Failing upwards.

Ever had that feeling, that no matter what you do, it’s going to be a failure? No matter the things you try to get ahead, they all just seem to end up in the same place, someone’s rejection pile.

I know, it sounds depressing right? I mean we try so many things, yet they all seem to have that same result, some leave us in a worse place than when we started!

If we’re totally honest with ourselves, we’ve probably been there more than once, I know we as a family have, it just seems like there’s no way to break the mold, no way to reach beyond a certain level before you come crashing down, and even end up in a worse situation than before.

Guess what? You’re not alone! Not only that, but some of the greatest minds ever to grace the surface of this planet have been there, and in the next few weeks I’d like to take a look at a few of them, let’s see what we can learn from them, who’s with me on this journey?

History is littered with people whom we think were great successes from the start, people who scaled the walls of achievement and had their names recorded in the history books. People we can never even hope to emulate, yet peel back the veneer and you’ll be surprised.

Inspiration

Think of a famous person, and apart from if they were born a King or Queen, in all likelihood at least one point in their lives things got pretty rough, and they stared not just defeat, but abject failure in the face, some never recovered, but the people in these articles not only got back up, dusted themselves off and tried again, but they kept doing it until they succeeded, and kept going!

Okay, I’ll admit, I’m not the one thought up the title today! I got it from a calendar we have, and the inspiration for the article comes from a quote by Thomas Edison.

“I failed my way to success”

I love that quote! it’s not really something you’d associate with one of the most prolific inventors of the twentieth century, the man who invented (among other things) the lightbulb.

I was going to list all the patents he held, but I’ve just found out that there were over a thousand of them, and he had those who told him he was wasting his time because he failed with his inventions so many times.

Yes, Edison really did say that!

He was also remembered for having about ten thousand attempts at the invention he’s most famous for, the lightbulb.

When asked why he was continuing with his experiments, “after all, you’ve failed ten thousand times?” his famous reply was, “I haven’t failed, I’ve found nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine ways it won’t work!” Think on that one.

Okay, what about us, how does that apply to us?

In the Army we had a saying, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” which basically means what it says, that the time to quit isn’t when things get tough, but push on through to the good stuff beyond. Or as the motto of the Royal Tank Regiment says, “Through the mud, through the blood, to the glory of the Green fields beyond.”

Edison had one other major contribution to our lives today, one that’s often overlooked, but he was the first person to build a research laboratory. His was the first of it’s kind, and was responsible for such devices as the phonograph and even the motion picture industry.

When he was in his mid sixties, there was a fire at the lab, it was catastrophic and the whole facility was reduced to ashes.

This was a man who’d given us the electric light, the motion picture industry, the alkaline battery and about a thousand other devices, about time to ‘retire’ maybe? Not Edison

In his mid sixties Edison was reputed to be excited that it happened, why? Because as he said, “Now I can build bigger and better”

So, next time you’re feeling down, feeling a bit of a failure, take time out and either listen to music, or watch a movie, but remember, they were all invented by a man who ‘failed his way to success’