Tom had a rough start on life. He didn't even learn how to talk until he was almost four years old.

Tom didn't do so well at school, either. 12 weeks into the first grade, his teacher called his mother and said Tom wasn't fit for mainstream schooling.

Politically correct speaking wasn't the rage yet, so when the teacher used the phrase "addled mind," Tom's mother was enraged and indignant, and decided to teach her son at home.

As a boy, young Tom was hawking newspapers at a train station when someone hit him in the side of the head, knocking him to the ground. Not long after that, Tom came down with Scarlet Fever. He completely lost his hearing. Was it the blow to the head or the scarlet fever? Either way, Tom was deaf - and only 14 years old.

Tom wasn't allowed to enter college, either, because he lacked a formal education.

Poor Tom just couldn't get a break.

It probably wouldn't surprise you one little bit if I said that Tom was miserable, dejected and poor. It probably wouldn't surprise you if I said everything Tom did failed miserably.

But, that would be a lie.

In Tom's lifetime, he set a world record for filing 1,093 patents for the things he invented. Like the light bulb, for example.

In 1892, his home grown company, Edison General Electric Co. merged with another firm to become G.E. (General Electric) Corporation. Maybe you've heard of it?

Did you know that it had taken Tom 10,000 tries before he created a working light bulb? He was asked, once, if he was frustrated at not seeing results. His reply was;

"Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work."

What an attitude!

Hailed world-wide as "The wizard of Menlo Park", "The father of the electrical age," and "The greatest inventor who ever lived," Thomas Edison filed his 1,093rd patent at 83 years of age.

He was denied a standard education first, lost his hearing, and was denied a college education. The one thing no one could take away from Tom was his attitude.

• He said that failure is a step towards success because every failure eliminates one more thing that doesn't work.

• He said he does not get discouraged because he knows every wrong attempt is a step forward.

• He even said that going deaf improved his concentration because he would not be disrupted by noise.

But, perhaps most poignantly, he said this;

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success... when they gave up.

You won't make that mistake, will you?