James Dyson wasn’t an engineer by trade, though he’s now known as one of the most famous inventors of our generation.
He studied as a furniture designer in school and wasn’t on a path to create a new kind of vacuum or a rotorless fan or a series of hand dryers. But when he graduated he got an apprenticeship under the inventor and entrepreneur, Jeremy Fry.
One of his first assignments for Fry was to design a boat. He’d never designed a boat, in fact he’d never designed anything using the material required to make a boat.
He learned everything by doing. He prototyped ideas, he experimented with tools and he became a master. The boat was a success and it was onto the next thing.
Many years, many failures and many successes later James Dyson is worth over $5 billion.
His story is one of persistence. He claims to have made over 5,000 prototypes of the Dyson vacuum and still works on new inventions to this day. It’s a brilliant example of the growth mindset and the human capability to acquire new skills.
Never stop tinkering.