Did you know that Thomas Edison's name is listed on 1,093 United States patents? And how many of those great inventions can you name? The phonograph? The lightbulb? (kind of...) Let me tell you something, a good portion of those other thousand ideas were not so meaningful. You can read about all of the inventions here, but I wouldn't waste your time.
So what is the lesson of the story? Not every idea is a home run, but the more you have, the more likely you will find a winner. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you simply can't afford to ignore interesting ideas that pop into your head.
Your lesson for today is to pick out a small pocket size notebook and take it with you EVERYWHERE! You will be amazed how many ideas pop into your head throughout the course of a day that you simply ignore. This notebook is used to record every these ideas and give you the chance to filter through them later, when you are in an entrepreneurial mood.
I want to give you one more tidbit of motivation. Have you ever heard the name Charles Goodyear? I am guessing that at least the second part of his name sounds familiar. That's right, he founded Goodyear Rubber Company and is credited with inventing the vulcanization process that makes rubber usable. Goodyear was actually a bit nutty. He spent a good portion of his adult life obsessing over rubber and ways to improve it. You see, the problem with rubber in its natural state is that it is extremely temperature sensitive. As the heat rises, rubber changes from its useful, springy state into a globby, sticky mess. This makes it useless for most applications. Goodyear tried every additive he could think of to improve rubber's characteristics, to no avail. Luckily enough for him, he left a small piece of his rubber sitting next to the stove one day. As the material cooked, it's properties amazingly changed, and the vulcanization process was discovered. While the invention was a bit lucky, Goodyear was observant enough to notice the change, and capitalized on it.
How many times have you stumbled upon a great idea and simply let it pass? Well not any more. Starting today, you can document these ideas and eventually, you will find your home run, and once you do, head over to our Inventing and Reinventing posts to find out how to bring your idea to life.
Good Luck!
So what is the lesson of the story? Not every idea is a home run, but the more you have, the more likely you will find a winner. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you simply can't afford to ignore interesting ideas that pop into your head.
Your lesson for today is to pick out a small pocket size notebook and take it with you EVERYWHERE! You will be amazed how many ideas pop into your head throughout the course of a day that you simply ignore. This notebook is used to record every these ideas and give you the chance to filter through them later, when you are in an entrepreneurial mood.
I want to give you one more tidbit of motivation. Have you ever heard the name Charles Goodyear? I am guessing that at least the second part of his name sounds familiar. That's right, he founded Goodyear Rubber Company and is credited with inventing the vulcanization process that makes rubber usable. Goodyear was actually a bit nutty. He spent a good portion of his adult life obsessing over rubber and ways to improve it. You see, the problem with rubber in its natural state is that it is extremely temperature sensitive. As the heat rises, rubber changes from its useful, springy state into a globby, sticky mess. This makes it useless for most applications. Goodyear tried every additive he could think of to improve rubber's characteristics, to no avail. Luckily enough for him, he left a small piece of his rubber sitting next to the stove one day. As the material cooked, it's properties amazingly changed, and the vulcanization process was discovered. While the invention was a bit lucky, Goodyear was observant enough to notice the change, and capitalized on it.
How many times have you stumbled upon a great idea and simply let it pass? Well not any more. Starting today, you can document these ideas and eventually, you will find your home run, and once you do, head over to our Inventing and Reinventing posts to find out how to bring your idea to life.
Good Luck!
Good Luck!
Michael A. Schrader
www.upwardlifestyle.com
