True Advantages

A reporter once asked the Wright brothers how they were able to be the first to invent the airplane without any advantages. Neither of the brothers had a college degree. They had little or no money. They financed their airplane experimentation with no government money or no angel investors. Their family was not rich. How were they able to accomplish such a glorious feat without any special advantages?

Orville replied, "It isn’t true to say we had no special advantages. We did have unusual advantages in childhood, without which I doubt we could have accomplished much.”

Their special advantages were in wisdom and guidance their parents gave them.

Their father was a minister and an avid reader. He encouraged his boys to read and discuss what they had read. Their mother was perhaps their greatest influence in their inventive lives as she was a tinkerer in the best possible sense. She was known to take apart her son's brand new toys just to see how they worked and to see if she could improve the way they worked. That bravery in taking things apart and putting them back together was passed on to her sons.

Orville and Wilber Wright's first venture together was owning a bike shop. They did more repairs than sales. They took bikes apart and fixed them for a living. They learned so much about bike mechanics that it enabled them to transfer all that hands on tinkering into inventing the first successful airplane.

Your greatest gift to your children or grandchildren will not be money. It will be the special advantages of your wisdom and encouragement.

Write a letter to your grandchildren and they will soar.