Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Rejecting The Rubik's Cube

Episode Date: May 14, 2022

In case you missed it, the team behind Under The Influence started a podcast network. We wanted to bring you a bonus episode this week from one of our other podcasts titled, "We Regret To Inform You: The Rejection Podcast." This episode is about how the Rubik's Cube faced endless rejection as a toy - before finally finding success. Now over 450 million Rubik's Cubes have been sold. It's a story full of twists and turns. If you like what you hear, there are over 40 episodes to dive into. Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. We'll see you next time. new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to

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So instead of sending it to you twice, we thought we'd send you something a little different this week. Our Apostrophe Podcasting Network hosts several different podcasts, and we'd like to introduce you to one that has just crossed the 1 million downloads mark. It's called We Regret to Inform You, the Rejection Podcast. In this series, we tell stories of how successful people overcame multiple career rejections. Every celebrated actor, writer, musician, artist, inventor, and entrepreneur has faced debilitating career rejection on their way to the top. We tell their fascinating stories, then we break them down and analyze how they exactly achieved their goals.

We regret to inform you the Rejection Podcast is inspiring and filled with remarkable stories. So here, from Season 3, Episode 2 is Rejecting Rubik's Cube. And if you like what you hear, from Season 3, Episode 2, is Rejecting Rubik's Cube. And if you like what you hear, we invite you to binge the archives wherever you get your podcasts. This is an apostrophe podcast production. We would like to inform you that your application does not meet with our requirements at the present time. This is We Regret To Inform You, the Rejection Podcast. This is We Regret to Inform You, the rejection podcast.

The major international toy companies all rejected the Rubik's Cube. They felt it was too difficult and didn't conform to the commonly held notions of what a puzzle was. Air no Rubik. From the time Erno Rubik was a small child growing up in Budapest, Hungary, he had a particular predilection. Puzzles. But it wasn't until well into adulthood that he figured out why. In his memoir, Cubed, Rubik says he idolized his father. Erno Rubik Sr. was a respected aircraft designer, and at the time his son was born at the end of the Second World War, he was hard at work creating the perfect glider.

Throughout his career, Erno Sr. amassed an impressive number of patents, designing more than 30 airplane and glider models. Oh, and one aluminum vehicle. But his father was not a playful man, so it puzzled Rubik as to where his love of games had stemmed from. Then one day, it dawned on him. Every time his father calculated angles or obsessed over the details of one of his designs, he was solving a very practical, but very real, puzzle. Puzzles come in all shapes and forms. Literally, of course. But Rubik says some are flexible, with room for improvisation. Others have rigid rules. Most are entertaining, and some are intensely complicated, but all challenge the mind. on the first few pages. It tells, nay, encourages, the reader to approach the book in whatever way they please, with full permission to read it back to front, all in one sitting,

chunk it out, or get completely lost. Because everyone sees the world differently, and there's no single right way to do, well, anything. If you're curious, he says, you'll find puzzles all around. If you're determined, you'll solve them. In school, Rubik felt completely unchallenged. Sitting in a chair, staring at a chalkboard bored him to no end. Whereas at home, there were endless ways to

train his mind, endless questions to answer, and puzzles to solve. In the comfort of his bedroom, the puzzles weren't assigned, nor was anyone hovering over his shoulder observing how and if he solved them. There were no rules. If he failed or needed to restart, it was allowed. If he wanted to abandon one puzzle altogether and start another, nobody cared. Plus, without an opponent, he was always a winner. But perhaps most importantly, Rubik felt puzzles taught him invaluable life skills, like concentration, play, and problem solving. In the classroom, he says, while his teachers droned on, he doodled. He drew his surroundings, objects, people, anything three-dimensional,

inadvertently developing a keen understanding of geometry. As primary school turned into middle school, Rubik's interest in drawing evolved from a way to pass the time into a true love of art. He started painting, and by high school, he decided he wanted to transfer to an arts school. He'd take his interest in form and shape it into a career as a sculptor. But it wouldn't be long before Rubik felt completely four years at art school were more than enough to convince him he wasn't a real artist. His peers were rebels and hippies, while he was a little more square.

Though he loved art, he wanted to attach his creativity to something practical. By graduation day, his schoolmates could be heard swapping acceptance letters from the local fine arts college and comparing majors. But Rubik says if he was sure of anything, it was that he was on a different path. So, on a whim, he applied to the Budapest University of Technology to study architecture. Why architecture? He wasn't really sure, but he knew it was a field that combined practicality with design. Over the next four years, Rubik weathered the demands of his chosen major. But again, by graduation day, he didn't have that feeling, that fire within signaling to him that he was in the right place, the kind that should have propelled him to apply for his first architecture job.

