What Thomas Edison Can Teach You About Perseverance

This is what the greatest inventor of America had to say about perseverance:

“ Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”

and

“ If we did all the things we are capable of we would literally astound ourselves.”

Perseverance means making efforts till the goal is achieved or the task is accomplished. It is ‘never giving up’. Most of us work to achieve our goal, some give up after some time, some stay a little longer, some just before the finishing line get exhausted, only a few stay until the task is done.

Outstanding inventor, Edison, famously said,

“ Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

It was perseverance when Edison after failing one thousand times said:

“ I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.”

One of Edison’s greatest stories of perseverance began when he invented the light bulb and started looking for an inexpensive light bulb filament. He was using filament made of ore from the Midwest. In order to save high shipping cost, Edison decided to open his own ore mining plant nearby. He spent a decade to run the plant smoothly. In spite of all these cumbersome efforts, his project failed due to poor quality of ore on the East Coast. But even then Edison did not quit.

You can find no better model of perseverance than Thomas Edison.

Here is what you can learn about perseverance from Thomas Edison’s life and work:

Lack of formal education empowered Edison to challenge Assumptions

One day a partially deaf four year old boy came with a note in his pocket from his teacher, “ Your Tommy is too stupid to learn, get him out of the school.” His mother read the note and answered, “ My Tommy is not stupid to learn, I will teach him myself.”

And that Tommy grew up to be the great inventor Thomas Edison. He had only three months of formal education. Thus, Edison was deprived of formal school education.

In those days traditional formal education was too rigid to lay the foundation of established assumptions in the mind of learners. This kind of education used to make learners confined within the four walls of existing assumptions.

So, a product of such a system would never dare to challenge established assumptions. An inventor thinks beyond assumptions.

You can see in case of Thomas Edison, his lack of formal school education might have allowed him to be a free, out of box thinker.

‘Never give up’ — An Immutable Personal Principle

An ignited soul, Edison said,

“ I have not failed. I have just found10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Thomas Edison lost his factory in a fire at the age of sixty seven. He didn’t break into pieces, instead he thanked God for getting all his mistakes burnt and allowing him to start afresh. This was his indomitable courage with a persevering mindset.

His son Charles wrote in 1961 Reader’s Digest. Edison walked over his son as he watched the fire destroy his dad’s work. In a childlike voice, Edison told his son, “Go get your mother and all her friends. They will never see a fire like this again.”

Edison was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start all over again tomorrow.”

Forget talent, genius is hard work

Thomas Edison said,

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”.

When an associate asked Edison about the secret to his talent for invention, the plainspoken Edison replied,”Genius is hard work, stick-to-itiveness and common sense.”

As you can see Edison was a self made man. His mother gave him formal education at home. Then he studied whatever he wanted. How hopelessly his life began! Yet with perseverance he kept on climbing the success ladder one after another despite stormy challenges.

Edison’s life is an extraordinary story of an ordinary hearing impaired boy who made himself immortal through his inventions.

You often come across people who give up their goal as soon as they find an obstacle in their way. But without patience and persistent efforts you can achieve no goal. Edison’s life and his achievements, to inspire you not to stop, not to surrender, not to grieve but continue to focus on your goal. Ultimately, a day comes when success will greet you.

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Disclaimer: The original version of this story was published on another platform. Link to original version: https://medium.com/illumination/what-thomas-edison-can-teach-you-about-perseverance-3c6d05caa57d