Lessons from the sky: the importance of mentorship

Lengthy post ahead, but my hope is this will offer some encouragement to you.

Every time I see a plane soaring through the sky, I cannot help but think of Keith. Aside from my parents, no other person has shaped me more than he did. A best friend of my dad, Keith took me under his wing at 19 and became my flying and business mentor. He was a chief corporate pilot who also had his own aircraft sales business.?He was a flying phenom, having received his Air Transportation Pilot (ATP) rating—the highest aeronautical rating one can receive—on his 23rd?birthday. Learning to fly from Keith was equivalent to?learning how to play golf from Jack Nicklaus.

During a couple college summers, I worked for Keith at his hangar as a “jack-of-all-trades.” My duties included keeping the planes spotless, assisting the mechanic with routine aircraft maintenance, and serving as a quasi-receptionist, among other things. Aside from flying, what I loved most was listening to Keith interact with customers. He had an amazing ability to listen and understand their needs. He asked poignant questions to help ensure customers were picking the right aircraft platform for the job to be done. Keith was passionate about protecting his brand and reputation.?He constantly reinforced to me the idea that it only takes one bad transaction to ruin a business. The lifeblood of his company was integrity.?

When I first started flying with Keith, I already had my private pilot’s license — and was perhaps a little too arrogant for my own good. In my first multi-engine flying lesson, he covered the oil pressure and temperature gauges and asked me for the exact readings. To this day, I remember my answer and his reaction.?I responded “they are in the green”— meaning they were operating within normal limitations. For Keith, this would not do. He demanded to know the?exact?temperature/pressure, and I hesitantly replied, “I do not know.” I learned a valuable lesson that day as he ardently reinforced the purpose of these gauges was “to keep me and my passengers alive.” After being asked about our altitude, I responded “5,535 feet.”?He then asked me why I was at not at 5,500 feet and I confidently replied I was within the “+/- 100 feet tolerance.”?Of course, that was the wrong answer. For Keith, strict adherence to rules was a must and precision was key.

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Not only did Keith instill in me how to aviate, navigate and communicate while flying, but he also taught me how to think like a professional pilot. Many of the things I learned from Keith are concepts that I’ve been able to apply elsewhere in life. He would always say “plan your flight, file your plan, fly your plan and make adjustments as necessary when/if the conditions change.” In business, planning has a purpose — it allows us to see the “big picture” and our place within it but also how to adapt more seamlessly and effortlessly if the environment changes. Keith helped me understand risk and how to mitigate it. He would ask, “Bill, what are our next three tasks?” or “If this happened, how would you respond?” Through a cascade of “what if” questions, he conveyed the idea that complacency is your enemy. Another crown jewel of his advice was “never, never, never execute a solution until you know with absolute certainty the problem." This is similar to a powerful quote by?Phormio of?Athens: "In the moment of action, remember the value of silence and order."

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I once read we are defined by what we give. Keith helped provide the skills and knowledge for me to receive my multi-engine, instrument and commercial pilot ratings. But he also gave me so much more — he accelerated my life learnings, helped me see things in myself that I could not and placed me in vulnerable situations only to coach me through them. He was an exceptional mentor and the inspiration for how I now mentor others. In the words of French author and pilot Saint-Exupery:?“True happiness, it seems, lies in giving oneself to others.”

The last time I communicated with Keith was over email on April 11, 2014.?He died of a massive heart attack 13 days later. I lost not only an outstanding mentor, but also a friend. As I think about ways to honor his memory a decade later, I would like to emphasize the importance of the indelible and lasting gift that good mentors provide and to encourage you to give this kind of gift when and where possible. Since his passing, I have become even more of an advocate for heart health through my work with the American Heart Association . If you are in a high-risk category or have a family history of cardiovascular disease, I also want to encourage you to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist – not tomorrow, next week or next month, but?right now. You are too important to those around you to not.