Plane Conversations

My son came home from school one day with a classroom story I found disturbing.  It was at the beginning of the school year and the teacher asked each student to introduce themselves and to tell what their career goals were.  One student stated that he wanted to be a famous rap artist.  The teacher’s advice to the student was to pick another career, he’d never make it in that one.

I’m sure that there were plenty of people who gave the same advice to Marshall Mathers and Curtis Jackson; but, apparently neither Eminem nor 50 Cent took notice of the naysayers. 

Several months ago, I read a blog entitled Misfit Entrepreneurs that really stuck with me.  In the blog, Dan Pallotta wonders how Bruce Springsteen could communicate his aspirations to his father, “How does he tell his father, ‘I’m going to be Bruce Springsteen?’ “  How does any true visionary communicate their vision to the rest of us?  How can they explain their dream to expand or alter a current reality?  How can they define what we can’t even imagine?

At the moment, my son wants to be a stand-up comedian.  He’s pretty hilarious; so, this may be a good fit for him.  I remind him that the path is difficult and that the price, in terms of work, will be high.  However, if Jerry Seinfeld can do it, I don’t see why my son wouldn’t be able to – provided he’s willing to do the work.  Those are the real keys, aren’t they?  We must be able to envision the goal and we must be willing to do the work.

In the charter side of Business and General Aviation, we often talk about the problems in our industry.  Operators all over the country have shut down.  Those of us still flying struggle with ever-thinner margins.  Customers want more stringent standards; but, they often want to pay less for them.  The market is unwilling to pay price increases that keep pace with cost increases.  How can we continue to operate under these circumstances?  We operate smarter.

But, we can’t operate smarter until we change the way we view ourselves and our product.  We have to envision ourselves as Bruce Springsteen before we can actually translate the vision to reality.  We have to stop seeing our industry only for what it is and, instead, see it for what it can be.  What if we can increase fleet utilization without substantially increasing costs?  What if we can increase our margins simply be changing our customer base?  What if we could increase our customer base by tenfold?

What if I told you that we can?  What if I told you that the vision was becoming reality right on the horizon?  Would you be willing to envision it?  Would you be willing to work on it with us? 

We can do it.  After all, Bruce Springsteen exists.

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