Becoming a Pilot Taught Me This One Mindset Which Got Me to 10X YoY Revenue

The first time my instructor showed me the maneuver it made my palms sweaty. Knees week. Arms heavy.

Until that day, I had not considered how my fear of heights would impact my flight training. Commercial airliners didn't trigger that tunnel-vision sensation like small planes did. The maneuver is called steep turns. In it, the plane turns 360° at a 50° bank angle. Looking out the side window, all I could see was ground. It felt like 90°!

I had to combine that skill with circling around a point on the ground: A lonely tree out in the country. To compensate for the wind, steepen the bank angle.

The margin of error felt razor thin. There's no way! I thought. It defied everything I had every seen a small plane do. And everything I had ever seen myself do.

A reel of planes crashing and burning looped in my mind like a quickly cut TikTok.

"It's not possible. I can't." I convinced myself. There was no point in trying. I started to consider the time, money, and effort I had wasted up to that point.

My instructor reminded me of one of my favorite chapters in flight training: Aeronautic Decision Making (ADM). It helps pilots self-assess the 5 hazardous attitudes. It is government issued #mindset training from the FAA. All 5 of them are pure gold.

Here they are if you're curious:

1. Anti-Authority: Don't tell me.
2. Impulsivity: Let's do something--anything!
3. Invulnerability: It'll never happen to me.
4. Macho: I can do it--I'll show them!
5. Resignation: What's the use?

Clearly, I was feeling #5. Resignation. The antidote to resignation is to believe in yourself and not give up.

First, I needed to believe in my instructor. He had set us up with a margin of error and all the experience to keep us safe.

Also, I needed to believe in the physics and engineers that designed the plane.

And most importantly, I needed to believe in myself. We both knew I had the hours and training. I knew how the controls worked and how to recover. I knew how to avoid a stall and what it sounded like before it happened.

I began coaching myself out of accepting a different fate. I took a few deep breaths and recited: 'I can do this.'

Once I stopped focusing on how I would fail, and started focusing on what I had to do, my training and instincts took over. I rolled to the steep attitude and added throttle to maintain altitude. Then, banked further to compensate for wind. And after a few sketchy attempts, I circled that tree cleanly. A calm washed over me as I felt my brain reprogram: this is do-able. And I can do it. No. I did do it.

Much in the same way, shattering comfort zones by believing in yourself and your team is crucial in business. I had the privilege to lead a highly skilled team with incredible potential. Like myself, I found them saying "no. I Can't." a whole lot.

When I asked why, I was met with shallow answers like "because we have never done that." Or "we tried once and failed." The implication being that there was no point in trying. They had resigned to not being able.

We must challenge this, I thought. But how?

Fast forward to the quarterly goal setting kick-off meeting.

Picture a slide with 70-point bold font listing out our goals.

At the top, it read:

No More No's!

Imagine the questions and comments! How would we measure it? This doesn't conform to S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting. What if we try and fail?

If a No was to be used, I explained, make it my problem. Extreme? Maybe. But by removing No as an option, they focused only on the Yes.

Of course, as a pilot, I took care to not do this recklessly. Like my instructor, I created the space for them to practice maneuvers safely. We talked through any potential Nos to mitigate risks. We challenged ourselves "what must be true in order to do this?" Did they need to climb to a higher altitude? Or first practice and become proficient at another skill? Then we'd reverse engineer the solution.

Once the quarter was up, there was not a single crash and burn. In fact, we saw phenomenal results.

Here are some results from that quarter:

• We said yes to the largest service (in revenue and scope) in company history.
• We said yes to developing an integration for a new platform which opened up a whole new market with a healthy TAM (well into 9 digits).
• We posted the strongest Professional Services quarter in company history (over 10X revenue booked YoY).

Crushing our doubts was transformative. By learning to believe in myself, I learned how to help my team believe in themselves too.

We eliminated No as an option and focused our attention on crushing the task.

Of course, as #leaders, we must always be ready to accept #accountability and #responsibility. We must take the controls when things get sketchy.

My favorite part? There was an awesome moment where I saw us turn the tide on self-doubt. I saw the wave of confidence increase and the team began to bet on themselves. A virtuous cycle effect took over. I was no longer in the driver seat behind the idea.

My goal for writing this article is to share this mindset with you too, reader. If you find yourself doubting your abilities or your team's abilities, take a deep breath and remind yourself that you can do it. Ask: "what must be true to take that first step?" Then step. Visualize yourself doing it and not failing it. And trust your training and experience.

You got this!

...OK let's wrap this up.

If you liked this article, please share it with your colleagues. I also invite you to read my article on how to build end-to-end #professionalservices that completely CRUSH #churn.

P.S. if you read this far, THANK YOU! It means a ton to me. :)