Pretend it is easy

The attitude in which we approach a job makes all the difference in the world in our stick-to-itiveness and in our ultimate success.

“A man must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere with progressive things." - Charles Kettering

A barber invented the spinning frame.

A schoolteacher invented the cotton gin.

A janitor made the first microscope.

A coal miner invented the locomotive.

The telegraph was invented by a portrait painter.

A retail clerk invented automatic couplers for railroad cars.

A street contractor invented the sleeping car.

A textile man invented block signals to give railroads safety.

A schoolteacher gave us the electric locomotive.

An amazing number of our inventions have been made by men with no technical training in the field. They were outsiders, rank amateurs. But that was an advantage. They did not know that the thing they were tackling was considered impossible by the tradition-bound specialists.

They were just ignorant enough to think it would be easy, and easy did it. They didn’t know enough to be discouraged.

They pretended it was easy.