ABSTRACT
Past lessons learned can affect future successes earned.
True leaders treat successes as strangers and failures as faithful friends.
How many times did Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) fail in his search for the perfect filament for the incandescent lamp? The answer is approximately 1799 times. Edison tried anything he could think of including bamboo, animal hair, and even whiskers from a friend’s beard. In all, he tried approximately 1800 things. After approximately 1000 attempts, someone asked him if he was frustrated at his lack of success.1 He said, “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work”.2
