Thomas Edison, who gave us the gift of the electric bulb, was called “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs and failed a thousand times before inventing the light bulb. During an interview, a reporter jokingly asked him, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” To which Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” However counterintuitive it may seem, having the courage to fail and be laughed upon is required to be successful.

— Sandeep Kashyap, founder of ProofHub

Thomas Edison didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps. www.walled-in-berlin.com

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.