Taking a Long Shot (Despite the Odds of Failure)

I took a nonfictional route in regards to writing my proposed book, Taking a Long Shot, instead of a fictional one as described in the section on my upcoming book on fiction. According to my editor, it makes more sense because I did actually accomplished something real, not fictitious, despite its low probability of success.

Let me know what you think. The following are a table of contents and some sample chapters.

Table of Contents

            Preface

            Introduction

Part 1

The Hurdles During the Process

1. The Inventive Process
2. Some Common Hurdles at Different Stages

Part 2

Developing an Alternative Assessment

• Assessing the Goal
• Assessing the Business
• An Alternative Assessment
• The Theory

Part 3

The Pre-Preparation Stage

• The Desire to Seek the Truth
• Performance Anxiety
• Reviving Other Serious Types of Anxieties
• Bipolar Disorder
• Forms of Fear
• Taking Risks
• What if I Failed?

Part 4

The Preparation Stage

1. Your Mission
2. Ambivalence
3. Learn to Compete
4. Branding Your Product and Yourself
5. Dealing with Failure During the Preparation Stage

Part 5

The Innovation Stage

1. How Bad Do You Want It?
2. The Galileo Effect
3. Nothing to Show for It
4. Apathy
5. The Frog Prince Effect
6. Expanding the Initial Goal
7. Did You Learn All that You Can About the Problem?
8. Dealing with Failure During the Innovation Stage

Part 6

The Presentation or Performance Stage

• A Change in Interest
• The Effect on Performance Anxiety
• The Anatomy of Anger
• Are You Competing in the Right Competition?
• Listen to Your Support Group
• Listen to Criticism
• Dealing with Failure During the Performance Stage

Part 7

The Business Stage

• Planning Ahead
• Seek Support to Advance the Business
• Taking Extraordinary Measures

Introduction

A long shot involves solving a problem with multiple levels of complexity, hoping to become someone despite insurmountable odds, or striving to achieve a task that requires physical strength or mental endurance or both, or wanting to perfect this idea of coming up with a better product or service.

Dealing with Failure

I want to introduces the idea that by identifying the common types of hurdles that occur at different stages of your long shot, you would also identify the common causes of failure. It allows you to be better prepared for it. Knowing when it may occur helps in identifying the hurdle. Recommendations are also given on how to deal with the different types of hurdles. (Refer to the chapter The Theory for more information.)

There are three main types of hurdles related to a long shot:

• An adverse mood.
• An adverse thought.
• An adverse event.

The Different Stages and the Types of Hurdles Encountered

Part 1 offers examples of different innovators who encountered different hurdles at the different stages.  

Part 2 introduces the conventional way of assessing whether or not you will succeed. In relation to a long shot, it sets you up for failure. I proposed a different assessment. It assesses your motivation instead of your existing strengths and weaknesses. It takes into account your willingness to be better prepared.

Part 3 identifies a common mood experienced during the pre-preparation stage: performance anxiety. It is due to thoughts about the difficulty of the performance which in turn lead to thoughts of failure. I also want to deal with the concept of the fear of failure. The more serious types of moods are also examined.

Part 4 identifies another common offsetting mood experienced during the preparation stage: ambivalence. It is initiated by experiencing a difficulty which triggered the mood. There are different variations of it.

Part 5 identifies some common offsetting moods experienced during the innovation stage. It is usually due to an actual failure due to an adverse event. Thoughts of an expectation to fail can also creep in. There are also some more serious moods that are not totally due to unfavorable events. Those more serious moods were allowed to trickled in prior to engaging in the long shot.

Part 6 identifies a critical type of mood even when you succeed in the innovation. You may still have difficulties developing the business. If it fails, the experience can be more devasting than the other types of failures mentioned at the other stages.

Not only did you fail to make use of something you achieved, you also wasted the time and money invested in the project. It was this type of failure that affected me the most. I did not experience it until I was in the latter stages of the innovative process—just before I perfected the prototype.