So, he tried something new. Rubik enrolled at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts, a hands-on school with only a few hundred students. There, he took workshops in ceramics, in textile, and metal. It was fun. The final assignment of his final year was to put on an art exhibit, each student selecting their favorite works from the past three years to display and be graded on. Could be sketches, photographs, paintings, sculpture. The piece Rubik chose to display was the colorful cube. Before Rubik's third and final graduation, the Hungarian College of Fine Arts offered him a job, an assistant lecturer in the architecture department. A flattering offer,

given that he was still a student at the time. And almost even without noticing it, Rubik had gained a profession, a teacher. And for the first time, he knew in his bones, he was in the right place. Rubik was assigned a class called Descriptive Geometry. He says essentially the study of two-dimensional objects to solve three-dimensional problems. It was a difficult subject to teach. To many, it could be considered dry, requiring a specialized vocabulary, a complete spatial understanding, and above all, curiosity. But to Rubick, it was fascinating.

After work, Rubik would go home to his apartment, a space he says looked like the inside of a child's pocket. There were marbles and safety pins strewn everywhere, scrap pieces of paper, images, pencils, crayons, string, sticks, glue, springs, screws, and rulers covering every bedpost, windowsill, and floorboard. It was the spring of 1974, just before Rubik's 30th birthday, and he was preparing a lesson for his students. He took a look around his bedroom, peppered with treasures, when he noticed a theme. Cubes. Over the years, he'd constructed innumerable cubes.

Little ones, big ones, colorful ones, wooden ones, paper ones, you name a material, he'd made it into an object with six equal faces, 12 edges, and eight verticals. He picked up one of his paper cubes, and he had a thought. What if he connected eight small cubes to form one larger cube,

but made it so each individual cube could rotate independently? Even for a geometry teacher, Rubik's idea was puzzling. Could all eight cubes remain tethered while also moving freely? He decided to find out. As he tells the story in his memoir, first Rubik carved eight identical cubes out of wood. Then he drilled a hole in each one and tied them together with an elastic band, forming a little two-by-two-by-two block. Well, that was easy. He'd solved his problem. It was marvelously simple, and achieved exactly what he'd set out to achieve, a great visual to show his students the next day. He turned each block

dozens of times, then hundreds of times, until the elastic snapped. At the center of the cube, the elastic, which had been stretched and twisted every which way, gave out, leaving behind nothing but a knotted ball of rubber string. Rubik says it was frustrating, but also fascinating. He'd need to find a stronger material, so he pulled out a roll of fishing line. Rubik tossed the muddled rubber ball into the garbage, in favor of a material that was much thinner.

Fishing line wouldn't snap. But it didn't work either. So he decided to complicate his life a little more. He added more cubes. Rubik constructed a 3x3x3 cube. He thought about removing the center cube. It wasn't visible anyway. But that's when it hit him.

The hidden center cube was the answer. The most essential piece of the puzzle. With the center cube acting as the core, it could hold the entire piece together. No need for elastics or fishing wire, he could attach each cube to the center using screws and springs. Those screws and springs would give each individual piece the power to push or pull. With a center axis, the 26 surrounding cubes could rotate freely. He'd done it. In his hand was a 3x3x3 wooden cube, the tactile manifestation of his imagination. He rotated each side of the cube over and

over. Nothing snapped. It was amazing. Until... he nicked his skin. Okay, so the edges of the cube had to be rounded. That would give the cube more fluidity. Each small cube had 12 edges, meaning over the next while, his full-time job became sanding down 312 edges. He made a lighter version, then a heavier version, then he tightened and loosened the springs until the rotations moved with such ease it was like butter. Then sitting in front of him was perfection, or as close to perfection as a geometry teacher could ever dare declare. But that's when he noticed the cube was naked. Rubik realized in order to track his rotations, he'd have to somehow label the individual cubes. Otherwise, he couldn't gauge his invention's full potential.

