The lesson of this story is that successful people and empires are not made what they are overnight. Success is always an end product of failures, rejections, harassments, discouragement, attempting to give up, struggles and grace. Those who pass through such ordeals have more tendency to succeed than those who sit idle.
The more difficult the journey to success is, the more sweeter is the success itself. The less difficult is the journey, the more the success is taken for granted.