Some situations land on you looking like a wall. No way around, no way over, and no time to think about it. A practice I lean on: when that happens, I try to trade "why is this happening to me?" for "how can I grow from this?" The situation stays exactly the same. What changes is that a wall I can only stare at becomes a challenge I can actually work. It moves me from victim to empowered. Here is one of mine. I did not see the Chief Pilot seat coming. I was the Assistant Chief Pilot, the promotion was a surprise, and there was not much runway to prepare. I was fortunate. I had a great boss who stayed in my corner through the whole transition. Then, about a year later, he moved on, and for a month or so I was covering both chairs while the department kept flying. When I was researching the Leadership workshop for our CAM cohort, that same story kept showing up across business aviation. The best pilot gets the seat, and someone trained to execute suddenly has to lead, with no pipeline and no mentor. The surprise leader. So when I reached the five problem-solving questions in Tony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within, that seat is where my mind went. They are that same reframe, broken into five steps. Run them with me from there. 1. What is great about this problem? Somebody looked at the whole department and chose you. For me, the great part had a name: a boss who kept showing up. 2. What is not perfect yet? The word doing the work is "yet." You were trained to fly the airplane, and nobody trained you to lead the people who fly it. Name that gap out loud. It is a training gap, and training gaps close. 3. What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it? Go find the mentor nobody assigned you. Ask your boss what good looks like at 90 days. Study leadership the way you studied systems. 4. What am I willing to no longer do? This is the one we skip. Trying to stay everyone's buddy. Carrying it alone. Waiting for someone to hand you the training. 5. How can I enjoy the process while I do what is necessary?

The Domain II: HR workshop (Part 2) replay is live, and as usual you can review the presentation, and download the accompanying PDF on the full post here: https://www.skool.com/pilotmasterylab/classroom/a1f837dd?md=b6f40a35031e41838c0a02a6bc517c5f

Every manager I know who lost somebody they wanted to keep had goodwill. Goodwill was never what was missing. What was missing was a compensation structure they could defend with aviation data, a recognition practice specific enough that a professional actually believed it, and a duty policy that said out loud where the line was before anybody got tired. I lived this half of Domain II from the chair. One year as assistant chief pilot, three years as chief pilot, and since July, the Aviation Manager seat. Staffing and hiring were Leg 1, and that is the visible half of human resources. This half is quieter and more expensive. It is a crew member you have mentored for three years standing in your doorway with an offer letter in her hand, and about twenty minutes to keep her or lose her gracefully. Here is the belief I want to argue with the day before a session. --> Join the Session here, Wednesday Sept 9 at 11AM EST | https://www.skool.com/live/bgkPTDBSjk5 Most of us were taught that retention in a flight department comes down to a number we do not control. The regional is offering more, it has a training pipeline and a career track, and if money is the reason, the conversation is already over. That story is comfortable, and it is wrong often enough to be expensive. When a crew member tells you they are leaving for the money, most of the time they are telling you the foundation does not feel solid. Base salary sits at the physiological level of Maslow's hierarchy: food, shelter, security. Fix the foundation before you try to build anything on top of it. And underneath that belief sits a fear I understand completely. Nobody wants to walk into a CFO's office carrying a feeling. So we do not walk in at all, and the number gets set by whoever last forwarded a survey link. The Domain II Expedition, Leg 2: Keep the Team Wednesday, September 9 · 11AM ET · live in the community. Three waypoints, and the domain closes: retention and attraction, recognition, regulatory compliance. This is also where the weight sits. The two heaviest sub-objectives in Domain II are both in this session. The domain is 19 percent of the CAM exam, 28 questions, and a disproportionate share of them live in this one hour.

"You're a good man, Charlie Brown." That was my chief pilot's version of a pep talk. I was young, low time, and convinced I was one mistake away from being found out. I met Jim Bennett again this summer, at a job fair, almost 15 years later. He probably doesn't remember saying it. I never forgot it. And the power of his words live on in my work. Here's what I've learned since: the voices you let speak into your life get power whether you hand it to them consciously or not. Walk with the wise and you become wise. Walk with the cynical and you inherit the cynicism, usually without noticing. Jim built people up on purpose. His standards were high, absolutely - but his character was the foundation that enabled many careers to grow. Twenty years into this career, I've gotten more deliberate about who gets that access. The job you take, the crew you fly with, the person you have coffee with at 5am. Those are all the same decision, made repeatedly, and they shape you through the trust you allow them in enoucraging or holding you accountable. If you want to grow, make them count. Who said something to you early on that you're still carrying? Or perhaps a recent encouragement or act of accountability that was shared in confidence? Reach out to them, and let them know! Some of them have no idea. PS: For me - my wife, my dad, my best friend - and a few aviation mentors along the way!