So he decided to give each side a different color. That meant inner pieces would need just one shade, edge pieces needed two colors, and corner pieces, three. So Rubik journeyed back in his mind to elementary school, to his love of painting. Starting with primary colors, he grabbed yellow, blue, and red. For the remaining sides, he squeezed a couple tubes of complementary colors, orange and green. But he needed one more, so he went with white to brighten up the cube overall. As Rubik picked up his now-clothed cube, he realized manipulating it was like driving through a foreign city. You make one turn, and you can easily find your way back. You make two turns, and you're not too far from where you started. But hundreds of decisions and dozens of turns later, you're completely lost. What he didn't know at the time was

that no matter how many turns you've made on a 3x3x3 cube, you're actually never more than a handful of turns away from the solution. As Rubick tells the story in his book, after rotating his happy-hued invention for hours, he decided he'd had enough. It was time to return the cube to its original state and go to bed. But he couldn't figure it out. Each time he thought he was inching closer to solving one singular side, he realized the other side of the cube was a total mess. He was getting frustrated. There was no one to turn to for help a total mess. He was getting frustrated.

There was no one to turn to for help. After all, he was the inventor. There was no manual, no YouTube tutorial. Only the logic of knowing there had to be a way back. Right? After his workday teaching geometry, he'd come home and work at solving the one geometrical question with seemingly no answer. After dinner, he'd tinker with the cube.

During breakfast, he'd tinker with the cube. Between grading papers, he'd tinker with the cube. Until finally, with a furrowed brow and the first ever case of Rubik's wrist, with one final click, Rubik solved his cube. One month later. Don't get lost. We'll be right back. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about

tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. Thank you. Believe it or not, at this point, Erno Rubik was not thinking of his invention as a toy,

but merely an answer to a geometrical question he'd postulated. In fact, he thought the cube wouldn't be of the faintest interest to anyone else. But once he showed it to a few of his friends and colleagues, he realized it had charisma. Its very presence tempted you to manipulate it. The cube wasn't just a practical teaching tool. It was fun, the intersection of problem solving and entertainment, and if that isn't the very definition of a puzzle, maybe, just maybe, it had commercial potential. So six months after birthing his colorful invention, Rubik decided to make a few phone calls and see if he could get his toy manufactured. If he'd learned anything from his entrepreneurial and inventor father, the first step was to protect his idea, a patent. So on January 30th, 1975, less than one year after he first carved his 27 cubes out of wood, Rubik applied for a patent for a quote,

three-dimensional logical toy. And in October of the following year, he held in his hands a weighty document tied with a red and green ribbon, the colors of the Hungarian flag, stamped with an intimidating wax seal. It was settled. He had made something that no one else had ever made before. Luckily, Rubik's day job at a college afforded him access to workshops, tools, and free focus groups. So he started messing with materials. First, he tried rubber. Not the elastic band kind, more like the shoe sole kind. It was black and sturdy, but heavy, so he moved on to plastic, and was pleasantly surprised.

Plastic was lightweight, resilient, inexpensive, and easy to manipulate, yet still substantial. Plus, making cubes out of plastic would be a fairly straightforward request for manufacturers. He decided on the optimal density and look, black with colored stickers. But Rubik says the most important characteristic was to maintain geometric exactitude. His invention would be as precise as a scientific instrument. Just because it was a toy didn't justify shoddy construction. There could be no irregularities in the plastic, the edges would be perfectly contoured, no concealing of flaws and blemishes using the colored stickers. And he had no qualms about hovering over his manufacturer to be absolutely certain these standards were met. After countless iterations, he came up with a design he was proud of,

and he gave it a name. The Magic Cube. There were three reasons Rubik named his product the Magic Cube. One, it was reminiscent of an ancient puzzle called the Magic Square, which involved a three-by-three grid. Two, Rubik felt his toy was almost spellbinding in its addictiveness. And three, it looked kind of like a magician's black box. He took his Magic Cube to the largest wholesale trading company in Hungary. They told him selling 10,000 to 15,000 units would be considered a success. They took a look at his toy and agreed to order 5,000. The Magic Cube would come in a blue box along with a little note from

Rubik himself. It said the cube was a toy for children and adults, and that the goal of making each face monochrome was not an easy task. But even if you get lost, the laws of geometry dictate there's always a way back. Rubik was provided no advertising budget, no PR campaign, and frankly, not much hope. Then something interesting happened. Someone bought one. One person bought a magic cube, then bought another for a friend as a gift. Then parents bought one for their daughter's birthday. Then came Christmas, when kids unwrapped magic cubes, played with them, then brought them to their fathers for help when they got stuck. Then those fathers became addicted to the magic cube. Then came the puzzle enthusiasts.

