This is an excerpt from “Lean Into the Hard Work”, a chapter in my forthcoming book.

Some projects worth doing require physically difficult work, or long tiring hours of mentally demanding work. I admire people who embrace those kinds of work when they’re needed.

There’s another kind of hard work that scares more people than those two, I think. Emotionally difficult work stops a lot of people who are undaunted by a long day of exertion.

A songwriter putting her vulnerable heart into her music is doing emotionally difficult work. A scientist who dares to believe the groundbreaking solution can be found, doesn’t know how yet, and still shows up to the lab every day, is doing emotionally difficult work. The leader who takes responsibility and personally promotes a vision for the organization is doing emotionally difficult work.

Fear is an invisible filter that screens out many smart and talented people. I imagine a bold red line painted in front of us all, stretching as far to the left and to the right as we can see. This side of the line is crowded, and it feels safer. The other side is sparsely populated. It feels conspicuous and dangerous.

When an entrepreneur moves from talking about a new business, to starting that new business, she steps over the red line. The crowd on the safe side gasps, shrinks back a little from the line, and a rumble of envious comments drifts through them. “Look what she’s doing. I couldn’t do that. I wonder if she’ll make it, or fall flat.”

The line has no guards, no fence, no barbed wire making it hard to cross. There’s no requirement to be smarter, better looking, or wealthier in order to cross it. It’s just red paint on the ground. The few who cross it often reap big rewards, and see the futures they intended for their lives unfold in exciting ways. Back on the safe side people point, envy, analyze, even say it’s unfair. But that powerless red line keeps them safely, invisibly, restrained.

Give yourself an advantage. Cross the line.

As promised, a week or two after my in-flight engine failure, I got back on the horse.

My view from the pilot seat before my “re-do” flight.

I expected to feel anxiety during the flight, but I really didn’t. Yes, my ear was highly tuned to any unusual sound from the engine. I was extra alert on my first few takeoffs, but overall I felt fine.

I attribute this lack of long-term effect to good processing with supportive friends following the scary incident. If we deal effectively with an emotionally significant event at the time, it doesn’t have to become a long-term problem. If I had brushed it off, I bet I would have felt a lot more anxiety on that first flight back.

During this flight, my instructor demonstrated and had me practice the power-off turning and power-off landing techniques I would have needed to handle the engine failure situation on my own. This was the coolest thing. When I put the plane down on the runway a few times, after a turn without power, I felt an incredible sense confidence. It was actually much easier than I expected. Knowing I was now prepared to handle the emergency I had encountered was huge.

I think this is how confidence works in the aftermath of a significant event. We can never convince ourselves the odds of it happening again are too small to worry about. Our brains don’t understand a 0.0001% chance of dying. They just hear “chance of dying”. Our brains do understand ability to handle a situation. “If that happens, I can deal with it safely.”

I am really glad I got back on the horse. In hindsight I can tell my confidence would have been permanently dented if I hadn’t.

Empowerment is a popular term in my circles. It comes up in business coaching, and in poverty alleviation. I think the term gets misused sometimes. Powerful people doing things for people they perceive as less powerful is not empowerment.

In a recent workshop exercise my group came up with this definition:

Empowerment is interacting with an individual or group in a way that increases their awareness of their own power, extends an invitation to them to use their gifts to meet other’s needs, and gives them courage to realize their untapped potential.

The is one of your jobs as a leader.

On Tuesday, March 31 I drove to the airport for my flying lesson. I figured there was a decent chance I’d fly solo for the first time that day. Honestly, I should have soloed a long time ago. Due to scheduling breaks and my below-average knack for flying, it’s taken me a long time to get to this point.

It was a windy day, 13 knots gusting 19, making flying a bit challenging. With my instructor in the plane, I did three very nice touch-and-goes (landings followed by takeoffs without stopping). I was doing well in spite of the wind, and I was feeling good. On the fourth landing, I caught a couple of strong gusts and under-corrected, resulting in a safe but less-than-pretty landing. This prompted my instructor to have me do a few more, rather than go solo at that time. I’m quite thankful for that.

We did a few more touch and goes without incident. As I completed the 7th or 8th takeoff for the day, my happy sense of accomplishment was interrupted by sudden and obvious sputtering of the engine.

