We all know that the Wright Brothers are the forefathers of modern aviation, inventing and flying the first machine-powered airplane to carry a man.
In anticipation of visiting both the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hill, N.C., I recently finished reading (for the second time) The Wright Brothers by that expert storyteller David McCullough. I was struck by how much I learned about the entire Wright family that could be applied to modern business. Here are three lessons that stand out for me.
Be curious and read voraciously.
If Wilbur and Orville hadn’t both possessed a deep well of curiosity from a young age, they might never have built airplanes. According to McCullough, their father, Bishop Milton Wright, believed in the educational value of toys. Bishop Wright gave his young sons a tiny toy helicopter made of wood. Orville’s first-grade teacher recalled him playing with pieces of wood and telling her that he was making a machine that he and his brother would fly some day. Neither of the Wright Brothers went to college but that didn’t stop them from being voracious readers and observers. Remember there was no Internet back then. Wilbur spent hours watching birds fly to glean insights. On Decoration Day in 1899 he wrote to the Smithsonian Institution to ask them to mail to him in Dayton, Ohio, all the pamphlets on aviation it had published and a list of any books written in English on the subject.
Work hard to be financially independent.
The Wrights deliberately never sought investors in the early years as they developed and tested their various planes. Instead, they founded and ran a bicycle shop, where they built bicycles and sold them. This was in the late 1800s/early 1900s when bicycles became a popular mode of transportation. The profits from running the shop went into paying for the materials for their flying machines. Both men lived frugally, remained single, and lived at home with their father and sister. I’m not advocating that people shun marriage and having their own families, but there is something to be said for turning away from our materialistic yearnings in order to reach loftier goals.
Keep Sundays sacred.
The Wright Brothers’ father was a minister, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the brothers, no matter where they were (testing planes in North Carolina or France for instance), never worked on Sundays. For many of us, our work life has intruded onto our Sundays for years. I’m old enough to remember when most stores were closed on Sunday and our day evolved around Mass followed by family dinner. (Just like on the TV show Blue Bloods.) The compulsion to check and respond to emails, or spend hours on social media on Sundays has been a strong one for me. But in recent months, I’ve tried to deliberately tune all that out or at least cut back. I find myself feeling much more relaxed as I focus on being present and slowing down my compulsion to cram too much into a Sunday.
There’s much more to be learned from McCullough’s book. It’s a fast, entertaining and inspiring read.
Let me know what you think of it.
Love your reminders here Jane, that curiosity sparks brilliance in all of us. Wilbur sparked curiosity to fly by watching birds and growing his “naturalistic IQ.”
Orville sparked curiosity by building wood airplanes and growing his “kinesthetic IQ”.
They’d built enough intelligence to take the plane up and eventually keep it up in step-by-step advances by using their multiple intelligences along the way.
They somehow escaped mindless lectures until the question changed from How smart were they? to a more relevant question How were they smart ? http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/general/how-are-you-smart/
Every secondary school needs this article! Would love to see teens inspired by similar challenges – and they could be! Best, Ellen
You make great points, Ellen. I read your post and I’m fascinated by the idea of the various types of intelligence and ways to strengthen those.