Have you ever experienced something in nature that was so powerful and amazing that you felt puny in comparison? Last summer our family visited Niagara Falls. Niagara is such an awesome display of power that no amount of film – still or video — can capture its grandeur. To think men have been able to harness the power of this mighty river and the falls is hard to imagine. It would take an extraordinary mind to even try to tackle something so colossal and crushing.

The mind behind the Niagara Falls power plant is Nikola Tesla. Many people don’t even know who Tesla was, but he’s actually the mastermind behind technologies like radio and cell phones. He’s the original inventor of the radio. The US government awarded him the patent on the day he died — after a lengthy lawsuit with Marconi for the patent rights.

Our eldest son Caleb read the biography of Tesla several years ago and has been a fan ever since. So it was a thrill for him to be at Niagara Falls and pose in front of Tesla’s statue.

Tesla was the king of ideas. Nothing was too big or beyond his grasp. He harnessed electricity, airwaves, radio waves, and energy sources. Here are a few of the things that made Tesla successful:

• He thought outside the box, often doing things in a way that was unconventional and unusual.

• He saw the big picture in his mind first and then began envisioning the tiny details that comprised the project.

• He had lots of things going at once, and he knew which things to pursue and which ones to drop.

• He wasn’t afraid to invest in his ideas. He constantly put his earnings back into his projects.

• He loved what he did.

• He saw nothing as impossible, but believed there was always an answer.

• Tesla believed in things he could not see!

Think about your own life. What would you dare to do or be if you adopted some of Tesla’s characteristics as your own? I think that’s the main thing I took away from Niagara — never settle for mediocrity!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Business Planning, Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Marnie L. Pehrson is the creator of IdeaMarketers.com and owner of C.E.S. Business Consultants which was founded in May 1990. Marnie, a wife and mother of six children, is a content developer, author, and Internet community developer who helps talented professionals discover, define and deliver their message to the online world. Pehrson Web Group - This is the "home base" of all Marnie's projects.

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