Reading Reflection 1

I chose to read about The Wright Brothers, the founders of flight. What surprised me the most was that unlike most entrepreneurs, they never worked by themselves, they always had each other. They lived in the same house together, worked together for six days a week, ate meals together and even had a joint bank account. Additionally, they both attended high school yet never received diplomas. These two brothers were “inseparable” at birth and had very similar traits to the point where they were hard to tell apart at times. What I admire about this is they essentially had two minds working as one. I feel like this allowed them to be able to work very successfully together while also achieving more than a single man on his own could. What I least admired was that, surprisingly, Wilbur had no knack for business, despite trying to operate them and additionally did not have a college education. In their early years, these brothers did face adversity. They ran a small newspaper company that ended up shutting down as well a bicycle store they were forced to closed down due to a lack of business knowledge and an increase in competitors. Regardless, they never let setbacks deter them and they always moved on to their next project or idea and kept moving forward.

One of the Wright Brothers biggest competencies was the attribute of never giving up. Additionally, they had very creative minds that they used together to make each other more successful. They looked at things that other people did or didn’t do well and used that to fuel ideas. This especially came into play when they first got the idea to developing a machine that could fly. While not the reading specifically, really the only thing that confused me was how these two brothers were able to devise a system for flight in such a time period of antiquated technology. The amount of research and effort spent studying something that had never been proved possible is almost unfathomable.

If I were able to ask these brothers, my first question would be: What drove you to keep trying at something that seemed almost impossible at the time and that no one has ever done? While many entrepreneurs do thing that have never been done, these two brothers were chasing something that almost seemed against the laws of physics. My second question to them would be, how did the ability of having someone very close to you, like your brother, affect your work? I ask this question because I know that working with something can be stressful as well as helpful. Obviously, these brothers became very successful, but it would be interesting to see what they truly thought about having someone so close to them to work with.

I believe that these brothers’ opinion of hard work was that it was something special to them. They clearly loved what they did and weren’t afraid to work hard to attain what they wanted. In addition to this I think that they believed that if you worked hard at something, regardless of what it is, you can make it possible. Without a doubt, I share this opinion, I think that hard work is at the basis of all successful ideas and inventions, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship.