Tesla’s Words art by Jelena Gradimir © Copyright 2022
LEARNING FROM THE SIMPLE PHILOSOPHY OF A GENIUS
Nikola Tesla understood a very simple truth, and one which every genius in all of history would agree.
This simple truth can be used by anyone, no matter of ‘IQ' to increase the odds of finding your own strokes of genius.
THE SECRETS TO THE UNIVERSE
Tesla, the inventor of modern electrical distribution, remote control, and wireless communication is the subject of much conspiracy and folklore. A very popular quote about the “secrets to the universe” was never spoken by the man, but the real Tesla might suggest this for finding the secrets to the universe:
If you want to find them, you must maintain an overwhelming sense of optimism and faith.
A STRUGGLE FOR THE AGES
In Tesla’s memoirs, he recounts the first moment when he had the idea for A/C motors (the foundation for modern electricity). Tesla’s college professor was demonstrating with a dynamo machine, and machines of this time wasted large amounts of energy in spewing excess sparks.
A young and overly optimistic Tesla spoke up in the lecture hall to propose that surely he himself could build a more effective machine. The professor famously embarrassed freshman Tesla by saying this would defy the laws of physics.
But this did not discourage Tesla. He endured naysayers and maintained an all-consuming devotion to this problem for years before he finally built the first successful A/C motor at age 27 — and once this was accomplished he immediately encountered a new problem:
Tesla was a nobody.
He didn’t have a college degree and he wasn’t famous.
How would he convince the world to use a new thing that nobody understands? It would take him years more of struggle from this point.
As he moved from country to country in pursuit of this idea, always taking jobs in related industries, and trying to sell his idea to whomever he met. He quits on Thomas Edison, and he eventually started his own company making bright lights for lighthouses at sea. It was not Tesla’s first choice, but it’s what his investors told him would make money. They told him "No, we want the arc lamp. We don't care for this alternating current of yours.”
(Source: My Inventions).
So even with a business to his name, Tesla cannot sell to his own investors the idea of the A/C motor. But the genius inventor rose the ranks of society one year at a time, and he finally met the person who would need his new motor.
This idea he was obsessed with from age 19, and the motor he built at 27, finally became a global sensation around age 35. To even explore the possibility was an invitation for mockery from his expert professor, and in all this time he had no clue how he would get the world to listen to him.
Yet he maintained a ludacris optimism.
He didn’t listen to voices that laughed at him.
He told himself, probably at every hour, that his gut had been right, and to follow it no matter the costs. And it is because of his intense courage that you are now reading words on a screen written from across the world.
THE KEY LESSON WE CAN LEARN FROM TESLA
It is through hard work and discipline that genius is achieved.
Brains are not enough.
Before dropping out of college in his second year, Tesla was the top student in his engineering program, and he spent his spare time reading hundreds of books on every subject he found interesting.
In an interview in his elderly years with Time Magazine (July 20, 1931), Tesla told the interviewer that he tossed and turned at night thinking about the engineering problems that haunted him.
It might be possible that Tesla wasn’t simply gifted with brains, but that his willingness to work and study without rest was his formula for success. It is the same pattern of obsession displayed by the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci or all the greatest sportsmen of history.
To achieve the extraordinary, it will require constant dedication.
So remember, if you want to find the secrets to the universe, you must always believe.
Tap the image to read Nikola Tesla: Stoic Philosopher and Keto Bro
Ellis Oswalt is an American writer and producer in New York City, and the author of Tesla’s Words. He has been used as a source by the Australian Associated Press to help determine the validity of fake Tesla quotes going viral online. Tap here to find out more.
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