A Lesson from Edison

Edison statue at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, Florida

There is something about standing under a living reminder that the first draft of a journey will never be the final version.

This four-foot Banyan sapling was planted at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, over a hundred years ago. A gift from Harvey Firestone. An experiment in rubber research, the brain child of two wildly successful entrepreneurs & for every original purpose did not complete its assignment.  

And yet it's the first, most impressive thing encountered when you visit here. 

I could not help but connect to this stage of life where most of us have a few “original purposes” that did not pan out the way we imagined. 

Did they? 

Careers that shifted. Relationships that rerouted. Dreams that demoted slowly or were deferred altogether. Parenting challenges. Plans that imploded. Bodies that changed or sickened. Versions of ourselves we outgrew.

Perhaps like this tree, most of us are living monuments of grit vs. success.

But walking where Edison once walked renewed the wisdom that life is less about perfect execution and more about resilient expansion. 

So if you are in the expansion phase, I say make every version of you count. Every launch, every bold leap, every disappointment, diagnosis, unplanned pivot, every scar, celebration & scary moment & let that thicken the trunk. Absorb the sunny days. Drop more roots in resilience & less into regret. 

And if you are standing on the other side of the hardest seasons, invite us into your shade. Pull someone close who is in their scorching season & remind them we are not the sum of what worked but what endured because we dared try. The canopy you offer is strength that turned into shelter.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

~ Thomas A. Edison