By BIS Contributor Debbie Lane
A friend and I just watched the movie Hidden Figures – the incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson.
These brilliant African-American women worked at NASA, and served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence, turned the Space Race and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big.”
Hidden Figures is the best movie I have ever seen. It was inspiring, featured great actors, had an amazing story-line, and was based on a true story.
Each of the three women had a unique idea/dream that complemented their talents/skills:
- one had an idea about math,
- another one had an idea about becoming an engineer (something no other black woman had ever done); and
- the third had an idea about preparing herself and her co-workers for the future, when it appeared that a new technology called an “IBM” was going to put all the human “computers” out a job.
I was in awe as I watched each woman quietly handle/overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles with grace and elegance. Each woman nurtured their idea (despite the odds against their idea being successful), put a plan in place to make their idea a reality, overcame obstacles, and ultimately achieved what no one had achieved before.
We can do the same! If we can think it, we can do it! The only thing stopping us is ourselves!
Do you have an idea you’ve given up on? Is it a great idea, but life has taken up all your energy so that your idea has shrunken to a small corner in your mind? It’s time to move that idea to the forefront of your mind and start giving it some attention.
There is a children’s book I recently ran across called What do you do with an Idea? by Kobi Yamada. It has such great advice for adults, that it now sits on my coffee table where I see it all the time. Inside the front cover is the following inscription:
“…Always remember a single idea can change everything.”
The book describes what you do with an idea – how it can seem “strange and fragile” at first, but then the more you think about it, the more you like it. This author goes on to describe the different obstacles you face as you nurture an idea—most of which have to do with what other people think…but then, as you keep nurturing it, one day the idea changes right before your eyes—takes “flight and bursts into the sky” AND “changes the world”!
How exciting is that?!
What idea would you nurture, if you knew you it would “take flight…and change the world?” These kind of ideas don’t get figured out overnight. It takes perseverance and “nurturing.” Where would our world be if the following people hadn’t taken the time to nurture their ideas (into inventions):
- Thomas Edison (who invented light bulbs, and electricity to power the light bulbs),
- Alexander Graham Bell (who invented the telephone),
- Charles Babbage (who invented computers),
- The Wright brothers (who invented, built and flew the world’s first successful airplane).
If you have an idea that you can’t get out of your head, try thinking about it…researching it…nurturing it.
And each time an obstacle blocks your way forward (and there will be many of them), think about those three women in the NASA space program in the 60s that graciously found a way around all the obstacles that were placed in their way. Think about what would have happened to the United States space program and the goal of having a man orbit the earth, if those three women had given up because life was just too hard for them to nurture their ideas. Follow their example and nurture your ideas. Never, ever give up!
