There are various nicknames for Thomas Edison, including genius, inventor, and inventor of the light bulb. Today’s failure story is about the inventor Thomas Edison.
Born on February 11, 1847, Thomas Alva Edison was the world’s most inventor of inventions until October 1931, with 1,093 US patents registered in Edison’s name. Until he got 1,093 patents, he failed 10 times or even 100 times, and overcoming that failure, I would like to tell you the story of the invention of the incandescent light bulb, the most well known to us.
Filled with curiosity about all things from an early age, Edison did not adapt to indoctrination, so he had only three months of formal education. Thanks to his mother’s zealous education, who worked as a teacher before his marriage, Edison has grown into a child who can showcase his talents rather than a problem child. Edison’s mother, who noticed her son’s talent, devoted herself to Edison’s education (homeschooling in modern terms), buying her a science book to experiment with so that she could bring her talent to life.
Edison, who had grown up like this, lit up the dark night with an incandescent light bulb on December 3, 1879. It was the birth of Edison’s incandescent light bulb. People were interested in how long this light bulb would last. The light bulb began to change the history of the light bulb by surviving 40 hours, breaking people’s expectations that it would not last 10 hours.
But there are two things to be aware of here. Edison was a genius inventor, but it can be said that he had a greater ability in marketing. Edison exaggerates and puts beautiful packaging on his inventions, enough to be called a brag full of bluffs. There were quite a few incandescent light bulbs even before Edison’s light bulb was invented. One day, Edison turns on a light bulb and shows it to a reporter who came to the lab. At that time, I had to endure a lot to about 5 hours. So he showed the reporter a light bulb for about four hours, and then he moved from the lab to the office and didn’t show it. The reporter will ask. ‘How many hours does that light bulb last?’ Edison exaggerates. “It’s on all day long,” he said.
But what’s really interesting is why people remember him as a great inventor and not as a brag. He gave such bluffs and exaggerated information and developed beyond the performance of the inventions that came out of his mouth. The incandescent light bulb talked about in today’s failure story also had countless failures at the beginning, but it is the result of lighting it up for 40 hours when finally revealing it to everyone.
Photo = Edison’s invention and incandescent light bulb Source-Image Today-
In fact, I do not know what kind of thinking Edison had in marketing (?) with exaggerated content. However, we who live in future generations can learn from his life and inventions that he does not reproach for failure when working with his teammates and employees, but rather encourages failure. He created a culture where there is no fear of failing and finding a way to progress.
The lesson of today’s failure story is a unique idea of ’how many more failures must be continued to achieve success’ rather than agonizingly thinking ‘how long must failure be repeated to achieve success’. The former is an increasingly exhausting idea, while the latter is a hopeful one that will bring you closer and closer to success. I hope that you will be able to change your thinking from failure to the latter in your life and rise above it well.
Failure is the mother of success by – Thomas Alva Edison