JAMES SPANGLER: CREATING SOLUTIONS

What do you see when you are faced with a difficult situation? What comes to your mind when you are faced with a terrible problem that no one has ever solved and seems unsolvable? Do you see a chance to create a solution? Do you see a chance to help millions of others on this planet who face the same problem you are facing? Do you see possibilities in impossibilities or are you just like the other guy next door? Are you just like millions of others who believe that a problem is a problem and you just have to ‘roll with it’? Are you different, creative, ingenious?

The name James Spangler might not ring a bell in your ears but am sure his invention: the portable electric vacuum cleaner, will. Spangler was an inventor (two other inventions before the vacuum cleaner) who lived in the 1900s. He wasn’t a very popular inventor and as a result, wasn’t very rich, then.
BEFORE THE VACUUM CLANER INVENTION.
Spangler worked at the Zollinger department store in Ohio. He worked as a carpet sweeper. However, Spangler had one problem: he was asthmatic. And this meant a lot. He worked six nights a week, cleaning dusty carpets with a primitive ‘brush-on-wheels’ mechanical device called the Carpet Sweeper. However, unlike the vacuum cleaner he would later invent, this device did not suck up dust and the dust from the carpets would get into Spangler’s nose and he would start coughing. It was a terrible situation for Spangler but he needed to keep the job. He had to device a new method…a better machine.
One night, as Spangler cleaned the dusty carpets, his mind wandered to the ceiling fan blowing above him and he looked at it. Then he thought, the fan was being powered by a motor. If the motor could power the mechanical carpet sweeper he was using, that would make pushing and pulling easier. That single idea, that single thought (which gave birth to many others) changed Spangler’s life forever. And it also changed the way we would have been cleaning today. The rest of the story is what you use on your carpets and rugs today. Of course there is still more, but space would not allow me to elaborate.
Back to my first question. What do you see in problems? Do you see solutions? Do you see POSSIBILITIES in imPOSSIBILITIES?

Spangler had a problem. He was not the only one who had such problem. He was not the only sweeper in the whole of Ohio. I bet there were many others. But while the others kept on managing and ‘rolling with it’, her sat up and did something. He solved his own problem, reduced his risk of an asthmatic attack, filled his pockets with cash and most importantly, solved the problems of many others like him.

See, every single thing you see, from the small bulb that lights your room to the shower that gushes out water, is the solution some creative people created for their problems and the problems of many others. These guys did not see anything as impossible. Instead, they believed that things could be done a better way and they figured out the way and fixed the situation. And here is the thing, if Spangler had not invented the electric vacuum cleaner, another person would have done so. If you read this and ignore, another person would read and then read again, and then ponder and then Google , James Spangler, read his story, get inspired and do something. He would create a solution to one of the numerous problems we are facing now in the world.
Therefore my dear readers, I urge you today to think outside the box. Stop rolling with it. There is a better way. Stop fitting into the situation. Try and fix it! Try, try and try!
Thank you.