This week's Wizard Times features a speech that I gave at Toastmasters. It is a story of persistence, determination, self-discipline, and hard work. Four things I believe every business owner must implement in order to achieve success. The timing is right for this article because I believe you can glean several nuggets from this story that you can implement right away. Make these virtues an integral part of your business plan.
The story of Alexander Graham Bell
My story is one of persistence, and self discipline and hard work; three key ingredients for success. It’s the story of a very famous American: Alexander Graham Bell.
Alex was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His Mom was an accomplished pianist and portrait painter and she was going deaf. His Dad and Grandpa helped people with speech problems. Alec grew up and he began to assist his dad helping people with Visible Speech for the deaf. Also Alex liked to dabble with his “inventions and was a very curious child. Alec’s two brothers died of TB. Tuberculosis. His mom was afraid Alec would die too; so they moved to better climate for him - Brantford, Ontario, Canada. In 1871 he got a job teaching Visible Speech in a school for the deaf across the border in the United States, in Boston, at the University. This was just 6 years after the Civil War.
One day he went to the telegraph office to send a message and was told he would have to wait because someone was sending a message at the time. Alex said, “You mean you can only send one message at a time one way?” “Yes” was the answer. Alex said, “I will work on that.”
He worked very hard and a lot of hours. He taught in the school during the day and at night tinkered with his inventions and also began experimenting with electricity. Alex was working on a harmonic telegraph. He was sure that he could find a way to send more than one message at a time over the telegraph wire. Then he thought if you could send Morse code over the wires; why not voices.
But inventing things costs money. Alex was telling two of his students parents about his experiments and they decided to help pay the experiments he was doing, and would pay for a helper for him.
One day Alex went into a very crowded, noisy, shop to buy some supplies; he noticed a man hunched over a bench working; and he asked the owner of the shop who the man was. Alex was told his name was Thomas Watson. Alex wanted to meet him and the shop owner called for him, but the man paid no attention; he was focused on what he was working on. Alex said now that’s the helper for me; he has Self Discipline. He hired Mr. Watson. Alex made a great decision because Mr. Watson was a brilliant mechanic and could make almost any tool or piece of equipment that Alex needed for his experiments. Now that Alex had a helper he could spend more time with teaching lessons for the deaf; that was his passion.
In the meantime, a man brought in a beautiful young girl; Mable Hubbard. She was deaf and her Dad wanted Alex to teach her to talk, she was able to hear until she was 4 then lost here hearing because of Scarlet Fever.
Although she could not speak her eyes sparkled a lot. The parents told Alex she was a very smart and enthusiastic young woman. Mable’s dad was interested in Alex’s experiments and was one of the men who helped him finance his inventions. So Alex persisted and taught the deaf during the day and experimented on the side at night and on weekends.
Alex taught Mable to read lips and talk; and they began to fall in love. She believed in him so much. She was a quick learner and in just a short time made great progress in talking and reading lips.
She was really worried about Alex though. He was such a night owl. He was so focused on his work, but nothing seemed to go right. Alex and Watson just had failure after failure.
Mable and Alex got married and had two daughters and lived a long happy life together. They built a summer home in Nova Scotia, Canada they called it Beinn Bhreagh. It was there that he came up with the many ideas for his inventions including: sending of sound by light waves, and different kinds of airplanes, sheep breeding to get better wool, an electric eye, film for sound tracks, and was the founding member of the National Geographic Society.
Alex and Mr. Watson stung up a wire out of the top window from Alex’s workshop and into the window of the house next door and hooked it to the piano. Alex went back to the shop and Mr. Watson played the piano. Could he hear the sounds YES!! Then his heart sank; he put the receiver down and still heard the sound of the Piano. It was coming through an open window. He said to Mable, “Our experiment failed.” And he had many failures, day after day, week after week, but they kept working. They worked for many, many, months.
Alex was not eating well, was losing too much sleep, and was looking poorly. Mable convinced him to take some time off to be refreshed so he took a trip back to Brantford, Ontario for the summer. There he tried to forget about the telegraph, the telephone and all the other unfinished inventions he was working on. One day he was lying in the grass on a hill and he heard the sounds of children laughing and playing and he thought about how their voices came through the air. Then he had a brilliant idea; and he could hardly wait till he could get back to his shop to implement his new idea!
Back in Boston he sent for Watson and he began immediately to explain his new “idea”. He and Watson worked and worked and no success until finally one day in March it was Alex’s turn to shut himself in the spare room next to the workshop and speak into the telephone. When he turned and sat at the table he had an accident. His elbow hit a battery that was sitting next to the phone and he spilled battery acid on his pants. It burned. He yelled into the telephone mouthpiece, “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you!” A few seconds later Mr. Watson shows up and exclaimed, “I heard every word you said!!” And so the first telephone call had been made. So, on March 7th 1876 a US Patent was taken out for Improvements for Telegraphy and the famous patent # 174,465 which was the patent on the Telephone.
One day a man name Mr. Keller brought his daughter who was deaf and blind. Alex was letting her hold his watch and she could feel it ticking. Alex thought she could learn, but he had no experience teaching someone deaf as well as blind. So he advised the parents to take her to see a woman named Anne Sullivan. Alex watched her progress, and Helen Keller and Alex became great friends. She credits him with helping her to escape the prison of darkness and learn to “see”
Persistence and self discipline and hard work were 3 keys to success in the life of Alexander Graham Bell: How about You? Do you have these qualities?
On the day that Alexander Graham Bell died Aug 2 1922 all the phones in America were silent in his honor.
Perhaps now would be a good time to have a complimentary meeting with a Wizard of Ads Partner. Links to their websites and blogs are listed down the right side of The Wizard Times. Hundreds of their articles with free insightful advice can been seen at www.americansmallbusiness.com 2009 would be a great year to attend a class at the Wizard Academy 21st Century Business School in Austin Texas. What is the Wizard Academy?
See you next week.
Clay Campbell
Wizard of Ads
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