The following are the timeframes when some common hurdles can occur (which can lead to the possibility of failure):

• During the pre-preparation stage, you may encounter the following hurdle: an adverse mood that exist on its own.
• During the preparation stage, you may encounter the following hurdle: an adverse mood caused by an event, and the adverse event (that caused the adverse mood).
• During the innovative stage, you may encounter any of the following hurdles: an adverse mood that exist on its own, an adverse mood due to an adverse event, or an adverse event (which may or may not produce an adverse mood).
• During the presentation or performance stage, you may encounter any of the following hurdle: an adverse mood that exist on its own, an adverse mood due to an adverse event, or an adverse event (which may or may not produce an adverse mood).
• During the business stage, you may encounter any of the following hurdle: an adverse mood that exist on its own, an adverse mood due to an adverse event, or an adverse event (which may or may not produce an adverse mood).

Chapter 2

The Difficulties During the Process

The following are examples of some hurdles encountered during the overall process by different innovators. They could have given up. Instead, they pressed on. Katherine Switzer provided a service while Bantin, Salk, and Fleming came up with an innovative product. They all contributed to a social change.

Katherine Switzer experienced her hurdles during the pre-preparation and the performance stages. It was not attributed to any of her weaknesses. It was due to external circumstances beyond her control.

Some of the difficulties Bantin encountered during the innovative stage were due to internal factors (the lack of research experience, performance anxiety, and the lack of trust) as well as external factors (the difficulty in extracting the insulin and purifying it).

Alexander Fleming experienced his setback during the innovation and presentation stages. Its origin was external. Although he never got over the difficulty, he was still considered an important inventor. It is an example of the importance of recognizing the achievement of a partial success in solving a difficult problem.

Jonas Salk experienced his hurdle during the innovation stage. Its origin was external. Even though he proved that his colleagues’ methods were wrong, he was sort of blacklisted for going against the grain of conventional wisdom. Even after his successful invention in the treatment of polio, other scientists continued to search for a treatment according to the conventional method. Eventually Salk’s method prevailed.

Providing a Service

Kathrine Switzer

Kathrine Switzer’s original goal was to run in the Boston Marathon in 1967. Prior to that, women were not allowed to take part in it. She had to overcome the conventional belief that the distance was too long and women were too frail to run the 26.2 miles distance.

At first, she had to convince her friend and coach, Arnie Briggs, who was trying to discourage from taking part in the run, that she could do it. She trained hard to prepare herself for it. She ran 31 miles to prove that she was ready.

Later she realized that she was running not just for herself but for others like her who were not permitted to run when she was physically attacked during the actual race by the race director in an attempt to physically remove her by having someone drive him up beside her. He had to maintain the unwritten rule that women were not supposed to take part in the marathon. Arnie, who was running with her, intervened to protect her.

The trauma from the incident made her realize the importance of what she was doing. She would campaign to make changes for women—that running long distances would not harm them, that they deserve to compete, and that they deserve to apply for scholarships. This thought process took place while she was still running. She mentioned that it dawned on her that she “made a great discovery” and that she “had to finish no matter what”.

Katherine can be categorized as an inventive entrepreneur. She did not initially plan to be inventive or become an entrepreneur. She is another example of someone who received an innovative idea in the face of a traumatic incident. It first started with an idea just to run in the Boston Marathon. When the race director intervened and tried to prevent her from achieving that goal, she wanted more than ever to prove that she could do it. It never crossed her mind that she would run another forty-one marathons in the future or that she would become a sought-after speaker, a journalist, and an author.

The idea that sparked her to complete the race also propelled her to start another project to create opportunities for women. The motivation that helped her to finish one project also provided the same motivation to start another—her ultimate goal. It does not mean that the first goal was not important. It was a necessary stepping stone before she could carry out the second goal. They are both linked. She would not have been able to realize the second idea if she did not activate the first creative idea.

She invented a unique service. The invention did not occur when she realized that she “made a great discovery” while running that first marathon. A discovery does not necessarily lead to an invention. A discovery takes place when she sees something that others did not. To reach the status of an invention, she put her discovery into practice by turning it into something workable. She implemented the non-profit organization 261 Fearless Inc to create opportunities for women. The organization offers participation in their non-competitive running clubs. It gradually expanded to offer education for coaches, information on how to set up a non-profit business, and a wide range of public education programs. She disseminated her experiences by taking part in speaking engagements and by writing her bestseller Marathon Woman. She was recently inducted into the USA National Women’s Hall of Fame for creating positive social change.

