Accidental discoveries don't generally change the world without hard work and persistence.
In an ordinary, but somewhat messy London laboratory, a world-changing discovery was accidentally made. Dr. Alexander Fleming was investigating the properties of a bacteria called staphylococci.
He stacked his cultures of the bacteria in the lab, left on holiday with his family, and returned to find mold growing in one culture. Curiously, the mold was killing the bacteria around it. Looking back, Dr. Fleming said, “I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic...but I suppose that was exactly what I did.”
But there was a long road from discovery to a revolutionized world of medicine. Fleming grew the mold in a pure culture and isolated the substance that actually killed disease-causing bacteria. He published his findings, but the article received little attention. He continued to investigate the possibilities, but growing the mold, which Fleming named “penicillin,” was quite difficult. Isolating the antibiotic agent was even more difficult. And its action on bacteria in cultures appeared to be fairly slow. Fleming felt that, because of the difficulty of producing it in quantity, and because of its slow impact, penicillin would never be important in treating infection—it just didn’t seem effective enough to make a difference. He was also convinced that penicillin wouldn’t last long enough in the human body. Some clinical tests showed promise, but most were inconclusive.
Fleming tried for years to find a chemist with enough skill to refine usable penicillin to enable further testing and mass production. He was never able to recruit a chemist, so he abandoned penicillin.
At about that time, Ernst Chain, a biochemist, and Howard Florey, a pharmacologist and pathologist, began researching and mass producing penicillin using funds from the U.S. and British governments (motivated to find a way to treat wounded Allied soldiers so as to avoid life-threatening bacterial infections). When D-Day came, penicillin was ready.
The Nobel Committee honored these three men with a Nobel Prize. But they were not alone, many others contributed as well. It took many years, persistent work, multiple strands of research, financial support, and trial and error to turn an accidental discovery into a life-saving miracle drug.
As with penicillin, our best accomplishments are usually the result of slow growth and continuous effort. Consider the support and input from others that has helped you achieve your goals. Look at potential teaming relationships that will build on shared talents. Your persistent work may not change all the world, but it will change yours.
Think of the challenges you have faced recently, and all the tedious time you have spent on them.
It is reassuring to note that the greatest minds in history had the same feelings. They just kept at it and they learned from each setback.