The Thomas Edison effect

Why don’t we tinker more?

Many of the great innovations come from trial-and-error experimentation.

We’ve focused so much on specialization and linear career-building that we have forgotten what it means to try things.

If you’re 18 - 30 (maybe even 40?) a lot of your time should be spent experimenting. Trying new things. Failing at things and building more things.

Everyone loves the quote from Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work".

But who is actually comfortable failing 10,000 times?

There are very few Thomas Edison-minded individuals in the world. It’s said that Edison would be found sleeping under his workbench the next morning after a long day of tinkering.

That’s dedication. That’s commitment. Because of that commitment, we are able to enjoy some of the greatest inventions the world has ever known.

What I’m writing is not novel. But, that’s not the goal. The goal is to get you to stop and reevaluate the way that you’re approaching your path to creation. To success.

Before founding the Mcdonald’s system, Ray Kroc tried a myriad of different careers. Each one led up to him creating one of the largest food chains in the world.

We need more people that are willing to say, “come hell or high water, I’m going to keep building”.

That’s where unique things are created. At the intersection of “I’ve accumulated all of this experience and learnings from my failures. And it has allowed me to create something truly interesting from the broken pieces”.

I’ve linked a video below. It’s a clip from Lex Fridman's interview with Elon Musk. In the clip, Lex asks Elon to give some advice to young people. Listen to what Elon had to say:

To sum the video up, Elon encouraged the viewers to try things, read a broad base of things, and contribute as much as possible.

Finding purpose is hard (check out this video about the hardship of finding purpose.).

But, it’s my belief that finding something worth working on starts with experimenting.

Here are a few ways that we can tinker more:

• Try to find projects that you can contribute to.

   

• Challenge conventional thinking. That thing that you’re working on right now, are you doing it the conventional way? The way that it’s always been done? Or are you trying something new?

• Don’t be afraid to learn new skills. This means learning things that are completely unrelated to your current expertise.

• Be random. Go on tangents. Collect random information. Read for the sake of knowledge. It was said that Leonardo Da Vinci had such a breadth of knowledge because he pursued knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

• Get around other tinkerers. There’s nothing like a community. Having a community that you can bounce ideas off of and generate a feedback loop quickly is a great way to validate ideas and understand when you’re going in the right direction. One community of tinkerers that I like is Indiehackers.com. They have a super supportive community and it’s always inspiring to see other hackers building things and pushing the boundaries of what it means to create products.

This writing is a challenge to me as well. I’m 29 now and I’ve challenged myself to allow this year to be a year of experimentation.

To try things and see what can be created from the messes of failures.

This is my challenge to you as well. I challenge you to tinker a little bit more.

Further reading:

• Super cool article about the power of creative tinkering.

• This company hosts a global event for makers (from novice to professional inventors) to come and share the things that they are currently making.