Creators & Discoverers

We have a set of posters hanging in our office that taunt me.  They make me feel like a loser.

Thomas Alva Edison, Age 14.  Built his first lab and later a light bulb.
Alexander Graham Bell, Age 18.  Started experimenting with sound, went on to invent the telephone
Ada Lovelace, Age 13.  Fascinated with maths, went on to write the first computer program.
Marie Curie, Age 18.  An interest in physics led to breakthrough cancer treatment.
Louis Braille, Age 16.  Invented an alphabet for the blind.  

It makes me question what I'm doing with my life and what's different about them.

So, I naturally turned to wikipedia for a little research.

Thomas Edison's mind wandered most of the time in school; in fact, his teacher referred to him as "addled" (i.e., a bad egg).  After only 3 months, Thomas left formal schooling and his mother taught him from home.  As a young teen, he started selling newspapers, candy and vegetables to help support his family -- which was the beginning of his entrepreneurial endeavors. 

Alexander Graham Bell was naturally curious -- loved nature, experiments, music, art and poetry.  He was also a lackluster student, often skipping class and churning out low grades. He left school at age 15 to live with his grandfather in London where he developed his love for learning outside of the classroom.

Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, but was abandoned by him as an infant.  Ada's mother wanted to prevent her daughter from inheriting the "insanity" of her father, and therefore, had her privately tutored in mathematics and science (apparently, a remedy pre-therapists).  Her extraordinary mathematic abilities developed at age 17, which would then dominate most of her adult life.

Louis Braille loved building -- as soon as he could walk, he started playing in his father's workshop.  At the age of 3, one of the tools struck him in the eye; despite attempts by a highly-respected surgeon, no treatment could save his eye, and an infection spread to his other eye.  By the age of 5, he was blind in both eyes.  His parents were devoted to his care and continued to nurture his bright and creative mind, despite his disability.  He went on to study at the first school for the blind in the world, The Royal Institute for Blind Youth, at age 10.

Marie Curie grew up in the Russian-partian of Poland to two well-known teachers.  Her family lost their property & fortune due to their involvement in Poland uprisings.  When the Russian government eliminated lab equipment at school, her father took most of the equipment home to teach his children.  After finishing school, she attended an underground, Pro-Poland university called the "Flying University," that met in ever-changing locations to prevent arrests by the Russian government.  Maria made an agreement with her sister that she would help pay for her medical studies in Paris if her sister would do the same for her in return two years later.  During this waiting period, Marie worked as a governess and continued her own self-education.

So, what do they have in common?

They all were self-learners -- The nurtured their curiosity through non-traditional education.
They displayed grit -- not giving up when things were (really) tough.
They desired to be creators and discoverers -- rather than rich or powerful.

It makes me wonder if we have it wrong today.  

In the TED Talk "Do Schools Kills Creativity," Sir Ken Robinson made a case that schools undermine creativity, teaching kids to follow the rules rather than create their own rules.

If students spent more time exploring their questions and less time memorizing, we'd have more engaged classrooms.

If our best and brightest spent more time solving problems and less time trying to beat the SAT, we'd have more interesting thinkers.

If students had more free-time for self-exploration and less rigorous calendars (i.e., student council on Monday, piano on Tuesday, etc), we'd have more inventions.

And, it doesn't stop there.

The same thing applies to adults.

Umair Haque argues that we have too many wannabes and not enough leaders in the world.

Obey — or revolt? Are you responding to incentives — or reshaping them? Here's the simplest difference between leaders and wannabes. Wannabes respond dully, predictably, neatly, to "incentives," like good little rational robots. They do it for the money and end up stifled by the very lives they choose. Leaders play a very different role. They don't just dully, robotically "respond" to "incentives" — their job is a tiny bit of revolution. And so they must reshape incentives, instead of merely responding to them. They have principles they hold dearer than next year's bonus — and so they think bigger and truer than merely about what they're "incentivized" to do. If you're easily bought off from what you really hold dear with a slightly bigger bonus, here's the plain fact: you're not a true leader.

Conform — or rebel? Are you breaking the rules or following them? The rules are there for a reason: to stifle deviation, preserve the status quo, and bring the outliers right back down to the average. That's a wonderful idea if you're running a factory churning out widgets — but it's a terrible notion if you're trying to do anything else. And so leaders must shatter the status quo by breaking the rules, leading by example,= so that followers know the rules not just can, but must be broken. If you're nail-bitingly following the rules, here's the score: you're not a true leader.

The "Marie Curies" of the world are leaders, not wannabes.  

They were square pegs in round holes.  Instead of trying to become round pegs, they made their own rules.  They also changed the world.