THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

HORSESHOES AND AIRPLANES | 2005-12-16

If a young person asks me what they should do for a living, I would recommend learning to do horseshoeing or airplane mechanics for small, personal planes.

Both of these fields put you in contact with people who have money.

Many farriers are drunks and do a sloppy job. The good farriers are happy with their work.

Few if any people in the profession are fully aware of the potential of what they do.

People who own horses are seldom on the welfare rolls. If you do a good job for them, they might just see you as somebody they should listen to, somebody their friends would like to know about.

People who own small airplanes are also seldom seen on welfare rolls.

In fact, is you find someone who is able to buy an airplane from his welfare money, that is somebody you could learn a LOT from about personal economy.

My point is that executive assistantships and other routine white-collar methods of advancement are hard to come by. A person who can fix a plane or take care of a horse will never have any problem earning a living.

And if you want to go on from there with your contacts with rich people who learn to trust you, you will be a very unusual person.