All the Difference

...When Billy Tudor was admitted to the bar three years later, Adams took the time to write to Tudor's wealthy father to praise the young man for his clear head and honest heart, but also to prod the father into giving his son some help getting started in his practice. Adams had seen too often the ill effect of fathers who ignored their sons when a little help could have made all the difference.

David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 63.

As I transition from studying Thomas Edison to studying John Adams, one of the first traits that pops out to me is the relationship both men had with their families. Edison always seemed too busy for his family, whereas Adams seemed dedicated and infatuated with his. Edison's family had to trust & assume he loved them - Adams' family knew he did. Both of them were involved in time consuming professions (invention/business v. law/politics) and both had to travel. Yet it seemed that Edison was more concerned with how many hours he worked while Adams took the time to write letters and connect with his family. Both men were seen as a success in their lives - yet already I feel more compassion & connection with Adams.

"A little help could have made all the difference." Kids need their dad. Wives need their husband. Families need the leadership of a man. At some point, I must judge a person's contribution not on how much they poured themselves into their work & industry - but how much they cared for those most dependent upon them. As I jump into McCullough's excellent piece on Adams, I am constantly refreshed by a man who loved what he did less than he loved his family. In the end, character matters as much as contribution; and a large part of the evaluation of character comes in the context one's family life.

The Power of Fame

During the recent vacation, the two men [Henry Ford & Thomas Edison] happened to talk about the harmful effects of cigarette smoking. Ford recalled Edison's remark that the damage it caused was incurable. Would Edison be kind enough to write a letter that explained the nautre of the harm and why it was irreversible? With Edison's permission, Ford planned to used the letter in his antismoking campaign among workers. In asking Edison to serve as a quotable authority on the subject, Ford reveals his understanding of how celebrity - his, Edison's, anybody's - confers, in the eyes of the not-famous, expertise on all manner of subjects. Edison could speak about the deleterious effects of smoking not because of a background in respiratory disease or epidemiology, but because he was Edison.

Randall Stross, The Wizard of Menlo Park (New York: Crown Publishers, 2007), 239.

What is it about the famous that entices so many of us regular people? Why do we follow their lives, study their habits, get offended by their downfalls, and trust their opinions? What makes them so important that we would alter ourselves based upon what we learn from them? Thomas Edison was one of the first modern-age celebrities, and because of this, he was able to give opinions and ideas that the public latched onto simply because they came from Edison. His name literally carried him for most of his life after his big inventions gave way to his poor business decisions. Despite heading nowhere - his name & fame kept him on top of the world. People did not care if he kept making poor choices, they were simply attached to the idea of Edison himself.

What if instead of being infatuated with the 'rich & famous' - we simply learned a lesson about influence and its power? What could I do with the influence I currently have in my life? What battles could I fight, what decisions could I make, and what fears could I cast aside if I simply used my influence? What if the best thing I have to offer is simply my name? I am not trying to imply that I am someone famous or worthy of status...but the idea remains that in my circle of influence, my name might be my most powerful weapon. The key then becomes using it for the betterment of those around me.

The Weight of Expectation

"The grander the scale of Edison's ambitions, and the greater the skepticism that he had had to overcome, the happier he had been. Once the electric light had been introduced, however, he found himself in a difficult position. How could he possibly sustain the pace of accomplishments of the previous five years? He could not shrug off the expectation that the Wizard of Menlo Park could accomplish anything. He was thirty-five years old, and the rest of his long life was devoted to attempts to make the inspiration that brought the phonograph and the electric life return."

Randall Stross, The Wizard of Menlo Park (New York: Crown Publishers, 2007), 139.

I wonder if Michael Phelps feels like Thomas Edison did. How does Phelps repeat what he did in China two years ago? 8 gold medals. I wonder if he thinks about his performance in a similar fashion to Edison's thoughts about life after the phonograph & electric light. London might bring home more medals - but there is no way he can conjure up what he did @ Beijing. Edison went on to do more after the age of 35, but none of it ever compared to the magnitude of those moments after the electric light.

Where does that leave the rest of us? We might never attain the fame or prestige that Edison or Phelps have - but we certainly each have goals and dreams. When we accomplish those dreams, where do we go after that? All my life I have wanted to "fill in the blank"...when that happens, what's next? I think the answer lies in what Mr. Stross called "attempts to make the inspiration return." We keep trying. We keep pushing. We keep innovating. We keep dreaming. Once the hill has been conquered - find a new hill to climb. The glory might never equal that of your first accomplished dream - but it is the continued push forward that inspires as much as the original accomplishments. Never let fear of increased expectation keep you from moving forward.

Diversification

"If you have five lines of business, any two of them will carry you through a bad period; but if you have only one or two kinds and they both go bad, then you are in the soup."

-Thomas A. Edison-

In business, one seeks diversification in order to built profit margin by diving into new product development and reaching out to different markets. In investments, one seeks diversification in order to spread investments to a wider range in order to prevent the damage of flucuation in the market. Either way, diversification is a simple safety net. It is protection against the potentials that risk always bring. As Edison developed products and added to the Edison name - multiple companies sprang up which covered the idea of diversification. In this manner, Edison protected himself and the companies against the damage that came when a product or market did not respond in the way they thought it might.

In light of this, I wonder how I do with diversification in my own life. How many different options have I properly explored and developed in order to provide myself with a safety net against the risks of job loss, income depletion, or the simple need to move in a different & new direction? Sometimes I think we become so fixated on becoming the best "..." that we begin to lose sight of how poorly developed we are as people. This is not a knock on specialists - as they certainly hold their purpose [i.e. I want a surgeon operating on me - not a family practice doctor]. However, how much more value do we add to ourselves when we allow ourselves to branch out and develop different parts, attributes, and skills. In other words: what is my value IF I were to ask for evaluations outside of my current occupation and set of duties. If the answer is low - then I am left, as Mr. Edison said, "in the soup."

Commitment v Obstinance

Innovation entails a high degree of risk and is often made possible only be an innovator's faith in and commitment to a new product or process. This situation, however, can produce a difficult dilemma when the innovator has to decide whether the degree of risk has begun to outweigh the possible rewards.

Edison's confidence in his ability to solve nearly any technical problem and his enthusiasm for and commitment to the ore-milling venture sustained him even in the face of skepticism from his closest associates.

Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998), 338, 358.

The ore-milling failure period of Edison's professional life is perhaps the most intriguing period of his life. He dumped considerable amounts of time, energy, and finances into the venture which proved to be his greatest failure. Multiple times along the way he could have backed out and listend to advice to move on, and yet he stuck to his belief that he could figure out a way to make it work. The possible rewards never came into play, and the high risk gamble proved to be a very poor decision.

And yet this is what made Edison great. Whereas most people would have quit - he had the courage to continue forward. Certainly this stubborn trait cost him dearly but it is that same trait that helped push him foward with the telegraph, phonograph, and electric light. Everyone wants to be known as committed, but as a society we have deemed stubbornness a negative trait. So the questions then becomes when does commitment end and obstinance start? How much time, energy, and finances do we need to pour into our pursuits? And how long should our confidence hold strong in the face of steady & reasonable skepticism? My thought is that it is only in failing at these that we will ever see the rewards of the high risk gambles we take. In other words the failures we have in obstinance can lead to the rewards we have in commitment.

Connections

Edison was quite willing to accommodate the press and to use it in promoting himself and his inventions.

Working in an industrial setting with connections to leading companies and entrepreneurs, Edison and his colleagues had access to much greater financial resources for their work and they could more easily employ skilled assistants and machinists.

Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998), 147, 155.

One of the keys to Edison's success as an inventor was his ability to use his connections to best promote himself and his work, while also using those same connections to secure the necessary resources to further his career. There is no doubt that he was an absolute genius, but without the necessary resources or connections - there is no way he would have achieved all that he did. In fact the idea of an inventor simply doing everything on his own (the "lone inventor" as Israel calls it in his book) was made to look foolish and shortsighted by Edison. I cannot imagine a more practical application to my own life. It is critical to network and use all that can be available to me. Opening the door to greater resources puts more opportunity in front of me. Self promotion may seem like a pride thing, but in reality if I don't promote myself - no one else will. No one is going to fight for me to get what I want out of life. I have to be willing to go for it myself. Edison accomodated the press because he knew that in turn he could use the press for his advantage. I am not suggesting only using relationships for selfish gain. However, I do believe that it is helpful in life to recognize how key relationships can be relied upon for the futhering of one's cause or purpose.

No Experiments are Useless

"'But,' he told Harrington, 'it is of no consequence whether it worked or not. It was an experiment as I told you once before, not made to show but to Satisfy me that I was all right.' And he furthermore explained to Craig that although 'Mr H says that some of our experiments were useless...after he has had more experience in this business, he will find that No experiments are useless.' Edison recognized that failed experiments often provided important insights during the research process, but Harrington and other backers were interested only in positive results."

Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998), 61.

What seems to have set Thomas Edison apart was not a particular genius in inventing so much as a willingness to try. He had no fear of failure. He tried and tried and tried again. Failure simply became a building block for the future. While his financial backers might have struggled with his concept of failure because of their incessant need for results; Edison continued to plug away at his own pace and on his own sense of progress. I am amazed at how counterintuitive this is. Today's culture is every bit as 'positive results' oriented as his was and failure is never an option, especially when finances are on the line. How many people and ideas have been labeled useless simply because they were not immediate financial hits? The lesson here seems to be the need to press forward beyond those willing to abandon or deride you for failure. It is in those failed attempts that true success might be found.