports stuff but this is amazing, I hope he and his family are doing much better ❤️
MontanaMariner 5 months ago
He's earned $50+ million just from his NBA contracts. Several million more with endorsements. I'm pretty sure his brother plays/played as well.
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OneHappyPuppy 5 months ago (edited)
Not really Greece as a country, but the people never saw him as another and rejoiced when he was granted citizenship. I believe he was given his passport BECAUSE he got into the NBA otherwise the Americans would have beat them to it. Hence lose a valuable player of team Greece. Same with his brothers.
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nm 5 months ago
Greece is not a racist country, nor has a racist government. Don't confuse it with US. The Greeks invented Philoxenia and deified it. Simply the last decades the country, along with the rest of Mediterranean European countries, is overwhelmed by millions of illegal immigrants and cannot save all the destitute of the world.
It might feel harder to make a name for yourself in a creative field, especially because there is always so much competition. The reality is that you can also become famous and wealthy as a creative persona if you put in the right amount of effort. This is exactly what happened to Ed Sheeran, who is now considered one of the biggest names in music.
He was actually a struggling artist who sometimes slept in train stations or on top of heating vents. He often played at the local homeless shelter as well, and an original song that he had written for one woman went viral, which is what catapulted him to success. His hard work made him into the star he is today.
#10
Founder of Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzang. He was known as the beggar emperor. His parents and siblings died in a famine, he was then accepted into a temple where he begged for alms as a monk and learnt to read and write. Traveling as a monk made it clear to him what was wrong with the country. He subsequently joined a rebellion, worked his way to the top and united the whole of China, founding Ming Dynasty.
PeepPeep the duck 5 months ago (edited)
We need more people in power with backgrounds like this so they “get shiṯ” when it comes to real people.
#11
Recently I’d say Gordon Ramsay.
Born in Scotland to a nurse and an alcoholic father, he went from basically homeless to what he is now.
OneHappyPuppy 5 months ago
I'd comment something Monty Python level funny here but I'll get downvoted to hell... So I'll just say go Gordon!
PeepPeep the duck 5 months ago (edited)
We had a chef who is now famous (not name dropping this one as his isn’t well known). But he was a H a****t and was to the point of shootiṉg up in the eye of his pee pee, I kid you not. He told me in Sydney (where he was from) at his worst he bricked a pizza delivery man and robbed him while breaking into a house for money for dṟugs. Horrific stuff. He cleaned up and went on to be one of Australia’s successful and highly paid chefs, and even found pizza guy to apologise etc. changed his whole life around - he got married had kids, he pee pee worked again and he has a whole new mentality in life views and morals
#12
Stallone
He was so desperate for parts, he had a minor role in a p***o. At his brokest, he sold his dog - his best friend, for $25. Spent his last bucks to watch a boxing match and got inspired to write Rocky. Studios loved it and IIRC, offered him something like $250k for the script as long as he didn't star in it. But he rejected their offer bc he believed in himself and eventually the studio gave him a lowball figure and let him star in it.
Apatheist Account2 5 months ago
Maybe it's my sheltered life, but I read the censored word as "panto" - I mean, it's not necessarily a career high point, but hardly desperation :) He was also in a commercial, so not entirely unemployed.
nm 5 months ago
Back in the 80s, when I was living in Brazil, I saw an advertisement for Italian Stallion on a p.o.rno cinema with his name. I had dismissed it as fake but it seems now it was true.
DrBronxx 5 months ago
It was rereleased and renamed the Italian Stallion after he became famous.
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OneHappyPuppy 5 months ago
Crappy storytelling, no he didn't sell the dog to go to a game, those two events were completely unrelated
Load More Replies... Jrog 5 months ago (edited)
BTW, he never "spend years in Canada". It's just a stupid internet rumor. He was born in Hell's Kitchen, NYC; moved to Silver Spring, Maryland and later in Washington with his family; then moved to Philadelphia after his parents divorce. He lived for a two years in Switzerland on a college sport scholarship (three whole years being eligible for the draft), then went to university in Miami and moved back to NYC. After the success lived in a bunch of places in California: Malibu, Hidden Valley, La Quinta, Beverly Park and Hidden Hills. He now lives between Palm Beach, Florida, and East Hampton in NY.
Load More Replies...Everyone wants to be rich, famous, and live a comfortable life, but it might not always be possible to do it the way many of the folks on this list did. According to research, the rags-to-riches stories often do more harm than good because they make people compare themselves to others.
