Tag Archives: Edison

Failure from the Entrepreneur Point of View

Isn’t failures what makes entrepreneurs grow? The attitude of “Yes, this failed. Lets try it this way now.”. We see what is not working, and we are willing to pivot to try new things.

We value our time and know we have to learn from our failures to not waste that valuable resource. As Soichoro Honda did in a previous blog, he went and learned from his initial mistakes. Thomas Edison could have felt like a failure at a young age, but his mother nourished his education which allowed him to create great things to change our life even to this day.

We also apreciate the Albert Enstein quote of “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”. We know we must tweak our approaches and learn from our failures to reach our highest goals.

Failure – Edison

Thomas Edison was another failure. Only lasted three months of official schooling due to his wandering mind, and his teacher felt he was “addled”. His mother then took over his education and taught him at home. He then developed hearing problems at an early age.

This addled young man grew up to have 1,093 patents in his name as well as creating the phonograph, motion picture camera, and a practical light bulb.
When asked about failing at making the light bulb so many times before success, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”.