In chapter 5 of Cameron C. Taylor’s 8 Attributes of Great Achievers, he chronicles the true American success story of the Wright brothers.  All I could remember from school is that the Wright brothers invented flight in 1900 and something.  From reading Cameron’s thoughts I realized that there are some valuable lessons and success principles to be learned from the “quest for flight.”  Either I wasn’t paying attention in school when the history teacher covered this part of the lesson, or it was glossed over as a simple “name and date” to remember for a test.  Just another little factoid to by stored away into my subconscious mind, only to reemerge during Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy – a shame that would have been.

Major Milestones:

• In 1899 they began flight experiments
• In 1902 they made over 700 glides
• In 1903 they flew 120 feet in 12 seconds
• In 1904 they withdrew from their bicycle business to pursue making a sellable airplane
• In 1908 they were awarded a contract from the Army for a 2 seat aircraft that could fly 1hr at 40mph
• In 1909 they completed the aircraft for Army and received $30K ($719K in 2010 dollars)
• In 1910 added air shows and commercial air cargo shipping earning $100K ($2.4M in 2010 dollars)
• In 1912 Wilber died, 25K people viewed his casket and Dayton held a 3 min moment of silence
• In 1915 Orville sold their company for $1.5M ($36M in 2010 dollars)

The Wright brothers set out with a dream and worked vigorously to make the impossible a reality.  It wasn’t easy and took hard work with thousands of failures to get the success they were looking for.  After only 4 years the vision they had cast was actualized by their own actions.  The more amazing part though is the business story that followed.

It took them several more years to hammer out the safety issues with flight and they created a multimillion dollar earning year in 1910.  What is truly unbelievable is that after only another 5 years operating Wilber was able to sell the company for not only $36M but also received another $600K for serving as the chief consulting engineer during the first year of the new company’s operation.

Many people begin a new endeavor and don’t really give it the “college try” or the 3-5 effort that it takes to master.  As Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours of practice to shine .  Imagine if the Wright brothers “tried” flying for a couple of months and then gave up saying “we are just no good at flying.”  It sounds humorous but many people do this when starting a new project.  From something as simple as getting into shape to the more complicated endeavor of operating a new business, achieving high levels of success in anything is less dependent on talent and more dependent on tenacity.  Every big success requires first a dream, then a struggle before the victory.  As Cameron C. Taylor quotes one of his mentors in the book, “If I take away your struggle, I will also take away your victory.”

Lessons Learned:

1. There are hidden nuggets of wisdom in the pages of history.

2. You cannot find these nuggets via the modern media information blast or formalized instruction, only intentional self-directed education will uncover them.

3. The Wright brothers only earned significant exponential income and growth by chasing significance in life and achievement, not the other way around.  Purpose comes before money.

4. Neither of the Wright brothers had diplomas or collegiate courses, instead they were encouraged heavily by their parents with a “classics” education focus and read hundreds if not thousands of books from their family library.  Pontific knowledge, tenure and certificates does not equate to being educated.

5. We severely overestimate what we can accomplish in 1 year and strictly underestimate what we can do in 10.