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Do you know what Thomas Edison, @jk_rowling and Steve Jobs have in common?
Let’s find out in this #Thread !
Let’s find out in this #Thread !
Thomas Edison, J.K. Rowling and Steve Jobs have in common all encountered phenomenal successes and will be remembered for centuries. Yes, but not only that. That they all failed before succeeding? Yes, but even better: it is precisely because they failed that they succeeded.
Thomas Edison failed more than a thousand times before inventing the light bulb.
In his mind, however, he never considered that he had failed even once, because he knew that in science, every error is just one step further towards the truth. Many people talk about Edison’s extraordinary resilience, and how that gave him the energy to keep trying and trying...
The truth is that Edison never ceased to be amazed by the laws of nature he would discover as he ‘failed’ in his quest. By observing what his experiments taught him, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, filed hundreds of patents during his lifetime,and founded @generalelectric
Before she started writing #HarryPotter , @jk_rowling encountered a double failure. Her marriage had failed, and she was unemployed with a young daughter to support. She had just lost her job as an employee at @amnesty International....
Things weren’t easy – this period was a true existential crisis for her. She was staying at her sister’s, and spent hours writing in The Elephan House pub – today known as the ‘birthplace’ of #Harry #Potter – with her daughter sleeping beside her in a pram...
As she recalled later, it was when she hit rock bottom that she started seeing that her #failure was an #opportunity to turn her life around...
After the saga encountered its phenomenal success, she realised that her #failure had brought her onto a path that better suited her, while her previous life – which she used to consider a ‘success’ – diverted her from her true calling as a writer.
Steve Jobs founded @Apple in his parents’ garage at only 21 years old. Following the phenomenal success of the Macintosh, he earned hundreds of millions of dollars in just a few years. But five years later, Jobs was fired from Apple...
He was dispossessed of his own creation, and this was a terrible failure for him. Slowly, he started accepting his defeat and getting back into business.
He founded Next, a software company, and bought the animation studio @Pixar , which would go on to create the world’s first computer-animated feature film, #ToyStory . Years later, he was back at the helm of @Apple as its CEO...
« Being fired from Apple was the best thing that ever happened to me », Jobs would later recall. « The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything ».
