Today we take for granted that we can fly and reach far places within hours. But, just over 100 years old, there were open debates if the Humans could ever take flight. It took the audacity of two brothers of a small town in Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, to prove them wrong. Born in the late 1800s, sons of a bishop and homemaker, they were two high school dropouts that no one bet would invent the first airplane. But they had a mother that promoted their boys’ desire to pursue all the intellectual interests they wanted.
They tinkered with the technologies of their time, opening a printing shop and later pursuing the latest innovation in transportation by running a bicycle repair shop. Soon enough, they got fascinated with flying, started involved in the Ohio scene of gliders, and started dreaming about what the first powered airplane looked like. But they realized they didn’t have the right conditions to experiment in Ohio: stable winds in an unpopulated area with safe places to land (sandy beaches).
They went on a road trip to find the ideal place until they settled in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where they found the ideal conditions. Isolated from the World, they could practice very frequently and learn fast. The next several years had numerous setbacks and challenges, including crashes, mechanical failures, and funding issues. On December 17, 1903, their airplane made the first powered flight, which marked the beginning of the age of aviation.
The Wright brothers’ story is another example of stepping out of one's comfort zone to learn and grow. More importantly, it teaches us that when stepping out of our comfort zone, you want to find a place with the right conditions for maximizing our learning potential. We need that awareness to find our own “Kitty Hawk” to achieve our goals.
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