Thomas Edison overcame adversity many times in his life. A classic example of this occurred in 1914, when a fire ravaged the phonograph factory at his West Orange, New Jersey complex. The 67 year-old Edison lost approximately $5 million that night – the equivalent of $75 million today. His son Charles raced to his father’s side, thinking the sight of the blazing factory would be too devastating for him. Instead, Charles was amazed to see his father smiling. He told his son, “Go get your mother! She’ll never have a chance to see anything like this again in her entire life!” Edison then called a meeting with his key staff members and immediately began organizing the recovery campaign. He urged his team to focus on rebuilding the phonograph factories in a way that “took advantage of the latest improvements in factory design.”

Edison’s response to the fire demonstrates his irrepressibly optimistic nature. As biographer Dr. Paul Israel describes it, “Where others might see disaster and failure, he was always optimistically looking for opportunities and seeing the possibility of new directions for improvements.”