#236 Coffee with Kenny The Importance of FAILURE!

All right, day 236, coffee with Kenny. And I'm going to talk about failure. And we talk about failure a lot. But I'm going to just kind of rattle here for a little bit. This is an interesting topic because you all know I failed my first private pilot checkride. I also failed my commercial. Well, not my helicopter commercial, but when I went to get my commercial driver's license many years ago when I was operating heavy duty trucks, guess what? I failed my cdl. That sucked. Went home and I had, you know, big equipment. I had to take a semi. And anyway, failure. I like talking about this because I believe there has to be a fear of failure. And I don't think you. A person's not going to progress. You know, if everybody just passed their license on the first time, then it doesn't push anybody to ever study or do their best. I think I'm going to title this, you know, the Fear of Failure. And I love to fail. I would not be sitting here today if I wouldn't have failed my private pilot checkride. Heather wouldn't be standing there, help me with the camera. She wouldn't be working for me. We wouldn't be in this hangar. I'd be off somewhere working some job for somebody else. My failure on my private pilot test shaped the rest of my life. When I applied for to become a police officer, I tried really hard and I got turned down. But guess what? I got the next spot. All the headache and heartache I went through, polygraph, psychological testing, all that baloney I had to go through and then to not get hired. It was devastating. But they said, keep your nose clean and next time maybe you'll get the job. And guess what I did. So it helped me prepping the next job that came up. They said, ah, your polygraph's recent enough and your psychological is all recent enough. You want the job, it's yours. Failing, not making it the first time is so freaking a big part of being a human being and learning and growing as a person. And I want to share a little story with you here. I'm gonna have Heather flip over the switch here on the, on the screen. If you've watched the last several videos, you know, my daughter was going for her driver's license test yesterday. There's so many things I want to talk about, you know, all the time people say, God, when are you going to run out of stuff? There is so much I want to talk about today. I can't even freaking believe it, but I'm going to Run out of time. And watching Gloria get ready for her driver's test, I realized how much testing is the same. You know, this was like a mini frickin checkride. And I already told the story the other day about how we went the first day and she didn't have all the proper documents. Okay, first time, no go. We go back yesterday. Gloria has been driving since she's 14 years old. She drives my Jeep. And we'll go to that picture in just a second. But sitting there watching this, I'm like, this guy looks like an examiner over there, right? Yesterday, he's looking at her papers and they're doing all the, you know, crossing the T's and dotting the I's. And I'm just watching from the outside and I'm thinking about, you know, getting her ready for her driver's license. I took a little bit of a backseat. She started driving at 14. She has hours and hours and hours logged with me driving the Jeep and some other vehicles too. But she wanted to go on the Jeep because that's the most she was most comfortable in. And which is cool because I started driving at 14 in the 1946 Willys 2 Red Jeep. And I wish I had a picture I could show you. I had big long hair clear down here, you know. You know, I was a punk anyway, but I was an entrepreneur and I worked hard and I bought that Jeep at 14 years old. So anyway, so it's fun watching the whole process. And when it came down to the paperwork, it was kind of her and her mom taking care of it because, you know, I'm trying to always put input, but you know, I know dad. I know dad. I know dad. Okay, you know, just kind of back off. And then prepping for the test, you know, last minute, we're trying to do stuff and you know, a lot of things she learned in driver training, right? So at the last moment, I'm not trying to change what she learned in driver training. I thought, you know, because I don't do that in the helicopter world, right? If, if I'm prepping you for a test and you learned, whoops, you learned one way and we're down to the wire and something's not working and I'm trying to change it. That never works. I just say, whatever you did, however you were trained and what's in you, let's just do that and let's perfect that. So I knew she was. I thought I was feeling good yesterday. I'm thinking she's going to pass, right? So I'll go ahead and have Heather flip over the next picture. Here's the other part, right? This is like the pre flight with the examiner. They go out in the parking lot, and I got my video out there and I'm filming, right? And I'm like, oh, this is cool. You know, I learned to drive in a. In a Jeep when I was 14 years old. I've had her driving since she was 14. Yes, it's illegal, but you know what? I figured I did it and I'm gonna do it. My daughter's gonna have that experience when she gets her license. She's gonna have more than the average kid who just started