Most women would have been discouraged prior to the training if their coach told them that they were too fragile to run. And most would have quit during the actual run if they were physically forced to leave. Few would have stayed and fought not just for themselves but for the rights of other women given the circumstances back then.

Providing a Product

Frederick Banting

Frederick Banting’s first academic interest was in theology. He later changed it to medicine. He changed his academic focus after he failed the first-year general arts course; and the other contributing factor was that his close friend Jane passed away at an early age from diabetes mellitus. Banting was one of her pallbearers. The pain made him wonder why no one found a cure for the disease. He is an example of someone who altered his goal due to critical incidents. The change led to his important discovery.

He got the idea of treating diabetes from reading an article in a medical journal while preparing a talk to medical students. He applied for a lab space at the University of Toronto and met with James Macleod despite a limited knowledge of the literature in regards to the relation of pancreatic extracts and diabetes. He also had no publication or research experience. But he was fortunate that Macleod had plenty of space available.

His idea concerned isolating a secretion of the pancreas, but it was difficult to extract the insulin because of the pancreas’ digestive enzymes. It destroyed the insulin before it could be extracted. Therefore, there were many failures during the innovation stage.

Then he decided on another approach: tying off the pancreatic ducts of dogs. By doing that, the pancreas becomes inactive. He got the idea from a dream at about 2 am, and he struggled to get up to write it down. In the morning, he remembered writing something but forgot what it was. It read, “Tie off the pancreatic ducts of dogs. Wait six or eight weeks for degeneration. Remove residue and extract.” It was the key to the discovery of insulin.

When he was about to present his preliminary work at a scientific conference, the audience were critical of his findings partly because of his methodology. He also had symptoms of performance anxiety. The specific performance that made him nervous was speaking in front of a large audience. McLeod, his supervisor who gave him a space to work at the university of Toronto, had to take his notes after he froze. McLeod finished the presentation.

The incident prompted distrust. It gave Bantin the notion that his suspicion was correct—that McLeod wanted to take credit for his invention. He wrote in his journal that he was selfish and never to be trusted. Bantin and his partner, Best, also had disagreements with the other scientists in their group; but they came to an agreement long enough to purify the insulin.

It is an example of how adverse moods could have prevented progress during the innovative stage. If Bantin had struck Colip, assault charges would have been made. But Colip had a vital link to the invention. He knew how to purify the extract, and he also knew why there would be a serious reaction if it was administered in that form.

The distrust further intensified after Bantin and McLeod received the Nobel Prize. Bantin was furious that McLeod received it instead of Best. The disappointment also affected Best. It lasted until Bantin’s accidental death in a plane crash. Best strove to maintain his stake in the discovery.

Bantin is an example of how his determination overcomes the hurdle of finding a lab space during the pre-preparation stage despite a lack of experience. He managed to convince McLeod to be affiliated with the University of Toronto. He skipped certain preparations that were common practice. He mentioned that too much reading of the literature would add to confusion due to the diversity of opinion. When he experienced performance anxiety during his conference presentation, he managed to shrug it off. Such an experience could have been devastating, as in the case with Kathy Ormsby who displayed a variation of this anxiety during the performance stage. It adversely affected her. She continued running and jumped off a nearby bridge—despite her previous accomplishments. (Part 3 talks a bit more about this hurdle.)

He was subjected to the dark side of research—a lack of trust. When all the researchers on his team became suspicious of each other, he still managed to complete the research. (Part 5 discusses the different moods that can develop during the innovative stage to hinder the innovation.)

Alexander Fleming

Alexander Fleming was working as a shipping clerk for four years before he used his share of a will left by his uncle to study medicine. He did not begin research after he graduated. While serving as a private in the London Scottish Regiment, he became a recognized marksman. It was by chance that the rifle club’s captain convinced him to pursue a career in research rather than in surgery.

Later, he began experiments involving staphylococcal bacteria. The following is the story of how he discovered penicillin by accident. He went on a two-week vacation, and accidently left a dish containing a staphylococcus culture on a lab bench. It was never placed in the incubator as intended. When he returned, he found that a penicillium mold had developed accidentally on the contaminated culture plates. Perhaps it came from the lab below where various molds were being cultured. Upon examination of the mold, he noticed that it prevented the growth of staphylococci. It was not the mold but some “juice” it produced that killed the bacteria. He named the “mold juice” penicillin. If he was less observant and threw out the dirty dishes, penicillin would not have been discovered.

