Thomas Edison is known as one of the greatest inventors in history – the light bulb, the phonograph, the world’s first movie, the stock ticker, the talking doll – more than a thousand different patents have his name on them!
There’s no doubt that Edison had a very sharp mind. But the man who was called a genius by the whole world said his success didn’t have much to do with being smart. He put it all down to hard work.
And few people in the world put in as much effort as Thomas Edison. He was known for working half the night and falling asleep at his workbench. If he had a problem to solve, he would skip meals and go on a few hours of sleep for weeks on end.
Edison simply never gave up. He would keep working, no matter how long it took, until he found the best way of doing things.
His gift for inventing and his determination to succeed almost went unrecognized. Growing up in the 1800’s, Edison had seemed doomed to fail. He had two problems that caused him real trouble in school.
First, he was very hard of hearing (this was before hearing aids were invented). Second, he just couldn’t seem to focus and sit still. These days, teachers would identify him as having a learning disability; back then, they just said he was un-teachable.
So, his mother pulled him out of school at age 10 and set out to teach him herself. She knew that her son was much smarter than his teachers thought. And she saw that he never stopped thinking about better ways to solve a problem.
In his first job, as a teenager, Edison was taught how to use a telegraph. He saw that it could be improved, so he was soon inventing new and better telegraph machines.
The perfect example is his most famous invention, the light bulb. Edison tried more than a thousand different ways of getting electricity to make light. He refused to stop trying until he found material that worked.
As Edison liked to say, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” In other words, having a good idea is just the start … it’s the effort you put behind that idea that really counts.