Real-life resilience - James Dyson

Most people quit after just a few attempts. James Dyson failed 5,126 times. Still, it was his next attempt that led to a vacuum cleaner that cleaned up the competition. His is a remarkable story of frustration, obsession, rejection, and persistence. It’s the kind of resilience lesson that can keep us going on any rough day.

In the early 1970s, James Dyson wasn’t thinking of vacuums. He was building a new generation of wheelbarrows. He’d just designed the Ballbarrow, a quirky wheelbarrow with a big plastic ball instead of a wheel. It could glide over soft ground, had enhanced maneuverability, and won design awards. Dyson set up a factory to pump them out, convinced he was onto something huge.

But production came with a significant problem: dust. Every time they spray-painted the metal parts, the room filled with so much dust that filters clogged and the final products were damaged.

Frustrated, Dyson saw that a nearby timber mill solved their dust problem with giant cyclone towers that spun dust out of the air. The idea was that dust particles are flung outward by centrifugal force, leaving clean air in the middle. He went back to his own factory and built a 25 ft version that got rid of the dust.

After fixing the dust problem at his factory, he noticed a similar problem appearing in his own home. The expensive Hoover vacuum that the family owned was also getting clogged continuously. Always one for finding solutions, Dyson ripped off the Hoover’s bag and experimented with the cyclone concept that had worked for his Ballbarrow production. He finagled together a smaller cyclone to the vacuum with some cardboard.

It worked…. kind of. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to pull Dyson towards something more tantalizing and potent than the Ballbarrow. He decided that this would be his journey.

5 years later, he finally found success on version 5,127. Imagine the joy (and relief!) of finally getting there. It’s easy for us to see this in hindsight, but I always try to imagine what sort of mindset would be required to commit to more than 5,000 attempts. To put it into perspective, 5,126 failures is equivalent to failing every day for 14 years!

Even with a successful prototype, Dyson had a new problem to navigate - no one wanted to buy it. Manufacturers in the UK and US rejected him because any bagless vacuum would threaten the lucrative market for replacement dust bags.

So, because no one opened the front door, Dyson went in through a side window. In the 80s, he found a manufacturer in Japan willing to license the new technology to produce a fancy, modern, pink vacuum (the G-Force) that became a hit with the Japanese. That licensing fee provided Dyson with a financial jolt to build his own production facility in the UK.

A few years later, in 1991, Dyson released his very first model under his own brand - the DC01. The market loved it and Dyson was on his way. And, as they say, the rest is history. Here is where I mention that James Dyson’s net worth is now over $15B.

“Many will fail, but learn to enjoy failure, and discover through it. You never learn from success.” - James Dyson.

Navigating life’s challenges.

The path might be bumpy, but that doesn’t always mean it’s not the right path. Here are a few resilience takeaways from Dyson’s journey.

1. Commit to the long game. Imagine for a second the number 2999 in a notebook. The next one we try will be the 3000th attempt. Most of us would be demoralized, but Dyson was excited! Progress over perfection because it’s always about the next version, that’s the one that matters. It sounds cliched, but breakthroughs often sit on the other side of many small, imperfect attempts. Yes, we missed, but what would we do differently next time? To practice this we can choose one goal we’ve been working on and list 3 recent “misses.” For each one, write a single sentence on what we’d do differently next time. That list is our fuel for action.

2. Hold the vision. Even when the big players said no, Dyson still believed in his idea. If we truly trust our conviction when others can’t see it, we’ll look for solutions rather than reasons to quit. Write down our non-negotiables in a single sentence that captures why we’re doing this work. We need to put it somewhere visible to revisit it on the toughest days.

3. Adapt and adjust. Resilience is often associated to a certain stubbornness, but I refute that it’s as simple as that. I believe real resilience is persistence plus a willingness to evolve. We have to detach our ego from the outcome and view results as feedback. And, if we can let go of the idea that our identity is tied to a single attempt, we’ll feel much lighter and nimble. Practicing this comes down to small debriefs. What worked? What didn’t? What should we change? We need to be coachable, even to ourselves.

4. Find energy in purpose. Dyson’s frustration with his Hoover was fuel to find a better way. If we keep our deeper purpose visible, it can pull us through tough stretches. Let’s start our week by writing down 2 ways our current projects connect to something we care about. It could be a person, cause, or personal value that we can revisit when our motivation dips.

We’re not all built like James Dyson and we certainly don’t need to build a brilliant vacuum cleaner to be resilient. We just need to commit to trying our best without sacrificing our mental well-being. Sometimes it’s letting go and trying a different path, sometimes it’s the unwavering spirit to keep going.

Either way, it’s about finding a way forward.

Until next time friends, stay resilient. And remember that we never learn from success.

Carré @ Resilient Minds

PS - I’ll be hosting a live webinar on August 28th, discussing the importance of resilience in the modern workplace. If you’d like to join, you can register for free here.