And quicker than Rubik could solve his own cube, there was a magic cube frenzy. Between 1977 and 1979, 300,000 magic cubes sold nationwide. It permeated Hungarian culture in a way Rubik never expected. He says tourists started carrying it around in their luggage next to other Hungarian delicacies, like sausages and toque wine. In 1978, Rubik won a prize at the annual Budapest International Trade Fair, presented by the country's Minister of Culture. It was extraordinary, and the next logical step was clear. To take the Magic Cube global. But, like the Magic Cube itself, it wouldn't be easy. There's one thing worth noting about Hungary at the time. In 1979, Hungary was separated from the West by a seemingly impenetrable wall known as the Iron Curtain.

The Iron Curtain was essentially an imaginary barrier dividing the Soviet Union and the West after World War II. That meant exports outside of that barrier were strictly controlled. So Rubik decided to showcase his invention at international toy fairs, including the Nuremberg Toy Fair, where companies, buyers, and inventors could peruse booths in search of the next best selling toy craze. Everyone from big brands like Mattel and Lego to unknown startups could be seen. At this point, the Magic Cube wasn't exactly unknown. One in 35 Hungarians had Rubik's colorful cube in their desk, nightstand, or pocket.

It was a runaway success. But outside his country's borders, he was a nobody. His booth but a backwater section in an otherwise massive event. Nonetheless, his display was set up, and as curious toy enthusiasts wandered by, they stopped to take a look. But at best, they were were puzzled. What was Rubik's Invention? It wasn't a board game. It wasn't really a toy, like Weebles or Etch-a-Sketch or action figures.

It was more like a math problem, and a difficult one at that. The toy companies were told that Rubik's Invention was more like a puzzle. But the word puzzle lost them. Puzzles at that time weren't really as synonymous with toys as they are today. A toy company that took itself seriously did not sell puzzles. Cheap souvenir shops sold puzzles. Puzzles made up only a sliver of the overall toy market. They were considered niche.

Conventional toys were universal. Think dolls, balls, or board games. And had entire establishments dedicated to their sales. It was strike one. So, out of desperation, the companies were then told how much of a hit the Magic Cube was back home in Hungary. Hang on, this odd-looking math problem is not only extremely difficult to solve, it's manufactured behind the iron curtain? Hard pass. One rejection turned into two, then five, then every single company rejected the Magic Cube.

Rubik says his entire journey with the Magic Cube was one of solitude. He came up with it alone. He designed it alone. He solved it alone. He finessed it alone. He chose the materials and found the manufacturer all alone. But what he couldn't do alone was take his idea international. He needed a partner, one person to see his vision. After endless fruitless conversations with industry folk at the toy fair, a man walked over to the magic cube display.

Something had caught his attention. It wasn't the colors or the idea, not yet anyway. It was the unmistakable tenor of a Hungarian accent. The man's name was Tom Creamer. He was born in Hungary but eventually made his way to the UK. Fluent in both English and Hungarian, Creamer had started a firm in London that invested in and found distributors for inventors' toys. Rubik says there's something wonderful about being born in a small nation. Even if its members are spread across the world, its language, especially a language like Hungarian, which is remarkably unlike any other language, is instantly connecting. Creamer picked up the Magic Cube, and he understood it in a way no one else did. He got the concept,

he saw its potential, and he was unintimidated by his home country's export limitations. Rubik says it was love at first sight. Hands were shaken. And Tom Creamer got to work looking for a toy company willing to distribute the cube internationally. Creamer started approaching all the major companies, but one by one, they all rejected the Magic Cube. Some felt it was too difficult to ever be fun, not childish enough. Rubik guessed those executives likely picked it up, tried to play with it, got frustrated, and then put it down, assuming nobody else would like it either. Who would choose to play a game they could never win? Other executives thought it looked too easy.

Clearly, they never actually picked it up. With each rejection, Rubik realized these companies completely underestimated the desire for both children and adults to be challenged. And how addictive a challenge his toy could be. Plus, how often does a single toy appeal to multiple age groups and genders. Overall, Rubik sensed each executive felt his invention didn't conform to their rigid ideas of what a puzzle should be. He says the toy business is tricky, because the market is itching for something brand new, but yet simultaneously terrified of new things. But throughout every rejection, Rubik witnessed something incredible. Tom Creamer's complete and unwavering belief in his 3x3x3 cube. Each time the titans of their industry

told them their toy was a total loss maker, Creamer never so much as blinked. But there was one company he hadn't yet approached. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it.

Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. The Ideal Toy Company was started in New York in 1903 by Morris and Rose Micdom. The Micdoms were the inventors of the teddy bear. Through World War II, their toy company grew, becoming known for its dolls, even patenting the first doll whose eyes closed when it was laying flat. But as the story is told on Creamer's website, by 1979, Ideal Toys was facing a bit of financial trouble and in need of a hit that would turn their business around. And it was at that moment that he approached them with the magic cube.

Creamer, with nothing but sheer force of will and complete faith in his partner, persuaded the vice president of Ideal Toys to fly to Hungary to see with his own two eyes just how popular the cube had become. They were everywhere. Trams, cafes, parks. It became a no-brainer to bet on the cube. And in 1979, after a lengthy negotiation between Ideal Toys and the Hungarian government, an agreement was made. One million cubes would be sold overseas. It was an incredible achievement. Ideal Toys wasted no time starting production in the U.S.

There was just one last tweak to be made. Ideal Toys didn't like the name Magic Cube. It was too difficult to trademark. The words Magic and Cube appeared on countless toys already. Rubik says, conventional wisdom at the time was that a truly unique name was one that appeared fewer than 10 times in the New York City phone book. So they started throwing around ideas, but only one stuck, a delicious combination of consonants. Rubik. Rubik says it had never occurred to him to attach his name to his product before. Being a capital I introvert, he was reluctant to be the face of anything. But he was also in no position to doubt the experienced executives before him.

And in 1980, the Rubik's Cube launched internationally. Ideal Toys wanted to fly their eponymous inventor all across the West to demonstrate his creation. So Rubik applied to the Hungarian government for a blue passport, meaning one that would allow him to travel outside his country's borders. And to his surprise, it was granted. For the first time at age 36, Rubik left Eastern Europe and flew to the U.S. on his very first business trip. He said it was like a fairy tale. The marketing plan was to launch the colorful toy with a bang. He started attending toy fairs and making press appearances. The most important thing to Ideal Toys was to have Rubik reassure buyers that solving it was, in fact, possible.

But as it turns out, demonstrations where volunteers couldn't solve the problem became the best advertisement for the problem. It made other spectators want to take a crack at it themselves. Rubik's English made interviews a challenge. But luckily, his toy was pretty visual. And pretty soon, Rubik's cubes started to sell. Let me rephrase that. They started to sell out. In a single month, they surpassed the one million sales Ideal Toys had initially predicted. Their manufacturers couldn't keep up. In 1981, not one, but two how-to books were published about the cube, not written by Rubik, but by cube enthusiasts,

both staying on the New York Times bestseller list for a combined 39 weeks and selling millions of copies. In 1982, an official Rubik's Cube World Championship took place in Budapest, where cube lovers from 19 countries came to compete. The Rubik's Cube appeared on the cover of Scientific American, then Time magazine. 10 million cubes sold, then 25, then 50 million. And by December of 1982, 100 million Rubik's Cubes had sold worldwide. Then, as swiftly as the craze began, it was all over. The Rubik's Cube was dead.

As Rubik put it, one moment it seemed everyone had a cube, or wanted a cube, wrote about the cube, filmed the cube, talked about the cube, or came up with new strategies to solve the cube. And then suddenly, it seemed the world had lost interest entirely. The New York Times wrote an obituary. They called Rubik's Cube a fad, passé, edged off the shelf by video games. They said the public's interest had dropped to almost zero. A subsequent New York Times article added, the cube was a frustrating artifact of the early 80s that had been retired to the attic or garbage heap. Ouch. Rubik said everything he built seemed to be falling apart.

Here's what happened. At the height of the craze, ideal toys couldn't keep up with demand, and copycats flooded the market. When production finally caught up, it was too late. Lower quality counterfeit cubes had taken over, and Rubik's Cubes were left to gather dust in discount bins. FAO Schwartz announced it would not be buying any more cubes. Toys R Us said the Rubik's Cube had come and it had gone. Thousands of unbought cubes piled up in warehouses. Rubik says he went into hibernation. He started designing other puzzles, but even his own distributor, Ideal Toys, didn't bite.

