Edison failed 10,000 times before perfecting the incandescent electric light bulb. Don’t worry if you fail once. ByThe Napoleon Hill Foundation

Edison failed 10,000 times before perfecting the incandescent electric light bulb. Don’t worry if you fail once. ByThe Napoleon Hill Foundation

Arguably America’s greatest inventor, Thomas Edison had an extraordinarily positive perception of life that greatly enhanced his ability as an inventor. When others might have been hopelessly discouraged after failing thousands of times in an attempt to develop an electric light, the great Edison simply viewed each unsuccessful experiment as the elimination of a solution that wouldn’t work, thereby moving him that much closer to a successful solution. We could all take a lesson from Edison. Stories abound about inventors who quit trying and gave up too soon or miners who struck gold just a few feet beyond where someone else quit digging. There are few obstacles in life that will not succumb to consistent, sustained, intelligent, positive action. When you are discouraged after you’ve failed at something, remember Edison’s 10,000 failures before he arrived at the solution that forever changed the world.