After isolating the mold, he determined that penicillin had an antibacterial effect. The difficulty Fleming faced was that he was not able to isolate the penicillin. That was why little notice was initially taken when he wrote his paper in 1929. He mentioned later that his inability to isolate it in a pure form offset the excitement from his innovation. It was not until a decade later that Howard Florey and his team was able to successfully purify the penicillin.

An innovation that is partly successful is also important. It can be an important piece of the puzzle.

Jonas Salk

Jonas Salk’s original academic interest was in law, but his mother observed that he could never succeed in a courtroom since he could not win an argument with her. At first, he was not interested in science, but he later saw the connection between science and the humanities. He mentioned that it was “the human dimension that has intrigued me”.

He switched to pre-med. Upon graduation from the New York University School of Medicine, he obtained a research fellowship at the University of Michigan. He worked on developing an effective influenza vaccine. After the completion of his fellowship, he turned his attention to the poliovirus and began his work at the University of Pittsburgh,

The preferred approach to tackle the problem was to apply a weakened virus or bacteria to trigger an immune response after creating a mild infection. However, Salk resorted to an alternative approach which he learned from his prior work on seeking an influenza vaccine. He applied a non-infectious “killed” polio virus (which was grown in culture and then killed to prevent infection) to induce protective immunity without the risk of infecting the patient. Despite the discouragement from his peers, he eventually found a safe and effective vaccine against polio.

Salk invented the inactivated polio vaccine (IVP). A second type of polio vaccine is the oral polio vaccine. It was invented by Albert Sabin. It applied the virus in a weakened form as drops or on a sugar cube. While IPV protected the vaccinated child, it did not stop the poliovirus from spreading between children. OPV was powerful enough to stop the polio outbreak. In areas where vaccination coverage is low, the weakened vaccine virus in opv can begin to circulate in undervaccinated communities and become a strong virus known as vaccine-derived polioviruses. Even Salk warned that the weakened virus could revert to a virulent form and cause polio.

Salk challenged the firm belief that only vaccines made of live viruses are effective. It is an example of going against the grain of conventional wisdom of what is deemed to be the proper way of conducting research. The US Public Health Service soon replaced Salk’s killed-virus vaccine, given by injection, with Albert Sabin’s oral vaccine made of live weakened poliovirus delivered in a sugar cube. Salk set out to reverse what he called a risky, politically-driven decision. In 1999, the US government recalled the Sabin vaccine and replaced it with a newer version of Salk’s vaccine.

I also encountered the difficulty of going against the standards in research as experienced by Salk—even after I gave arguments that it is more practical. I also encountered the difficulty of convincing others that the innovation is not incomplete as experienced by Fleming—even after I gave reasons why it is more effective in treating children. I also encountered the difficulty experienced by Bantin; I did not have the proper credentials, knowledge of the literature, or research experience. But I still went ahead with the project and gained research experience later to refine the research. Before I tell you a bit about my project as an example of the hard way of going about taking a long shot. Let me give you an example of an easy way first.

The Easy Way

Lonnie Johnson

The following invention also involved a product. He encountered an accident in one of his inventions, but he did not regard it as a failure. Instead, it sparked the following almost all at once: the idea, the process of bring it about, and the degree of success based on what the invention would look like. It is an example of the easy way of inventing something due to its simplicity and knowledge based on the previous prototype.

Lonnie Johnson worked at the air force during the day, but at night he would work on his longtime project: a heat pump that would use pressurized water vapor instead of environmentally hazardous freon. It accidentally sprang a leak as he hooked up a nozzle to his bathroom sink. It shot water across the bathroom in a strong stream. That was when he got the idea of making a similar design for a powerful water gun—which would later be called the Super Soaker.

He thought about manufacturing it himself, but the $200,000 quote for 1,000 water guns was too much. He licensed it to Hasbro Inc and in 1990 sold about 200 million super soakers. It was added to the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2015. Seven years later, Johnson was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He currently holds more than 130 U.S. patents.