driver training and then goes to get a license. You know, my daughter was getting the benefit of I broke the law in order to give her, you know, the good experience. And we would drive back roads in the country because we live in, you know, rural Indiana. So I'm pretty confident, man. I'm thinking, she's gonna make it, she's gonna pass the test. So here it is. You know, this is like the helicopter and the helicopter examiner. It's the same damn thing, right? First time, we didn't have the proper paperwork. Second time, we're feeling good. I'm feeling good. She's nervous, of course, but I'm going, breathe in and out, Gloria. You know, and there's all these things that looking back, I'm like, you know, we should have. You know, I should have got involved in helping with the documents, and I should have pushed her harder before driving. And she's drove so much in two years that recently I'm like, hey, you want to drive? Nah, you know, it's old news to her. So operating the Jeep and driving the hell driving the Jeep is not the problem. That is not the problem. That's like going for your helicopter check ride. Flying the helicopter isn't the problem. The problem is your decision making. Okay, so they go out and I just. Beautiful day. And I'm waiting for them to come back. And I video them driving in. I got pictures and video, which, you know, in the end they come pulling in. I'm videoing, I'm walking back up, and she sees what I'm doing. She sees I'm videoing her, and she's like, you know, right? So I'm thinking, oh, this isn't good. So kind of like a checkride, right? I've seen that in 20 years, I've had three people fail. That's it. And I know the look, you know, when they're walking back you just know something didn't go right. So he walks in first and I walk in with her and I'm just kind of looking at her and she's like, I think I screw up the parallel parking. I don't know. He didn't say, but I'm pretty sure I didn't pass. So we go over and sit down and back at the bench and it's like the, the debrief with the examiner after checkride, whether you've passed or failed, right? So he goes and does some paperwork. She still doesn't know did I pass, did I not pass? And I'm thinking, well, hopefully he's just being hard nosed and just not telling her, you know, she didn't know for sure. She just had a feeling. So he comes over and he sits down. He goes, well, okay, what you've got to work on. He said, the test went really well. He goes, you did really good. You know, the parallel parking was good and the driving was all good. He said, but when we left the parking lot today, he said, you, you signaled you turned. That was all good. And I was watching this as they were going on the parking lot, right? And he said, but here's what you did. There were, she was pulling out of a parking lot onto a thoroughfare for a shopping mall. So she goes to pull out, she stops, signals, car's coming this way and she's unsure and she goes ahead and pulls out. He said it wasn't dangerous, but you caused this car to slow down a little bit and so I can't pass you on that. And you know, she was bummed and I, and I, and I thought about it, I'm sitting there thinking, I thought it was a fair assessment because leading up to her taking the checkride, I was thinking, you know, she's good in the Jeep, but she still struggled a little bit making decisions at intersections and stuff. And so I knew, as a trainer, as an instructor, I knew or that's where she was lacking just a little bit. So this is really goofy. I mean, I'm sure I'm bummed for her, but in a way I was kind of excited that it was like a checkride debrief and the guy says, hey, you know, just like an examiner will do. Hey, you did good and you did good on this, this, this and this. That stuff was all really good. But here's the area that we have a problem. You know, this is something that you got to work on. And you know, many times when you go back to retest, it's a breeze. My CDL was that way, you know, after I failed the commercial driver's license and then the private pilot, you know, I busted my butt and went back to retest the second time around. And it was just such a cool experience from all the way around watching her prep and her get ready and then when she fails, you know, as a dad, you know, you want to coddle your kids and stuff. But I'm also thinking, you know, we're trying to prepare her for life and, oh, man, we got a battery about to go to poop. I got to change batteries. All right, so I'm back. I'm not going to edit that out. Heather just flips it around on me and I see that little red thing, and I'm like, oh, about to lose battery. I failed. I didn't do a proper pre flight on the camera and make sure I had a fresh battery. I'm gonna leave this in. So I asked Heather, well, where was I at? Where was I getting the story, decision making, right? So I knew, right? And I told her. I go, you know, I go, that was actually a pretty fair assessment. You know, that is kind of what you need to work on. And she didn't want to hear it, right? Because she's kind of upset. And I'm thinking since yesterday, the whole process of failure, right? And hate to say it's been a way I was glad she failed, right? She could have worked a little harder prior to when I said, hey, you want to