We had a real engine failure after takeoff at 100 feet above the ground. This was not a drill. It was a bad situation. My instructor and I both recognized it immediately. We both said “engine failure” into our headsets (or maybe just thought it) at the same time. Immediately he said “Ok. My plane.” which means he’s taking the controls. He adjusted the plane’s pitch to maintain a glide, and decided on a landing point. We had just passed the end of 32L, the runway we took off on, and we’d need 500 feet of altitude to turn 180 degrees back to it. We only had 100 feet, so landing on that runway was not an option. Runway 36 was angling to our right. We were already almost past it. He’d have to make a sharp right turn without power to make that runway. In an instant he chose to do that.

I’ll never forget his voice on the radio “04-Hotel. Engine Failure. Engine Failure. I’m taking 36.” The tower, always calm and always following procedure responded with “04-Hotel. Runway 36. Clear to Land”. Not like we were really asking permission at that point, but we did need the tower to keep any other planes out of our way.

My instructor executed a perfect power-off steep turn, only had time to put on one notch of flaps, compensated for the crosswind we had turned into, and put the plane down quite gently right on 36. He had the training and experience to handle it.

We got a visit from the airport crash-fire-rescue trucks. Once they heard “engine failure” they were on their way. That was more drama than I wanted at that moment.

When the Adrenaline Wore Off

The rest of that day I kept rehearsing what I would have done if I had been on my first solo when that engine failed. It’s a bad situation for any pilot, and I would have had the least experience under which a pilot could possibly find himself in that situation alone. I would not have made the turn and the runway my instructor did. My training was to land straight ahead in that scenario, and that’s what I would have done. That would have meant putting the plane down in a soybean field. I think I would have accomplished that without dying. I had enough training and practice on emergency landings to do that. But it would have been a very scary and dangerous experience. The plane may have been damaged.

That afternoon I had an adrenaline hangover. I felt wiped, and I had lost my nerve to keep flying. I talked with a few friends and fellow pilots, which helped. I called my therapist and got her support and thoughts on my experience that had life-and-death implications. By the end of the day my courage was starting to come back. Over the next few days I talked through the situation with a few more friends and my mentor Greg. I decided I would get back on the horse and not let a bad experience be my last experience flying.

Thoughts and Reflections

A life team is a lifesaver. I am grateful for the key friends, mentors, and professional helpers I could depend on to help me respond to a difficult thing. Isolation is deadly. There’s strength and wisdom in community.

Unexpected things happen, and they’ll continue to happen. The odds of an engine failure in the amount of time I’ve spent flying is less than 0.1%, and it happened. It’s impossible to eliminate all risk. Preparation and experience provide the ability to handle and respond to what happens. My instructor demonstrated that beautifully. There’s a realistic basis for security that comes from being prepared. This applies to all aspects of life – relationships and work. We can proceed with confidence when we know we are prepared to respond appropriately to the unpredictable.

Significant events bring significant emotions. I was wiped out and pessimistic that afternoon. We are not computers. We have primitive and physical responses. If we ignore those, they will continue to affect us long term. If we base our decisions on those, we will make reactive and unwise decisions. Our primitive brains don’t know how to assess risk, especially of rare events. Acknowledge and process emotion, and give yourself appropriate time to stabilize. Decide your course of action with your whole brain, not just the primitive parts.

There’s value in getting back on the horse. There’s no practical reason I need to keep flying, but I think there are good reasons for me to go back out and experience some safe and normal flights. “Never again” is for foolish or destructive things. Getting back on the horse is for good things that sometimes go wrong. There’s a big difference between “I’ll never touch a hot stove again” and “I’ll never trust a close friend again”, but our primitive brains feel the same about both bad experiences: “Don’t go there.”

Maybe we all have good and healthy places we are afraid to “go there” to again. Trusting a friend. Falling in love. Confronting a difficult person. Attempting a business venture. The painful memories stay powerfully present with us.

If there’s good to be pursued, and you are reasonably prepared, get back on the horse. Don’t let good things in life end up on your “never again” list. Reach out to your life team for support, and go for it.

I’ll be back in the sky soon.

It’s natural to look for easy ways to reach our goals. This is sensible, and reduces wasted effort. Taking the elevator rather than the stairs to the 20th floor is an efficient choice.

To make a difference, change things, or win in an open competition, you’ll need to do the opposite. You’ll need to look for something difficult to do.

Solve the difficult engineering problem, knock on 500 doors, train harder, risk failure, persevere long enough to make it. The advantage is in the difficulty.

P.S. I talk about lean business startups and early market validation on this new video interview.