Johnson’s invention is an important example of being aware of how an accident can alter the course of a present goal. It changed his focus on the invention that he was working on which was intended to contribute to an environmental and social change. Unlike Fleming’s accident, Johnson had to alter his innovation; but he figured out how to do it by carrying over the relevant features of the previous design. It was similar to Katherine’s coincidence during her run. It created another idea or as she put it, a “discovery”. But unlike Katherine’s initial project, Johnson did not have to finish it. He put it on hold. Katherine had to finish her first project before she can begin the second one. Johnson, on the other hand, started on the second project right away.

Johnson’s invention was also unique in another way. He was willing to change the importance of the goal. The value of the invention was different from his other prototype. It was a novelty. It provided entertainment value. It was not designed to make a social change.

I would most likely not recognize its entrepreneurial value. I was more interested in making a social change, and I was adherent to a single invention. I later learned to be more flexible. There are different ways of achieving a goal.

The Hard Way

John William Yee

How I arrived at my goal was a bit different. Like the other examples, it started with an idea. It involved a biomedical device. My mission was broad in scope, and more value was assigned to the product than to the business.

My method of carrying out the innovation is an example of the hard way of inventing something. When I had the idea, unlike the other innovative entrepreneurs, I did not have the proper credentials. The device was a plain contact lens (with no prescription) to treat myopia. I attempted to apply mechanical principles to alter the myopic shape of the eye. I thought that all I had to do to improve my mechanical aptitude was to take a few courses in mechanical technology; and to deal with the problem of having to be certified in order to apply the contact lens onto a participant’s eye, I asked an eye care specialist to help me.

Little did I realize that the plan was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I had to do. I ended up having to finish the mechanical program. It was helpful in determining the forces exerted by the lens; but I was still not able to find everything I wanted, so I took auto mechanics. I also had to finish the program before I made use of the hint that performing the drills inline is more efficient than alternating. It is comparable to the efficiency of the firing order of an inline engine. But I found that the solution was not strictly mechanical. There was also a neurological component. I took my master’s in psychology to find more information on neuropsychology. (I did not have the marks to become a doctor—or even a naturopathic doctor.) And when I found that there was also a developmental component, I specialized in developmental psychology during my postmaster’s. I found some of the answers in those fields but not everything.

In the midst of all that activity, I decided to become certified in optometry when I did not want to exclusively depend on an eye care specialist whenever I want to insert and remove a contact lens on someone. In the following chapters, you would find that I failed the certification twice because I was doing too much all at once. It was a dreadful feeling flying to a different province to write the exam then flying back suspecting that you failed.

To learn more about research, I later applied for a research doctorate. I thought that was an important step if I want to open a business to treat pediatric myopia. There are all sorts of claims that myopia can be corrected, but did they bother to perform the research? And is the research legit? I mean, would you approach any of them to treat your child?

I had regarded the postdoctoral research as part of my business in the sense that it would ease me into the second half of the inventive process. I had planned to perform a formal research with a university and thought that the recognition would give my business validity. But I failed my postdoc application four times. The experience was devastating. The resultant mood that took place was overwhelming. I thought that the decades of work I put into the project was all for nothing.

So what did you do? You may ask.

To give you a hint, it is the adherence to my mission that determines what I had to do. I always stated my individual mission statement in the publication of my books on treating myopia. I mentioned that “I abide by the philosophy of the Canadian inventor Frederick Grant Banting who discovered insulin. Any invention that proposes a cure should be affordable, it should be available to everyone, it should not be inferior, and it should not be monopolized by a corporation.”

So, there you have it. There are different ways to arrive at your goal.  However, hurdles are sure to get in the way. It can occur at any stage. It can even occur during the pre-preparation stage.

Switzer’s innovation stage blended in with the business stage. Other business ideas followed, and she capitalized on her popularity to make them successful. I would still call Bantin, Salk, and Fleming inventive entrepreneurs. They spent more time on the innovative phase of their invention and were driven by intrinsic motivation instead of expecting a reward. Although they did not patent their inventions in order to allow their product to be mass produced, they were still entrepreneurs in a different way. They took on risks to ensure that it was functional. Once they succeeded in that phase, they were remunerated not directly from their product but indirectly from their academic institutions and other organizations. (Refer to the chapter Assessing the Goal for an elaboration on the perks they received.)