Page 30 - Never Fly Solo

PUSH IT UP! | 3
If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have bothered to pick up
this book. Now that you have, don’t put it down. It’s the first
step on a journey that will help you power through the bar-
riers holding you back from reaching new heights in your
career.
Trust me—if I can strap myself into the tiny cockpit of an
F-16 for hours at a time, climb to thirty thousand feet over
Iraq at Mach 2, and dodge oncoming missiles, then you can
do anything.
You see, I was a claustrophobic fighter pilot with a fear
of heights—not the best skill set for this line of work. And I
couldn’t tell a soul. Let’s just say I was not your typical fighter
pilot.
That’s right. When I was a kid, I couldn’t jump off a ten-
foot-high diving board or even ride a roller coaster without
being terrified. I was, for lack of a better word, a wimp. Then,
three years into my eleven-year flying career, I nearly lost it
while scuba diving in the Caribbean. My mask malfunctioned,
and I inhaled a lungful of water. Panic ensued. I really thought
I was going to die. Bursting up through the ocean surface with
the one last breath in me, I told myself I would never scuba
dive again. Not a pretty picture. The result? The latent claus-
trophobia that I thought I had overcome reared its ugly head,
meaner and more fearsome than ever.
The next time I flew, I had a panic attack at twenty thou-
sand feet. Suddenly dizzy and light-headed, I freaked out and
swore my oxygen system was malfunctioning. I thought, I
have to get out of this cockpit . . . now! The plane was per-
fect—it was all in my mind.
For the next eight years, I had to train myself to battle this
fear. I could tell no one, or the Air Force would surely take
my wings. It was my dirty little secret.