WEEKLY COACHING TIP #176                                                                                                                            

IS THIS THING STILL FLYING? 

I’m currently doing an online course which is really stretching my left brain capabilities. The other day, whilst trying to understand what seemed like a perfectly simple question, I ground to a halt because I just failed to understand the question. This isn’t the first time it’s happened on this course and I found myself more than once ready to sling the computer out of the window. However this time I remembered the word “PATIENCE” or more specifically I remembered reading a book from M.J. Ryan “The power of Patience”.

This relates to the following story:

“The Apollo astronaut Alan Bean had been a former test pilot and test pilots are trained to ask one question when something goes wrong in the air: “Is this thing still flying?” It’s a way of helping the pilot mentally evaluate how serious the problem is rather than panicking so that he/she can calmly come up with a solution.

That training came in handy, Bean relates, when he was in the Apollo 12 capsule. As the spaceship took off, it was struck by a lightening. Suddenly every warning light on the instrument panel flashed, and the astronauts on board felt under tremendous pressure to DO SOMETHING. But then said Bean, he remembered the question, the spacecraft was not only still flying, but it was still headed in the right direction – to the moon. So he decided not to abort the mission, but patiently dealt with each warning light one by one until all functions were restored, and yes they successfully made it to the moon”

Often, it’s the fear of something not turning out “right” that makes us panic or get frustrated. If we only took a moment (and a deep breath) and asked ourselves “Is this thing still flying?” most time we would probably save ourselves a lot of grief, frustration and stress.

So next time you appear to be in a crisis ask yourself “Is this thing still flying?”

If the answer is yes, then there's no immediate danger, no need to overreact.

This will help you to go from reactive to responsive mode and cultivate patience whilst using your mind to come up with solutions.

In which situation did/could this apply to you? Send your comment

© 2006 INSPIRIT & Denise Bosque All Rights Reserved

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