In the movie, Spig Wead an award-winning aviator and recently promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander returned home to visit his wife and two daughters in Coronado California.
Awakened in the middle of the night by his daughter crying, he leaps from his bed and rushes to her aid. On the way he trips and falls down the stairs breaking his back.
The injury caused paralysis making it impossible for him to sit up or walk on his own.
Having hope that he would fly again he underwent physical therapy but abandoned the idea of being an aviator again . He was unable to fly again but he came to realize that he had other talents that could be used by him to start another career. After reading stories in detective magazines, Wead started to submit stories . At first he was rejected but after revising his stories and resubmitting them, he eventually sold one and the check for the stories arrived on the same he was to be medically retired from the Navy.
To make a long story short, Frank "Spig" Wead became a Hollywood screenwriter, novelist and award-winning playwright . At the start of WWII Wead went back into the Navy and became a top-notch aviation strategist and planner. His ideas helped to re-build naval aviation after Pearl Harbor . He died two years after the end of the War.
Okay, that's the outside story here is the inside story, my story.
Just like Frank Wead, I came to a roadblock in my career that stopped me in my tracks. I didn't break my back and I wasn't an aviator but my career as a teacher meant a great deal to me and I put my all into it and became the best prepared of any of my peers, little too prepared. To make a short-story shorter, I was forced off my job because I made too much money . That broke my back in many ways, financially, professionally and socially. At first I was angry and frustrated that I could be forced off my job for the simple fact that I wanted to stay prepared as an educator.
I thought this way until I saw "Wings of Eagles" and realized that some people do not have a rosy career path and run into obstacles . When something is taken away from you like your back or your job you have to look at not what you don't have but what you do have . Maybe I didn't have my teaching job any more but I had to think about what I do have . A good education, a wealth of experience and the confidence and ability to know that there isn't anything that I can't do .
I am an excellent communicator, resourceful and a quick study. I know what I am willing to do and what I am not willing to do. I am a salesman but I do not like sales . I am a teacher but I do not like when people do not value learning. I know what kind of business I would like to work in and will not stop until I am in a work situation that I am comfortable in.
I want to began a career in the area of training and communications. I have taken the talents that I have and parlay them into a new career knowing that is will not be easy. The most difficult thing about starting a new career is the fact that most of the people that you have come in contact with see you in a particular role and it is hard for them to get that role out of their head. This might sound harsh but I will have to distance myself from those people and find people who see me in the role that I want to be seen in and prepare for that role. Isolation sometimes is a good way to stay away from people until you are fully immersed in the role that you want.
I want to be a writer so I have to write, blog publish and develop ideas. I have to spend all of my free time preparing for my new career. Sending out resume's and preparing writing samples, going to trade shows and conventions until people see me as a technical writer and trainer. Do not waste my time being involved in anything that will not get me into my new career.
Just like Spig Wead, I broke my back and now I have to take what I have been left with and start anew. I may not be able to fly anymore, but soon I will soar like an eagle.
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