In 1914 Thomas Edison's factory in West Orange, New Jersey, was virtually destroyed by fire. Although the damage exceeded $2 million, the buildings were insured for only $238,000 because they were made of concrete and were thought to be fireproof. Much of Edison's life work went up in smoke and flames that December night. At the height of the fire, Edison's 24-year-old son, Charles, searched frantically for his father. He finally found him, calmly watching the fire, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind."My heart ached for him," said Charles. "He was 67 — no longer a young man — and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, "Charles, where's your mother?" When I told him I didn't know, he said, 'Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.'"
The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew."
Three weeks after the fire, Edison managed to deliver the first phonograph.
Edison could not conceive of any experiment as a flop. As Israel puts it, "He saw every failure as a success, because it channeled his thinking in a more fruitful direction." Israel thinks that Edison may have learned this attitude from his enterprising father, who was not afraid to take risks and never became undone when a business venture crumbled. Sam Edison would simply brush himself off and embark on a new moneymaking scheme, usually managing to shield the family from financial hardship. Israel says, "This sent a very positive message to his son--that it's okay to fail--and may explain why he rarely got discouraged if an experiment didn't work out." In addition to teaching him what wouldn't work, Israel says, failed experiments taught him the much more valuable lesson of what would work--albeit in a different context.