In this particular chapter of Rubik's memoir, you'll find the word failure appears a lot. Rubik was afraid of becoming a has-been, or worse, a punchline. Then something unexpected happened. Ever the believer, when the cube craze crashed, Tom Creamer bought the rights to the cube from Ideal Toys. Then he waited patiently. Three years passed since the Times eulogized the Rubik's Cube. Then the phone started to ring. A few toy stores started requesting stock. By the mid-90s, cube sales were ramping up again.

And by the millennium, they were, dare I say, healthy. But it was different this time. Not so much a fever, but rather a slow burn. It turns out, the cube wasn't dead after all, but merely sleeping. When it opened its eyes, it found a whole new audience. The next generation. Every year, teenagers who hadn't even been born in the early 80s discovered the Rubik's Cube and became equally perplexed and fascinated by its endless possibilities. Eventually, sales surpassed those of the toy's initial craze,

reaching an astounding 450 million units sold worldwide. The cube appeared in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection in the National Toy Hall of Fame. It appeared on The Simpsons, a Spice Girls music video, Armageddon, Dude, Where's My Car, The Pursuit of Happiness, WALL-E, and The Big Bang Theory, to name a few. Soon, speed cubing took off, where a global community of Rubik's Cube enthusiasts started gathering at events around the world to compete for the title. The world record for fastest cube ever solved was 15 seconds in 2003. That number dropped to 10 seconds in 2011, then 7 seconds, then 5, and the record today, as of 2018, stands at 3.47 seconds. Rubik himself wouldn't even come close. He managed to shorten his best cubing time, down from one month to one minute. Speedcubers hold several Guinness World Records, actually,

including solving the cube blindfolded while skydiving and underwater. For the cube's 40th anniversary in 2020, the Empire State Building lit up in red, blue, yellow, orange, green, and white. Today, a Rubik's Cube has been handled by one in every seven people in the world, not even including knockoffs, which is interesting, considering Rubik was told puzzles were too niche. Erno Rubik says, just as nothing could have prepared him for the cube's success, nothing could have prepared him for its failures either. From rejections from toy companies, investors, and buyers, to feeling completely lost after his invention, bearing his name, was declared dead in a national newspaper. But he and his partner Tom Kramer

believed in his idea. It's been said that the Rubik's Cube is more than just a cultural phenomenon. It's a feat of geometry. It's an international pastime, an academic tool, a work of art, a source of metaphors, and one of the best-selling toys of all time. The world is an interesting place. It always craves the new, but it is afraid of the new. So rejection of new things is the universal default position. Think of all the stories we've told in this podcast. Of all the great books that were rejected.

The great movies that were turned down. The incredible inventions nobody wanted, the Oscar-winning actors who were rejected over and over again. When Erno Rubik brought his Magic Cube to toy companies, they all turned him down. It didn't look like a puzzle. It didn't look like a toy. It didn't look like a doll or a ball or an action figure. Yet the toy industry is always searching for the next big craze.

But they couldn't recognize it when they held it in their hand. They were looking, but not seeing. And that rejection reflex is what can keep so many people from pursuing their dreams. They know that rejection is out there waiting for them. One of life's grinding truths is this. If you have a fresh idea or a unique personality, expect adversity. You have to prepare for it.

Dealing with rejection has to be part of your game plan. You can't be surprised by it. You have to be ready for it. When you conform in this world, you'll probably get promoted. When you rebel, you create turmoil. But it's only the rebels that are remembered. And that's the choice you have to make. Conform or embrace your uniqueness.

Clark Kent versus Superman. The hardest part is not having an idea. It's protecting your idea through all the rejections and all the naysayers and all the slammed doors. Because if you can do that,

you will find your Tom Creamer. Two billion people have played with a Rubik's Cube. It has inspired people in the arts, in mathematics, in engineering and pop culture. When Erno Rubik invented his cube, he was making less than $200 a month. Today, he is worth over $100 million. Never, ever, give up. Rubik's Cube. Number of possible configurations, 43,252,3,274,489,856,000. Number of solutions, 1. The Rejection Podcast is an Apostrophe Podcast production and is recorded in an Airstream mobile recording studio.

This series is hosted and written by me, Sydney O'Reilly. We regret to inform you our research is done by Allison Pinches, director Callie O'Reilly, engineer Jeff Devine, producer Debbie O'Reilly, theme music by Ian Lefevre and Ari Posner. Thank you. rejection. Follow us on social at apostrophe pod. If you enjoyed this episode. New year, new me season is here. And honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. You might also like Rejecting James Dyson from Season 1. This series is executive produced by one Terry O'Reilly. See you next time.