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Lessons from Thomas Edison

Did you know that the first words Thomas Edison spoke into the phonograph were, "Mary had a little lamb"?  

I wonder if he contemplated the implications of being the first human to have his voice immortalized on a recording would be?  Seems to me, if he had given the thought it deserved he would have said something more profound.  Perhaps he could have immortalized his love for his wife, or sent a personal request to President Hayes.  

Such a monumental moment in history deserved more profound words than, "Mary had a little lamb."  Why didn't that happen?  Most likely because Mr. Edison was just experimenting and didn't even know if it would actually record.  Chances are, he had already tried several times with no success and this was just another attempt that happened to actually work.  Incidentally, his original recording was destroyed, but here's a recording of Edison repeating the words again... 

Fast forward to modern day and we think nothing of having our voices recorded, but as speakers, I believe it is our responsibility to give the kind importance that Thomas Edison should have given when he first spoke those words.  Why?  Because regardless of whether our words are the first recorded words of mankind, the last recorded words, or anything in between, the fact is, they will be there forever.  If you as a speaker don't properly site your sources, or do the research to discover whether or not what you are saying is even true, it may come back to bite you later down the road.

For example, as a teenager I listened to some motivational tapes from a well-known motivational speaker, and on the tapes he shared some amazing statistics about goal setting.  He said that Yale University did a study on the graduating class of 1953 (although other motivators cite Harvard MBAs in the 70's).  He said only 3% had their goals written down with time-tables.  In a follow-up study 20 years later they discovered that the 3% who had their goals written down were worth more in financial terms than the 97% that didn't have goals.  As inspirational as that was for me to set goals, it turned out to be untrue.  Sadly, as I got into the field, I perpetuated that lie, and I've even got those bogus statistics on recordings that I've made!

Now many people in the self-help business defend their actions when they are informed that this whole story is a lie.  They say that it doesn't matter because it's inspired so many people to set goals, but that logic to me seems very sketchy.  Can you imagine if we all of a sudden found out that the Bible was a fictional piece of work that some kid did for a school project?  Imagine all the televangelists saying, "but it's okay, it's helped a lot of people behave over the years."

The fact is we have a responsibility to make sure that the words we immortalize into recordings are accurate, true, and can withstand the tests of time.  When you, as a speaker, record your thoughts, pause for a moment and consider whether your thoughts deserve to be immortalized.