It’s true what they say: comparison is the thief of joy. It can also affect a person’s self-esteem to compare themselves to someone who they feel has achieved tremendous success. The best thing we can do is to use our own achievements as a benchmark and try to keep growing.
#13
Ray Charles. Mother washed clothes, brother drowned, he went blind, got PTSD, and became Ray f*****g Charles.
Sara Frazer 5 months ago
One of the first vinyls I bought when we got a record player was a compilation of some of his best hits. Such an amazing musician, love his work. ❤️
Ellinor 5 months ago
I saw the movie made about him, I think I was far too young to see a child drown in a bassin.
ILoveMySon 5 months ago
The movie "Ray" features Jamis Fox and is excellent.
Load More Replies... #14
Victoria Woodhull got rich as a traveling magnetic healer, joined the spiritual movement and lost all her money, then became a stock broker on Wall Street and got rich again. She was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement, the first woman to own a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and was a United States presidential candidate in 1872.
Michael Largey 5 months ago
Being a seller of bogus remedies has launched many a presidential candidate.
Roxy222uk 5 months ago
She does rather smack of a hustler just wanting to make coin.
Load More Replies... #15
Elvis Presley. That guy was literally dirt poor.
Stephanie Did It 5 months ago
I've seen his childhood home in Tupelo, Mississippi. It's a two-room shotgun shack. (A shotgun shack is a house with its rooms arranged in a row from front to back, so that if you shot through the front door, the bullet would go straight through and out the back door.)
Going from poverty to prosperity isn’t an easy task; it requires a lot of effort and determination. It seems like the people on this list had exactly that, which is what you can develop as well. Rather than waiting around for your luck to work or some long-lost relative to drop wealth into your lap, maybe it’s time to make it happen for yourself.
Do you have any inspiring stories like this about folks who got rich quick but without any connections? We’d love to hear what you’ve got to say.
#16
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Very humble begins in post WW2 Austria.
Lee Gilliland 5 months ago
He used to practice with tree branches because he couldn't afford barbells or a gym membership. Got his start because a GI who was stationed near him was a bodybuilder.
#17
Francis Ngannou. Born in extreme poverty in Cameroon. He was homeless, an illegal immigrant, went to jail, took up MMA and became the UFC world champ. No idea what his net worth is, but he'll have been paid in the multiple millions for boxing Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
#18
Of the ones I've heard of probably John Paul DeJoria. Poor as f**k- founded Paul Mitchell hair products and then bought the Patron Tequila brand when it was tiny. Two total unrelated bangers both worth billions.
#19
Bob Marley, the Marley empire is huge at this point and he is one of if not Jamaica’s biggest export
#20
Lonnie Johnson - inventor of the Super Soaker water gun.
Maybe not the greatest rags to riches story, but this guy is impressive nevertheless.
The greatest would have to be John D. Rockefeller.
Brian Droste 5 months ago
He wasn't poor. If you click on his name it will tell you a little bit about him. He worked for as a aero space engineer and was formerly a US Air Force and worked for Jet Propulsion Labatory.
Brian Droste 5 months ago
Click on his name and it will tell you a little bit about him.
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#21
Oprah would fit the bill.
Grew up poor, was abused by her family, ran away at 13.
Got a college scholarship as a reward for winning a beauty pageant. Went on to be a TV correspondent at 19 (First African American to do it in Tennessee) and later the first woman to own and produce their own show.
angelmomoffour62 5 months ago
Dr.Phil got everything has/had because of Oprah.
Load More Replies... #22
Jack Ma. Parents were not wealthy. Mom was a factory worker. Dad was artist. Jack struggled academically and failed his college entrance exams multiple times. He’s now one of the richest person and founded Alibaba, one of the most prominent e-commerce and cloud providers.
#23
Babe Ruth is an interesting one. Born in 1895 in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Baltimore, Maryland. Grew up in his dad’s saloon stealing alcohol and getting into constant trouble on the streets. His parents sent him to a Catholic boarding school at age 7 due to his extreme misbehavior. Then, one of the teachers at the school taught him how to play baseball and the rest is history.
He went on to become arguably the greatest baseball player of all time, was one of the most famous people in America during the Roaring 20’s, and was essentially the first professional athlete to become a full blown pop culture celebrity.
Rali Meyer 5 months ago
he hit the ball so hard into the air, that he could "home run" before it came back down. True story?
