For going on two decades, through over a dozen books, numerous screen plays, and in excess of 600 of these columns, every word has been dictated to and typed by my trusted and treasured colleague Dorothy Thompson. As she types these words, I am reminded of her statement, “You have to know what won’t work before you can find what does work.”
As the infamous character Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street, said, “Information is the most valuable commodity I know.” We do, indeed, live in the information age. There is more knowledge available to us than we could ever hope to internalize and apply; therefore, we’ve got to learn how to sift through the mountain of data that doesn’t matter to us so that we can find the nuggets of truth that will make the difference as we make decisions about our personal and professional lives.
Research used to be a process of trial and error. People all around the world who wanted to know things conducted similar experiments so that they could further their own knowledge toward an eventual discovery. Today, when we start a research project, we need go no farther than our laptop computer to utilize a search engine to find out what is already known about any imaginable topic. Search engines are useful more in the process of eliminating the information we don’t want than in finding the information we do want.
Thomas Edison failed numerous times as he tried to develop the filament for an electric light bulb. With each experiment and the corresponding research, he didn’t feel as if he’d failed, but instead, believed he had discovered another possibility that would not work.
Every summer, in conjunction with our technical work at the Narrative Television Network, I attend a conference in Washington, DC, attended by hundreds of other people who represent organizations conducting an amazing variety of research and technical experiments from all across the country. Several years ago, I realized that this was a tremendous resource for finding out what other people have done and what worked for them. But an even more valuable tool that I discovered is the process of inquiring what they have tried that didn’t work. Just as valuable as implementing knowledge from the successful research of others is the process of not repeating failed experiments that they have already conducted.
As you go through your day today, learn what works and what doesn’t work as you benefit from it all.
Today’s the day!
Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books including The Ultimate Gift. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. He may be reached at 5840 South Memorial Drive, Suite 312, Tulsa, OK 74145-9082; by e-mail at Jim@JimStovall.com; or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jimstovallauthor.
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