Thomas Edison, American Inventor
Thomas Edison is one of the most recognizable names in all of innovation. He holds more than a thousand patents (1084 to be exact) and has developed many life altering technologies that can only be described as an evolution of life. The only person to succeed Edison is Lowell Wood, who in 2015 obtained his 1085th patent at the age of 74. Edison may sound like a guy who has it all figured out and he is. He is that very person. However, he still has faced and overcame failure to achieve success over and over again, more than a thousand times. His failure is different from the others because for him failure is part of the driving process behind innovation.
Failing forward is a common theme of keeping your head up and pushing through while learning from your mistakes and failures. Thomas Ava Edison took this to the extreme in an era where this was not common knowledge. Many times he would be working on one project and sees a problem to be fixed by simply inventing something else to make his other invention run better, smoother, or just work in general. Iron extracting was one of those issues. Many of Edison’s inventions in the 1880s relied heavily on iron and Edison became very distraught at the cost of it. So he sought to create his own solution to the problem, a low grade iron pulverizing plant to mass produce the element of value. Unfortunately before he could get it to work efficiently, new iron mining regions opened up reducing the price of iron and losing Edison a hefty sum worth time, equipment, and money. But just like with failing forward, Edison went on to utilize aspects of this failed plant for concrete production which became one of his major entrepreneurial successes.
Thomas Edison’s First Lightbulb
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” A quote that effectively surmises Edison’s mindset. He doesn’t see failure as actual failure, but rather as a note from the universe that you simply need to change something before continuing. He was a man who faced constant failure in his day to day life and his profession. He tinkered with something until it worked and never considered every time it didn’t work to mean failure. Every single one of his inventions more or less followed this pattern of failure until success, and many people would’ve given up when they could not engineer their own solution. Edison spent tens of thousands of hours creating revision after revision just for one invention and then proceeded to do this a thousand more times. He was a man with a great aptitude for learning and a tenacity or stubbornness that would constantly thwart failure till the day he died.
As Edison once said, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” So whatever you do, never give up on your dreams and always find a way to succeed because that is the very secret many people overlook. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.”
YES!! This post is great! Edison is the perfect breed of natural talent and self-made talent. Most people think that they have to be naturally athletic to make the Olympics, or naturally musically-inclined to become a musician, or naturally smart to be the next intellect, but really it takes dedication. Practice, try-and-fail, and grit epitomizes success. The puzzle pieces don’t just fall into place, you have to put them together, and that’s exactly what Edison did. The process may have taken a while, but Edison was able to die a happy man, reaching his goal through his motivation. It is great to be able to celebrate and remember his success in modern times (especially with his eloquent quotes) as a moral reminder to stay passionate and optimistic. Lovely message!
Edison is one of the people that comes to my mind first when I think about perseverance in the face of failure. He really used every opportunity to not only improve but to rethink what he was doing and rehash his work. I was surprised to learn how many patents Edison got, 1084 is a super impressive number. The other thing is Edison failed less by failing more. In the beginning I’m sure he failed much more, but by the end he had learned from all of those failures and was more effective with his first attempts.
I never knew much about Thomas Edison besides him creating the light bulb but I was sure that before he created the first lightbulb he had to have more than a few failed ones. I love his mindset that if something fails then just change something and keep working on it. One of his projects failed so he just changed what he was doing and didn’t give up, I think an inspiration story like Edison’s is especially important during the hard times that people are in now.
I love this post so much! Edison’s quotes are super inspirational and are a perfect source of motivation for us college kids grinding through the last few weeks before Thanksgiving break. My favorite Edison quote is the one about finding “10,000 ways that won’t work.” This mindset is somewhat new to me, but it has transformed my outlook on failure drastically. Instead of handling failure like a nasty flaw, I have taught myself to accept times of failure as learning experiences, which has shaped me into a more optimistic person. My AP Physics teacher last year would constantly remind me that mistakes reveal what doesn’t work and that they guide you closer to the solution, which is exactly what this post reveals. Thank you for posts that spur us to reflect on the true nature of failure and our experiences! I can’t wait to read your next one!
This was a very interesting post to read. I feel like most people just know the common inventions from Edison and are completely unaware of just how many ideas he’s had. It’s also great to see how motivational he was in not giving up when faced with failure. I was also unaware about his iron pulverizing invention as well as using it towards concrete. Great post!