did not care if anyone ever criticized his work. .
Unlike most people, Edison accepted and learned from his failures. He usually never got discouraged when his experiments failed; he viewed failure as a success and a great lesson (Love 18-19). If one of his experiments didn't work, he wouldn't get disappointed or devastated; instead, he would move on and try to find other ways to get the experiment to work, no matter how long it took. For example, it took Edison almost two years and twenty thousand experiments to succeed in inventing his incandescent electric light (Anderson 51). Although it took awhile for Edison to achieve his goal, he never got discouraged and kept testing different materials to find the right source for his light. When asked how he felt when he failed an experiment, Edison simply replied "Why, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" (Love 19).
As an astute businessman and intelligent industrialist, Edison was highly competitive and daring. He was able to recognize good business opportunities and was never afraid to take big risks. Edison's business skills came from his creativity and his enthusiasm for new inventions (Anderson 66). His imagination and inventiveness helped him create successful businesses. Edison believed that companies could be more proficient and serviceable to their customers if competition existed between them; he believed this would also help the companies earn more profit and benefits (Anderson 74). Edison lived on competition and encouraged it. His competitive spirit enabled him to become a great inventor and businessman. .
Many influential events and people contributed to Edison's accomplishments. Michael Faraday, an English chemist and physicist, influenced Edison's career and life. Faraday, like Edison, came from a poor family and had little formal education. His success in science showed that although he didn't have much resources, "theories and experiments could be formulated with commercial applications" (Baldwin 43).
