Page 161 - Never Fly Solo

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slate was wiped clean, and the past, with its glaring mistake,
was yesterday’s news.
Suddenly, I was back in business with the winning atti-
tude that had landed me this opportunity in the first place.
I instantly stopped dwelling on my past mistake and the
fact that one in three students washed out of UPT. Sure, I was
still nervous and fearful. But now I started looking forward,
reenergized and psyched about my new opportunity to excel.
There was no way that I was going to let something as small
as a landing-light switch take away my dream of becoming an
Air Force pilot.

THE ONLY FAILURE IS NOT LEARNING FROM
YOUR OWN MISTAKES

Past failure should not limit your future success. In fact, many
times what we view as failures are really merely the prelude
to victories over our fears.
In business, that’s what it’s all about: getting back up,
looking optimistically ahead, facing doubt and fear head-on,
and refusing to let the past determine our future. But it’s also
about those who help us get there, like Major Free, who was
not about to let my mistake pull me down into a pit of
despair.
Unfortunately, many of us live in an “old day, old jet”
world. Living in the past, we allow our failures to poison the
soil in which the seeds of our future growth are planted. We
inadvertently spoil that soil with fear. Strapping into the old
jet means the same fears will be with you on every mission,
predisposing you toward making the same mistakes over and
over again. More often than not, these life missions end in
failure.