Thomas Alva Edison (11 February 1847 – 18 October 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He has even been described as America’s greatest inventor. At his death, he held 1,093 patents in his name. He developed the motion picture camera. He invented the phonograph, which became the gramophone and then the record player. He invented the dictaphone. And he invented the electric incandescent light bulb.
Education
One day, during his childhood, Edison came home with a letter from school. “Mom, my teacher gave me this letter and told me that only you should read it. What does it say?”
As she read the letter, tears rolled down her cheeks. She read the letter aloud to him.
“Your son is a genius. This school is too small and doesn’t have good enough teachers to train him. Please teach him yourself”
She did just that. She homeschooled him.
One day, many years later, Edison was going through his mother’s belongings. He came across the folded letter he brought home that day.
He opened and read it.
“Your son is mentally deficient. We cannot allow him to attend our school anymore. He is expelled from this school.”
Edison became emotional when reading this. He wrote the following in his diary.
“Thomas A. Edison was a mentally deficient child whose mother turned him into the genius of the century.”
We can’t all be fortunate enough to have a parent like Thomas Edison’s. Someone to shield us from negativity and failure. Someone to take responsibility and control of our future. To pour love, positivity, encouragement and support into us. To not let school get in the way of our education.
We can choose to remove negative people from our lives. Those who are toxic and drag us down. To replace them with supportive and positive people. People who will not let us fail, however hard we try. We will find these people as we try new things and go to new places. Hang on to them. Spend as much time as you can with them. These are the people we need to surround ourselves with.
Light bulb moment
Several people, before Edison, had been developing an electric lamp or bulb. Others before him had shown it was possible. People like Alessandro Volta, Humphry Davy and Joseph Swan. Where Edison succeeded, was in developing a practical and inexpensive light bulb.
Edison and his team of researchers in Edison’s laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, tested more than 3,000 designs for bulbs between 1878 and 1880. In November 1879, Edison filed a patent for an electric lamp with a carbon filament. The patent listed several materials that might be used for the filament including cotton, linen and wood. Edison spent the next year finding the perfect filament for his new bulb, testing more than 6,000 plants.
Several months after the 1879 patent was granted, Edison’s research team discovered a carbonised bamboo filament could burn for more than 1,200 hours. Bamboo was used as the filament in Edison’s bulbs until longer-lasting materials were discovered in the 1880s and 1900s.
Regarding the invention of the incandescent light bulb, Edison has several famous quotes:
“I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that do not work”
“I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
How many times would you be willing to try and fail? 10 times? 100 times? 1,000 times? 3,000 times? 6,000 times?
How many times would you be willing to get back up after being knocked down? How many times would you retake your driving test after failing again? How many times would you apply for a new job after receiving yet another rejection?
Gone up in flames
In the evening of 9th December 1914, there was a massive explosion in West Orange, New Jersey. Edison’s plant went up in flames. The fire was so strong that the fire department was unable to control it. The fire destroyed half the site.
Edison lost around 2 million dollars (approx 23 million in today’s money) from the damage as well as most of his life’s work. Edison’s insurance policy only covered about one-third of the cost of the damage.
Edison was 67 years and his son Charles was 24 years old. Charles watched the fire as it destroyed his fathers work. Edison walked over to his son.
“Charles, do you know where your mother is?”
“I don’t know dad”
“Please bring her and her friends here. She will never see anything like this again in her life.”
“What?”
“It’s alright. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish.”
When reporters asked him about the fire, he replied:
“Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start over again tomorrow. There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burnt up. Thank god we can start a new.”
The very next morning Edison started rebuilding without firing a single employee.
He arranged a loan from his friend Henry Ford. Three weeks later he had part of his plant up and running. His employees worked double shifts and set out to produce more than ever. Edison and his team went on to make more than $10 million in revenue in the following year.
When things go up in smoke, it is an opportunity to start again. To start afresh. To wipe away all the previous mistakes. Also, sometimes in disaster, there is a light, a rainbow, an opportunity. It’s difficult to see but they are there. While most people are running the other way, a few go against the tide. Try to see the opportunity when things go pear-shaped.
Just the beginning
These were not the only failures and setbacks that Thomas Alva Edison faced.
As a child, Edison was struck with Scarlett fever. Combined with bouts of ear infections, this left him with hearing difficulties in childhood. As an adult, he was deemed to be nearly deaf.
He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive”
His mum died in 1871 when Edison was around 24 years old.
His first wife, Mary Stilwell, died on 9 August 1884 aged 29 after a suspected brain tumour. They were married for 13 years and had three children.
He had many failed inventions. The electrographic vote recorder. Cement. Talking motion pictures. A talking doll. An electric pen.
Takeaways
Each of us is unique. Each of us can tolerate so much failure. Thomas Alva Edison shows us a master class in tolerating failure and setbacks.
But there are things you can do to help you tolerate failure.
Surround yourself with people who will not let you fail. People who will support you. Coach you. Mentor you. Cheer you on. People to hold your hand through the difficult times. People who are there to keep you going.
How much failure you can tolerate may be based on expectation. If you expect to do everything the first time, then you are going to get frustrated very easily when you fail. If you accept that you will have to fail one thousand times before you succeed, then you will learn to tolerate a lot more failure. Change your levels of expectation.
When failure happens, when setbacks strike, when disaster hits, it might not be the end of the world. With the right perspective, there are opportunities to be had. It could be starting from scratch and wiping the slate clean. Or it could be looking for the rainbow in a sky full of dark clouds. Try the find the silver lining in the situation.
Footnotes
Here are some articles I used in my research:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.livescience.com/43424-who-invented-the-light-bulb.html
https://www.ambit9.com/thomas-edison-became-genius-of-the-century/
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