The Pilot

I shuttle many pilots and co-pilots to a airlines simulator certification center where they have to demonstrate proficiency in handling an aircraft in a mock emergency setting. It is a nerve-wracking and serious certification, redone every six months or so as long as they fly and need their license. I told a grizzled fifty-year old veteran about the real worry and fear in the faces of younger pilots, worried about flunking the certification. He quickly and brusqely brushed their worrying aside. He suggested that the only way to overcome such anxiety is to master every aspect of the training required and offered, so that one is so steeled, skilled and confident, that the four hour simulator episode is just another routine experience. He criticized them: he noted that they were under-prepared and on some level knew it, so they were right to be worried. Most of them still pass the simulated test, but his criticism struck a cord with me. His recommendation is consistent with what I have heard about winning trial lawyers. The biggest winners are not the Perry Masons or towering intellectuals: it ordinarily is the one that work the hardest and are the most prepared. The self-realizer needs take note of this recommendation: she who works the hardest and is the most technically prepared and skilled in her craft, will be well-positioned to create art or insight or an invention, based upon what she intuits.