When Things Go Bad

"I f^*ked up"

I was talking to my older brother this morning about another loved one in my family who is struggling with addiction and we concluded after some discussion that our other loved one was still stuck because he had not yet taken responsibility for his circumstances

Then he shared a story from his past

My older brother is a commercial airline pilot and flew F-15's for years in the Air force reserves

My older brother has a lot of good stories

I have to share one significant caveat. Even though both my dad and older brother are/were fighter pilots and commercial airline pilots, I am significantly unschooled in the mechanics and logistics of aviation

Although, in my opinion, the story still has great teeth, I absolve myself from any responsibility for the accuracy of the aviation terms herein:)

The story involves a fellow F-15 pilot on a training mission and the importance of knowing exactly how much fuel you have at any given moment

As the story goes, this other guy (I'm leaving names, call signs and locations out so nobody gets irritated at me or feels any shame because none should be felt) was up shooting blank missiles and ammo rounds at the fake enemy guys flying various different planes off the Northeast coast of our beloved country.

He had set an alarm to go off when he had a just a bit more than enough fuel to return to base

The alarm went off just as an enemy B-52 came into his line of site and he thought, "well, I have enough fuel and this kill won't take me more than a few seconds...and I want credit for the kill"

So he turns off his fuel alarm and hones in on the B-52

As it turns out it took more than a few seconds and he forgot about his fuel alarm. I suspect being in the heat of the battle does that to you

Apparently quite a few plane crashes are caused by miscues regarding fuel consumption

At this moment his life is at stake. Because of a lapse in judgment he might die. My brother's perspective is that if you have to dump your plane in the ocean and eject because of a malfunction, that's bad, but if you have to dump it because you f^&ked up, there's nothing worse

I think my brother said something like, "at this point the guys bowels were up in his throat"

The options, as it was explained to me are few and far between

He turns around and takes his chances

He flies toward the water and ejects and dumps

He calls the base and asks for help, tail between his legs...a failure in a fraternity that doesn't tolerate failure

So our daredevil sucks it up and calls the base

By chance, the guy answering at the base at that moment was, in my brother's words, "The guy with the most hours in an F-15 than possibly anyone else in the world at that time"

Our daredevil says "I f&*ked up" and told him what happened.

The guy at the base says "dump everything you can jettison (missiles, bombs and external fuel tanks), climb to 28,000 feet and set the jet on low fuel consumption mode (there's a cooler phrase, but I can't remember it)...and start vectoring back to base"

Ejecting from an F-15 over the water is a very expensive loss and likely a bad back or even a broken back...or worse

Ejecting over land can add civilian casualties and infrastructure damage

Not good. A serious dereliction of duty

He makes it back...on fumes and the story ends well

We didn't get into if or how the pilot was reprimanded

My brother's point was that even in the face of embarrassment and possible dishonorable discharge and God knows what else, this guy took personal responsibility for his mistake and sought help

You really have to put your pride in your back pocket to do this

But it's always the right thing to do

I hope our other loved one can find his personal responsibility for his circumstances and ask for help

The next time you f^*k up I hope you can too. Any other choice just makes things worse

#personalaccountability #leadershipdevelopment #professionaldevelopment

My good friend Jim and I have a podcast we have fun with called?"The Imperfect Mens Club Podcast". We talk about our life and business experiences and have a few laughs

If you want to chat about what has you stuck professionally, that's what I do.?Grab a slot on my calendar?and let's see if/how I can help