How I Learned to Land the Plane

A Leadership Story about Crisis, Clarity, and Initiation

Seven months before we sold Ned, the bank that held our line of credit collapsed.

It was one of those moments leaders dread: forced layoffs, painful conversations, and nights staring at the ceiling wondering what tomorrow would bring. I felt like I was failing my team, my family, and myself. Underneath all of it lived an even older fear — the fear that I’d somehow end up back where I started, the poor kid I grew up as.

It wasn’t just the business that was collapsing. Something inside me was collapsing too.

The Conversation That Shifted Everything

In the middle of that storm, I brought all of it — the fear, the pressure, the exhaustion — to my coach at the time, Kevin Lawrence. I laid it all out in front of him: the stress, the panic, the belief that I was about to lose everything we’d built.

He listened. He paused. And then he said something that made no sense to me in the moment:

“So why are you worried?”

I stared at him, confused. “Man, I just told you why I’m worried.”

“I know,” he said matter-of-factly, “but how is the worry going to help you fix the problem?”

That question cracked something open. It was the first moment I realized that the worry wasn’t protecting me. It wasn’t sharpening me. It wasn’t making me a better leader.

It was draining the energy I needed to navigate the storm.

Right then, I kicked out the vast majority of the worry. Not because the situation changed — but because I saw that the worry was optional. And with that shift, something larger fell away: the belief that all of this was happening to me.

If it wasn’t happening to me… could it somehow be happening for me?

The Shift From Escape to Engagement

Up until that point, all I wanted was relief. I wanted out of the pressure. Out of the fear. Out of the plane.

I wanted a parachute.

But the moment I considered that this might be happening for me — that this crisis might be a teacher, an initiation, a doorway — everything looked different.

I didn’t want to escape anymore. I wanted to land the plane.

Even if it was a hard landing. Even if it meant some parts of me wouldn’t walk away intact.

Because deep down, I knew: If I could land the plane, I’d walk away with something I couldn’t have earned any other way — wisdom, resilience, clarity, and a deeper understanding of the people I’m meant to serve.

The Solution Was Already Under My Nose

As soon as the worry dropped, something remarkable happened.

I realized that the solution had been sitting under my nose the whole time. I just couldn’t see it through the fog of panic. When you're terrified, your vision narrows. When you calm, your field of awareness opens.

That crisis wasn’t punishment. It was initiation.

It was the severance phase — the part of the journey where the old identity begins to fall away. I didn’t know it then, but that moment was preparing me for the life and work I’m dedicated to now: guiding leaders through transitions, thresholds, and rites of passage.

Crisis as a Rite of Passage

Most people think rites of passage are ceremonial — something you sign up for intentionally. But the truth is, life creates its own initiations. Layoffs, financial strain, divorce, transitions, exits, uncertainty, identity shifts — these are all thresholds.

In a Vision Quest, there’s a moment where you stop resisting and start listening. You stop fighting the experience and start learning from it. That’s when clarity begins to rise.

What happened during the Ned crisis was exactly that. It was my initiation. My threshold. My invitation to see differently.

It stripped away the protective layers I’d built around myself — the striving, the proving, the unconscious need to outrun my childhood story — and showed me what truly mattered: alignment, purpose, and the courage to stay with myself when things get hard.

Landing the Plane

Landing the plane doesn’t mean controlling everything. It doesn’t mean forcing a perfect outcome. It means staying with the experience — all the way through.

It means choosing engagement over escape. Presence over panic. Clarity over noise.

When you stop trying to jump, you gain the strength to steer.

And when you steer — even in uncertainty — life meets you with options you couldn’t see before.

What Crisis Might Be Asking of You

If you’re in a season like that — where everything feels heavy, uncertain, or on the brink — it might not be breaking you.

It might be preparing you.

Ask yourself:

• Where am I trying to escape instead of engage?

• What truth is this season forcing me to see?

• What strength is being built in me right now?

• What if this isn’t punishment — but initiation?

And most importantly:

Where in your life are you trying to jump out of the plane…
when you're actually meant to land it?