Tag / Thomas Edison

by Nathan Coumbe

Failure and Success Are the Same Thing (Eventually)

The best teacher in the world is failure. Nothing teaches us more or faster than trying and failing at something.

It’s how we learn to walk. It’s how we learn to speak.

What keeps failure from becoming success is a lack of perseverance. We fail once and assume we’ll fail if we try again.

Thomas Edison failed more than 10,000 times in creating the incandescent lightbulb. But he failed differently each time.

When asked about this by a reporter, Edison said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” He implied that each failure got him closer to his eventual success.

Had he tried making his lightbulb the same way 10,000 times, he would have been living out Einstein’s definition of insanity. But he didn’t. Instead he chose to keep trying 10,000 different ways.

Failure is a reality, but it’s also a choice. We can choose to learn from it, change things up, and try again. That option will eventually lead to success.

Or we can choose to fail and accept it as a permanent part of our lives.

You’ll find life is much better when you look at failure and success as learning experiences.

Learn more ways you can succeed every day. Subscribe below!

by Nathan Coumbe

Only with Action Can You Hope to Make a Difference

No one ever got paid for an idea alone. Only those who came up with an idea, or took someone else’s, and acted upon it have made a difference worth anything.

“I have more respect for the fellow with a single idea who gets there than for the fellow with a thousand ideas who does nothing.”

—Thomas Edison

I have dozens of ideas pop into my head each day when I’m taking a shower, walking at the park, or driving in silence. Not one has generated anything for me or anyone else except those I showed to the world. 

Better to have one idea and the will to act upon it than 1,000 ideas and procrastinate.

Want more insights? Subscribe below!

by Nathan Coumbe

What is failure to you?

If you try something new, you might fail.

Why is that such a debilitating statement? Unless you are attempting to leap between two buildings or run past a speeding car on the interstate, our failures are rarely fatal.

Yet we are paralyzed by the thought of failing at a new side hustle, of being rejected when asking for a date, or of failing at the new hobby we have never before tried.

If being proactive means choosing how one respond’s to a situation, then we can fail proactively. You can look at failure as a reason to never again attempt something, or you can look at it as simply one way the new thing won’t work.

Thomas Edison tried 10,000 ways to make a lightbulb before he found the way that worked. He saw each failure, not as a discouragement to trying again, but as a stepping stone to success.

Choose to see failure as a learning experience and you will only ever improve the next time.