“The most dangerous notion a young
man can acquire is that there is no more room for originality.”—Henry Ford
Creativity or inventing
is a skill that we can all learn. It is the art of putting things or ideas
together in a better way than anyone has done it before. It is an approach for a
better present and a more promising future. It is an example that Thomas Edison
illustriously lived.
Ironically, Edison was branded “retarded child”
by his teacher in the earliest stages of his education. Yet he grew to become
one of the greatest serial inventors of all time. He improved human standard of
living in a significant measure.
He was the inventor of the globally
enduring utility: electric light bulb. He also invented the record player,
motion picture camera, and a battery for an electric car. Overall, he patented
more than one thousand inventions in one lifetime.
In the book, The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented Modern World,
the author, Randall Stross argues that Edison has enhanced the well-being of
people, perhaps, more than any other single person in human history. He calls
him the Napoleon of invention.
Edison is therefore a role model to
emulate if we have a real desire to improve the physical world in which we live.
Now, let’s see how we can apply one of his paradigms in our approach to our work.
How To Think Like a Great Inventor
Thomas Edison
himself disclosed to us the secret of his phenomena creativity in the following
statement. He said:
“I never pick up an
item without thinking of how I might improve it.”
That beautiful
sentence shows the incredible force of Edison’s innovative mind. And interestingly,
it also implies few key ideas to budding entrepreneurs in the modern creative
business.
It implies
that it doesn’t matter whether the item in question is good enough already. It
doesn’t matter if Edison was not the person who made the item in the first
place. And it doesn’t matter if the item is apparently judged as failure or even
success by the world.
To Edison, it
matters only what he can do by himself, to make it better than it currently is.
The focus of his mind on anything he chooses was:
How can I fix
it, if it is broken?
Or how can I
improve it, if it is sort of okay?
You see, all
his inventive efforts were borne of genuine desire to serve humanity. So I
challenge you to apply this idea to your work, family and life; dare to live
your life in a way that keeps adding value to others, to things and to
yourself. This is what innovation means: changing things for good in our
business, in our homes and in the society. However, don’t be stressed out by
the challenge because it is not as hard as most of us assume, if we can learn
to think as Edison did.
To think
like Edison is to believe we can’t live better than trying to become better; to
think like Edison is to believe that no matter how long something has been done
a certain way, there is always a better way. To think like Edison is to believe
that invention is a never ending process of growth.
The
foregoing suggests that we must keep working to turn our novel ideas into impactful utilities.
This is the exemplary way of The Wizard of Menlo Park. And it is the way of all
innovators who advance humanity in both small and big degrees.Given that progress
is the essence of life—from now on— this must also be our way: me and you!