#24
Martha Stewart. Grew up dirt poor and her family ate from a backyard* garden in Jersey. Became a billionaire. Then got taken down and kept getting back up.
Edit: backyard from background.
Michael Largey 5 months ago
Got caught at insider trading. You can't say she didn't know any better. She was a former stockbroker and current member of the governing board of the New York Stock Exchange (the entity that's supposed to police such things).
PeepPeep the duck 5 months ago
Can’t blame her for trying out the game every other rich person wins at
Load More Replies... Jrog 5 months ago (edited)
Family was far from "dirt poor", it was upper middle class, son of a teacher and a senior pharma salesman at Roche. They moved into an upscale town close to the company headquarters, gardening in the family large backyard was her father HOBBY not a necessity, for fu*k's sake! Her family had connections with baseball celebrities and she found her way into modeling very early on, making very good money. She married a wealthy manager and publisher, worked as stock broker through family connections, took management roles trough her husband's connections, started doing TV through her publishing business connections and had plenty of money to kickstart her businesses. She is the very opposite of "rags to riches", she is a privileged kid from a privileged family having access to a privileged life through connections and opportunities.
Jrog 5 months ago (edited)
and she did not get "taken down". She was guilty of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and insider trading, driven by sheer GREED. She dumped $230k worth of pharma stocks after obtaining classified informations about FDA denying approval for the company's flagship d**g. She got a $30k fine and spent 5 months in a cottage in a minimum security prison ( "built like a college campus" according to one of the prison managers) where she was free to stroll around and meet people at will. Typical sentences for Insider Trading are in the 2 to 5 years range, she got a slap on the wrist due to her being famous.
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#25
David tran, the guy who started Huy Fong foods, the maker of Sriracha sauce has an pretty inspiring story.
#26
Johann Jacob Astor- 1st multimillionaire in the USA. When he died in 1848 he had a fortunate over $30 million which was worth almost $1 trillion in today’s money.
#27
Andrew Carnegie. Immigrant, fathers business struggled, got himself a job at the mill when he was 12. Wound up one of the richest men in America.
#28
Timothy Dexter.
Born to poor parents in colonial USA, he married a rich widow.
Dexter gained notoriety for his peculiar business ventures, often initiated based on bad advice or seemingly random ideas.
He shipped coal to Newcastle during a miners' strike, which resulted in a profitable sale.
He shipped warming pans to the West Indies, which were then used for scooping molasses.
He shipped wool mittens to Siberia and whalebone to the South Sea Islands.
And it all started (after marrying a rich widow) with buying up Continental currency which later became valuable. He bought it for 1 cent on the dollar, shipped it to Massachusetts, and sold it for par
Then he wrote a book: "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones", and said that he was the world's greatest philosopher.
Stephanie Did It 5 months ago
He could sure rock that hat! I always thought that the expression "sending coal to Newcastle" was a joke, like someone who could sell ice to Inuits (before Esk*mo was considered an inappropriate term).
#29
Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., widely believed to be the greatest Mexican boxer of all time, and recognized among the greatest boxers in history *period*, grew up in an abandoned train cart along with nine of his siblings. He started boxing at age 16, fought *relentlessly* for the first few years of his pro career, and eventually became recognized for his exciting, pressure-heavy style.
Once he started getting on prime-time TV, his fights became cultural events in Mexico. This allowed him to set his family up with generational wealth. I've read some estimates say that he's worth around 10 million USD nowadays.
#30
Alexander Hamilton's rags to riches story should be very well known at this point.
Rise up!
Gabby M 5 months ago
OR just give you a link with info. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/the-american-success-story-of-alexander-hamiliton-and-diligence-handout-a-narrative
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What do you think ?
Brian Droste 5 months ago
Whst about Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash. I believe both of these grew up poor or in poverty.
Jason Melvil 5 months ago
Kind of expected to see every Shark Tank person here. But only guest shark Bethany made it?
Awkward lady 5 months ago
Whatever you think about her beliefs, she did rise out of poverty through her writing, and for that, I respect her.
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Brian Droste 5 months ago
Whst about Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash. I believe both of these grew up poor or in poverty.
Jason Melvil 5 months ago
Kind of expected to see every Shark Tank person here. But only guest shark Bethany made it?
Awkward lady 5 months ago
Whatever you think about her beliefs, she did rise out of poverty through her writing, and for that, I respect her.
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