The smoke detector was invented out of a failed attempt by Swiss physicist Walter Jaeger to invent a poison gas detection sensor.
Penicillin was discovered when Alexander Fleming unintentionally contaminated a petri dish in his lab.
The pacemaker was born out of a failure by electrical engineer Wilson Greatbatch to invent a device that could detect tachycardia, a heart rhythm disorder.
I think we could all agree that these “mistakes” were of tremendous benefit to the human race, saving countless lives, and I doubt anyone would judge them as failures, even though, at the time, they were considered just that.
It took Thomas Edison 1,000 attempts before he was successful in inventing the light bulb. You have to wonder what motivated him to keep going. After the 100th failure, the 500th failure, the 900th failure, what made him return to the drawing board over and over again?
The answer to that question can be found in Edison’s response to a reporter who asked him what it felt like to fail that many times:
“I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
He saw the attempts that didn’t give him the results he was seeking as important parts of the journey. As long as he was working on the problem, he was working toward success.
Edison did not have a failure mindset; he had a progress-oriented attitude.
You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “failure is not an option.” Why? Edison knew failure was not only an option but it was also likely. His attitude allowed him to embrace the missteps and mistakes and use them to propel his work forward. Had his attitude been one that saw failure as unacceptable and a cause for shame we’d all be sitting in the dark.
Could it really be as simple as choosing a different mindset? Could we learn to embrace failure as the teacher that it is, inoculate ourselves against having our self-esteem damaged when we fail, and develop a persistence and grit that keeps us taking steps forward until we reach our goals by merely changing our attitude?
Yep. It really is that simple.
“One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.” – Alexander Fleming
“Failure is a learning experience, and the guy who has never failed has never done anything” – Wilson Greatbatch
Karen Hodge 