I learned today

I could’ve said instead that I failed today, but I didn’t fail. I learned. I learned A LOT.

You see, when I’m not creating marketing magic, I fly planes. I’m an instrument rated private pilot and I fly just for fun, but have long nursed a dream of becoming a certified flight instructor as well. Flight instruction combines two of my passions – teaching and flying – and while I’m a very long way away from ever retiring, I know that I will always remain active and I can picture myself hanging out at a local airport teaching students to fly well into my future.

So I’m chasing that dream now, and my next step on that journey is to get a commercial license. It’s a fairly complicated process but suffice to say that I’m almost there. My very last step before sitting and flying with an actual FAA examiner (sidebar: if you think your high school driving test was nerve wracking, give one of these fun fests a go!) is to sit and fly with the school’s chief pilot. I need his sign off before going any further.?

Today was my shot at this final stage check. Yes, I wanted very much to check that last box and move ahead, but more than anything else I looked forward to flying with a much more experienced pilot than me. I’m always trying to get better and my real goal today was to learn. Fortunately, all the stars seemed to align and it was a perfectly clear and windless day. The flight went smoothly and I was ticking through all the flight maneuvers with ease, until suddenly…. I wasn’t. I hit a snag half way through and was only able to sloppily complete one exercise, at which point I didn’t need my examiner to tell me that I had failed, I knew myself that I wasn’t up to precision commercial standards. I also knew then that no matter what else happened in the flight, I wasn’t checking off this box today. We completed the rest of the flight exam and then took that long flight back to our home airport.

But in our post flight debrief, something really awesome happened. We walked through in detail what had gone right with the flight and what went wrong. I opened myself up and really listened, and we talked through every detail. I now understand why I struggled on that exercise and what I need to do to correct it. More than that, I saw a great teacher in action, and in the future I’ll be a better instructor because of it. In the end, I got much, much more value out of today’s “failure” than I ever would have from simply checking off a box. I left the airport more energized and excited to come back to do better than I would have had I passed. Today I learned, and I’m better because of it.?

Don’t let failure hold you back. Learn from it, and let it spring you forward.?

Fly high my friends, fly high!