The greatest mistake one can make is to continually fearing that you’ll make one. –Elbert Hubbard


Fear was always there like a scarf wrapped around my neck that I constantly worried would get caught and start choking me until I failed. When I look back and it’s the clear the common thread throughout any success whether big or small is that it was a team effort.

No doubt I’ve been blessed, I helped start a fraternal organization that strives in success to this day, I joined two branches of the service during two very different wars, I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane multiple times, I helped to create a unique college program, and I helped to create a new college campus. 

Fear is inversely proportional to sense of community. My number one fear is a fear of heights yet I was able to jump out of planes, helicopters and cargo planes all over the world. The fear of those jumps would keep me up worried the night before every jump that my chute would collapse or that I would get caught on the plane. The silver lining is that once my squad started to prep for any jump the feeling of belonging and sense of duty overrode any fear. My chute did collapse once on a jump in front family and friends and I was hospitalized with injuries.

Truth is my fear of the event was much worse than the actual event. I healed from physical injuries and returned to duty with an understanding that fear is natural because bad events do happen. After that jump I understood that a certain amount of fear kept me safe but I stopped overthinking results that were out of my control and focused on doing my job which was to prepare for the next jump regardless of the outcome.

Are you preparing for the next jump in life or focusing on the landing which is out of your control?