Why face resistance?

​Dear Why Team member,
I hope this weeks message finds you well and loving your life. This week we ask:

Why face resistance?

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Sometimes, life waits to reveal its gifts to us until we are “available” to appreciate them. I’ve been to Dayton Ohio countless times but have never really stopped to experience much of what it has to offer. Today, I am grateful for the unforgettable experience I lived just a week ago when a good friend of mine took me on Dayton’s Aviation Trail. We saw an original Wright Flyer, visited the Wright Brothers bicycle shop, and saw both their graves and the memorial built in their honor. Huffman Prairie, the first Airport ever, on which they learned and eventually taught others how to fly; maintains its glory.

I even had the great pleasure of having lunch with the man who preserved the earliest photos of the Wright Brothers. Although 85 years of age he still had the spirit of a young man as he enthusiastically told of his friend and mentor, William Preston Mayfield. When Mayfield was only 14 years of age he was hired by the Dayton Daily News to take pictures of a couple crazy guys and their flying machine. Orville took a liking to the young Mayfield and one day invited him to climb aboard for a flight. “Bring your camera”, Orville said, and as they flew over the shed in which they stored their flyer, Orville asked him to “take a picture” which of course was the first aerial photo ever taken from an airplane. And in that moment Mayfield’s future was born; a day that may have seemed like any other, was the beginning of Mayfield’s successful career as an aerial photographer, and here I was having lunch with the late Mayfield’s young, and now much older, protege; the man who toward the end of Mayfield’s life managed to preserve the photographic history.

This is a day I’ll never forget.

(The above photo is one of those preserved photos taken by the young Mayfield in 1913 of Orville flying a Wright Flyer Model E)
It was wonderful to realize that I was only two degrees away from Orville Wright on that special day of remembrance.

If you ever need a lift, you need only turn to the Wright Brothers’ story.
“The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough should be a required reading for everyone. Imagine dedicating enormous time and energy toward a task that pretty much everyone believed IMPOSSIBLE, including at times the Wright Brothers themselves. Here is what Wilber himself said to his brother Orville after a very disappointing season at Kitty Hawk in 1901: “Not within a thousand years would man ever fly”.

If you ever need a lift, you need only turn to the Wright Brothers’ story.
“The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough should be a required reading for everyone. Imagine dedicating enormous time and energy toward a task that pretty much everyone believed IMPOSSIBLE, including at times the Wright Brothers themselves. Here is what Wilber himself said to his brother Orville after a very disappointing season at Kitty Hawk in 1901: “Not within a thousand years would man ever fly”.

Yet, they returned to the challenge, working in the face of resistance from others and at times from themselves. Their continued efforts in the face of resistance led them to rise above all the limiting thoughts. And their discoveries gave birth to possibilities that 66 years later would literally put a man on the moon.
Now if that’s not enough to get you moving, what is?
Check out the recent movie:
”First Man” it’s outstanding.

With so much inspiration around us, we really have no excuses. Reasons? Maybe, but excuses? Never.

Yet, they returned to the challenge, working in the face of resistance from others and at times from themselves. Their continued efforts in the face of resistance led them to rise above all the limiting thoughts. And their discoveries gave birth to possibilities that 66 years later would literally put a man on the moon.
Now if that’s not enough to get you moving, what is?
Check out the recent movie:
”First Man” it’s outstanding.

With so much inspiration around us, we really have no excuses. Reasons? Maybe, but excuses? Never.

Of course countless metaphors arise from the Wright Brothers’ story. The ridicule they received was endless, yet they persevered. We can learn from their example that resistance is necessary to take flight, to reach new heights. It’s into the wind that we rise and it’s the disappointing seasons that often teach us the most, what not to do, and inviting us to reconsider new ways to rise above the limits that others, and often our own thoughts, would try to set for us.

The next time you become disheartened, simply look into history and see the hardship and the struggles that men and women have endured and overcame and don’t let “gravity” keep you down. If it’s possible for them, it’s certainly possible for us. Let not a flat tire on your marvel in technology ruin your day. At least it’s not a horse and buggy in which you must contend.

During this new week and beyond, consider more than ever the possibilities that can arise from facing the wind and not running from it. I try to remind myself on every takeoff from a runway what is necessary to provide lift - it is the resistance that provides lift - and for those who fly more than most, they often view the sun more than most, a sun that shines above the clouds.
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Today, and in the days ahead, allow yourself to more fully dream of possibilities. Remember those who have stood before you looking up into the sky and dared to conquer it, opening so many new possibilities for us all; take a moment to do the same - and then more fully face any resistance in your life, knowing that with persistence, it is the resistance that is often necessary if we are to rise.


Make it a great week!

​Steve Luckenbach