You know Thomas Edison as the inventor of the light bulb and his famous 10,000 prototypes. He was the Elon Musk of his day. He was also the inventor of the phonograph, being able to capture sound and replay it. Until this invention, nothing had ever been recorded. Imagine that! It is only in the last 100 years or so that anything has been recorded.

When Edison first introduced this technology it was like magic. This is where Edison got the nickname the Wizard of Menlo Park, where his New Jersey lab was. Ironically, this man who became famous for sound technology was partially deaf. He wasn’t born this way. He worked at the railroad early in his career and someone pulled on his ear and he felt something snap. He could have been bitter about this, but he saw the benefit.

Edison attributed his prolific inventing to his ability to concentrate and he attributed his ability to concentrate on his loss of hearing. He often was oblivious to what was happening around him, simply because he couldn’t hear. Epictetus said, “People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.” Edison’s view was if that person had not hanked his ear and broken his hearing, he would not have accomplished the work he had accomplished.

I’m sure you’ve seen examples where two people have gone through similar situations. One person saw the silver lining in it so to speak. The other person continually points to it as the source of every single problem in their life. Dr. Gilbert has a silver lining saying that goes, “Because of this something good will happen.” You can’t beat someone with an attitude like that. I think it’s true that it’s not the thing that disturbs us, but our perspective of the thing.

Take the view the next time things don’t go your way that “Because of this something good will happen.” If this becomes your default attitude, nothing can defeat you.