Wednesdays with Warren

SUN CITY ¬– With age comes wisdom, and whether that wisdom is bred by proud moments or mistakes, most grandparents have plenty to pass on to their children and grandchildren.

Few, however, receive five years’ worth of wisdom the way Ryan Higgins did. That knowledge came as a gift from his grandfather Warren Higgins, who believes his role was to be a “stabilizing force” and a role model in his grandchildren’s lives.

Warren wanted a way to be there for Ryan, especially as the young teen was moving to a new state while facing an even bigger change – moving into adulthood.

“I thought as long as Ryan was turning 13 – and teenage years are difficult for young people – I thought if I could put something of help to him through writing, I’d do it,” Warren said.

But through those changes, Ryan also experienced success, excelling in high school football, track, and wrestling as well as his studies. Today he is a captain in the U.S. Air Force.

The letters Ryan received covered several topics. There were family anecdotes, stories of Warren’s service in World War II, ideas on current events, and advice on leadership, business, managing money, and dealing with life challenges.

“In my experience, it doesn’t take that much to be a leader,” Warren said. “Two important aspects of being a leader: number one is the ability to make decisions and secondly is to follow through and taking responsibility for those decisions.”

While the content of each letter would come from a different source, each followed the same format: brief ideas postmarked every Wednesday, written in plain English, but with a voice distinctly Warren’s own.

Warren ended most of his letters with a simple refrain: “think about it.” It was meant for Ryan to do more than just hear what his grandfather was trying to tell him, but to internalize it and see how or if it applied to his own life.

Warren’s daughter and Ryan’s mother, Ris Higgins, is a founder of Leadership Outfitters, a success coaching company based in Bozeman, Mt. She acknowledged that her father’s lessons have played a role in her work.

“I called him my in-house mentor because I do a lot of mentoring myself right now, and he was the guy that I would go to to ask questions,” she said.

When Ryan received his weekly letters, Ris said she would often laugh, as she already had received many of those same lessons herself. Now she is hoping countless others can find meaning in her father’s letters.

“I had actually compiled the letters and put them together in the year 2000 at Kinko’s and gave them all to my children,” Ris said. “My friend saw them and said, ‘Ris, you have to make a book out of these.’”

After partnering with Brown Books Publishing Group, Ris had the difficult task of selecting which letters would become part of the book, while leaving 52 of them out.

“I wanted there to be something that was a lesson or something that was an insight or something that was a practice that Ryan was able to use,” she said. “That was the criteria I used–that there was something they could take away and use in their own life.”

The book is now available online at thewednesdaypen.com as well as amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. For every book sold, one dollar goes towards Warriors and Quiet Waters, an organization that helps rehabilitate traumatized and injured veterans through fly fishing.

While Ris was busy putting “The Wednesday Pen” together, Higgins was still writing down ideas during his “twilight time” of around 3 a.m. He recently began “The Wednesday Pen 2,” a weekly email that goes out to 35 members of his extended family.

It’s a bit of a leap for Higgins, who wrote one letter to Ryan in email form at a time when the Internet was still in its infancy. That email, while still packing Higgins’ usual humor and advice, humorously detailed his struggles with the computer.

Today however, Higgins and his wife, Maxine, appear to be tech experts, letting Ris in on the Sun Day interview from her Montana home via iPad video conference.

“I’m an engineer, but it’s a marvel to me what electronics have done for the world, for all of us,” Higgins said.

Since his college days, Higgins has valued the idea of standing out. He follows this virtue by wearing bow ties (he even once considered getting into the bow tie business) and formerly would use $2 bills almost exclusively.

Does grandfatherly advice only benefit grandchildren, or can everyone learn a little something from aged wisdom? Think about it.

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