Reading Reflection No. 1

I chose to read The Wright Brothers by David McCullough for my first book.

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

• What surprised you the most?  What surprised me most was how hard it was for the brothers to get started.  They ran into so many obstacles and people literally thought that they were crazy.
• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?  I admired their perseverance more than anything. Everyone they contacted to work with shut them down.  In the end they succeeded while other, better funded, organizations failed.
• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?  There wasn't really anything about them that I didn't admire.
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?   Yes, they encountered an enormous amount of adversity and they constantly failed over and over again.  That is why I admire their perseverance so much.  So many people would have given in to the constant failures and listened to all of the people telling them that they are crazy.  Most would have given up, but the Wright Brothers didn't. 

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited?  The brothers were skilled at building things.  They started with their love for bicycles and they opened a shop building those.  Their imagination also helped with discovering how to make a plane.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.  Nothing was really confusing...

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

I would ask how they were able to block people's opinions out and simply focus on their work.  Most people would have given up with everyone thinking that they were crazy, they would of eventually started to believe they were crazy.

I would also ask how hard it was to leave such a close knit family to travel around and conduct all of their testing and demonstrations.  Most people coming from a family like that don't like leaving home.

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?  I think that their opinion of hard work is to never give up even in the face of adversity.  I would like to think that I share that, yes.