Everyone has a story—was it a lemonade stand, a class project, or a late-night “what if”?
Share how you got started in the world of ideas, tinkering, and invention.
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I didn’t get into inventing. Inventing got into me. Actually, it was always there. I believe it’s in everyone.
My job became letting it out. When the ideas got to be too good to keep to myself, they exploded out of me and I’ve been trying to keep up with them since. That’s not easy.
It began in 1983. I started what I now call a swimming school for adults who are afraid in water. I asked myself, “How does fear work?” Pretty soon, as in days later, I was sitting in my recliner daydreaming. In my window I saw 3 stick figures with circles around them. They were each different. “Hah. That’s an answer to my question. It’s not the whole answer, but it’s part of it.”
A couple of days later, the same thing happened. This time, two more stick figures showed up in my window with circles around them. They were different. I knew it was the rest of the answer. And it was. I drew the diagram and asked myself what words went with them. They were obvious.
The next day I went to my class and presented them. The students said, “Of course. Why hasn’t anyone ever told us that before?”
Well, because it hasn’t been seen before, I reckon!
From that day forward, I have used that diagram for every single lesson for every single student we’ve had for 42 years. It has never once failed. In fact, it can’t fail.
Can you imagine the urgency I feel to get this system out there? To not just swimming students, but to Education. It literally cannot fail. I feel like a fish caught in a net. But the success it’s brought to people who were 99.9% convinced that they would never be comfortable in water or learn to swim has been what’s kept me going. They call it a miracle. So that’s what we decided to call my swim school. Miracle Swimming. I don’t know if I can patent a system. But I was so young at the time–28–that I didn’t seek a patent. I thought it was the way everybody taught swimming…the process was so obvious to me.
The next invention was a gizmo that makes it easy to learn to float. I can’t figure out why nobody thought of this before. They did think of one part of it: the tether. But nobody would be caught dead attaching a rope to something stable and experimenting in a pool. So they don’t do it. And it’s exactly what they should do. So I made a float bar to attach to and an attractive tether with my branding on it so that it’s “a thing.” Now it looks as though they’re supposed to use this thing to learn to float. It works. But the world doesn’t really know about it yet. I have two patents on it.
The third impossibly good idea is my yielding fence. I need a patent atty for this right now. I have a provisional patent for it but I really need to file the final application asap. The fence is being installed at my home in 2 weeks. The contractor wants be associated with building it so it’ll boost his business. I’m not absolutely sure no one has ever thought of this before. But if they had, I would think it would be all over Florida and Texas to prevent losing fences in hurricanes. That’s what I hope will happen. No photo until the final patent app is filed.
I ask myself, “What’s going to happen when the next impossibly good idea comes along?” It’s a scary thought. But I know it will. And I’ll be grateful.
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