Just this morning I was reading something from Bill Gates, Microsoft’s guru and computer wizard.
Yeah, it was from a few years back, but what a classic!
“Many great ideas started out as bad ideas.”
Whether you like computers or not, or like Bill Gates or not, computers have changed our lives. Not much has been advanced or accomplished for decades without some sort of computer programming, computer algorithms, or computational methods.
I’m thinking because he coined this phrase, perhaps it came from the pages of personal experience – hours and hours of writing endless lines of code, without much to show for it.
Perhaps thinking many times, “Why am I doing this? It’s just a waste of time! This was NOT a good idea!”
However, his endurance to the task and creative mind, has revolutionized the world, given us the ability to talk and connect with each other via the internet, create and design things never before imagined, and set in motion new technology we carry in our hands every day!
Thomas Edison, inventor of the first light bulb, went through many, many failures to finally find one filament that worked. I’m sure after trying every metallic element known to man, items found at the bottom of a blacksmiths tool box, the hair of a horse’s tail, a woven thread of spiderweb, a wad of gum from under his wife’s sewing table, he thought, “My mental capacities have completely left me holding a bag of wasted effort!” Well, obviously not! Using a flashlight to search for the monster under your bed has been most satisfying and effective.
Many exciting and revolutionary products and services created by now renown people were born out of failure and defeat, HOWEVER, they never gave up, they never gave in, and never stopped believing in themselves and their purpose.
Learn from your failures, take heart in your defeats and allow them to be the seed-beds and training grounds for your successes and victories.
Now let’s get busy and go to work on our own bad ideas! Who knows? Maybe Bill Gates will invite you over for Christmas dinner some year!
