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Failure. Passion. Self-trust. These three theories are proven to be the most important factors to achieving personal success- whatever that may be. Winnie Xiao (‘17), my interviewee, has proven this to be true in her daily experiences at Stanford University, as well as her childhood stories and upbringing. Winnie’s mother was not the “typical Asian mother” that Gladwell describes in Lesson 8: Rice Paddies and Math Tests. She didn’t expect Winnie to work on Pythagorean Theorem exercises for countless hours at the age of 7, instead, Winnie’s mother allowed her to develop her own meaning of success and explore the subjects she took interest in. Winnie was born in 1999 and attended an intensive kindergarten program while she still lived in China. It…show more content… Now, if we divide that number by ten and add the lightbulb, we find a similar phenomenon. Thomas Edison, its inventor, frequently answered questions such as, “How long did it take you to create the lightbulb?” and “How many times did you get it wrong before succeeding?” with this: “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” He went on to explain that it took him 1000 tries to create a light bulb that burned for 13.5 hours. “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” a reporter asked. “I didn’t fail 1,000 times,” Edison responded. “The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was also fired from his first two jobs for being non-productive. Despite all the “failure” in his life, he is now the most esteemed inventor in America and has 1084 patents. His one thousand step translation makes his “failures” seem more like trials; steps are necessary in