drive? Hey, you want to drive? Nah, nah, nah. Recency of experience. Recency of flight experience. You know, you just see where I'm going with this whole thing. You know, I could have pushed her a little bit harder, but I also wanted her to want it, and I wanted her to want to pass. So, you know, just like ground school and all the stuff we do and the things we teach and that's what we put into this whole helicopter line. Ground school is us teaching you, but teaching you from the standpoint of failure and all the bad things that can happen. And I am by no means to this day. I don't feel like I'm an expert. I'm just a guy that has been beat down and struggled and had all those failures. And I like Gary Vee. I'm big into watching Gary Vee. And he said, I love to fail. He goes, I freaking love to fail. He goes, because you know what? Every time I fail, I learn something new and I learn a new approach, and then I try something different. I know it works. So you know, in the whole failure thing, there's so much hype around these checkrides and this is giving me goosebumps. I'm so excited about this topic. We gotta fail, man. But you want to push yourselves to get through these checkrides and you want to be better than the average guy that goes for a checkride. And if you, and if you apply yourself and you study hard, you're probably going to do really well. But you never know about that one time that just something happens. And I'll tell you this, it's not the thing that you're worried about that causes you to fail the test. Gloria was worried about parallel parking. She did two of them yesterday. And he said parallel parking was great. You know, he said everything was fine, your driving was great. And he said you just, you know, that choice goes back to if you don't know, don't do it. Right. The conservative thing is a safe and prudent driver or safe and prudent pilot. I'm not sure if I should go. I'm gonna hang back. So that's what I'm trying to instill in her is the slow, smooth, methodical, take that approach to driving. You're not sure. And she wasn't sure and she decided just to go because she was nervous. And he even said that, he's like, you know, I realize it's probably just nerves because you were nervous. It was the beginning of the freaking test. So what she fails on is not what she was worried about. She worried about parallel parking, has no problem, fails pulling out the parking lot over a decision. So aeronautical decision making is no different than decision making in your car. Learning to fly the aircraft is the easy part. Learning the knowledge is the hard part. But then taking that knowledge and taking the hands on in the helicopter, putting it all together, learning how to make decisions and, you know, I don't have a problem with the 40 hour minimum that the FAA sets out. Almost nobody does it in 40, and I highly encourage you to not think that. Oh, man, I got to get this done at 40 and I'm going to be this ace pilot. You're not. You're licensed. Your private's your license to learn, your commercial is, your license to learn. Your CFI is your license to learn, your instruments, your license to learn. You're going to continue to learn and learn and learn. And so many people want to, oh, I want to be done in 40. Right. I don't want to spend the extra money. Well, spend the extra money and I can remember you Know when I first got my private, I failed the first one, the second one, I aced it, right? And this guy was a guy I've talked about many times over the years. Freaking legend in the industry, Jerry Ventrell is his name. And he was such an awesome instructor and teacher and examiner. And he, he said, okay, you know, we're all done that day. And he's like, congratulations, you're private pilot. You know, he goes, before you go, you know, we're all done, we're signed, I got the certificate. And he's like, I just want to chat with you for a couple more minutes before I let you go. And actually went over to the little neighborhood bar next door and had supper, had a good time. Because that's just what you did back in the day where I was at, you know, after checkride, you go next door. So anyway, before he lets me go, I want to caution you to something. You're now a private pilot. And he said, my advice to you, don't go out and just start going and giving rides and going to your house and landing all your friends yard and going crazy. He said, you have the license and you're legal. But he goes, I want you to fly by yourself alone for a little while. And he said, I'm not saying you can't do this because I just want you to get time in the seat, get comfortable flying as a new licensed pilot, start getting a little experience under your belt and then kind of ease into taking up your friends and your family and going to these places that you've always wanted to land at. He said, I just want to caution you, just take your time moving into that. So I'm going to wrap it up because I got to go again. And I knew I had a certain amount of time and I been watching a bunch of people and motivational stuff and because I'm always looking for ways to improve myself and move on. And this guy I was listening to this morning, fabulous speaker, and I'm just so impressed. And he's talking about climbing the mountain. Climbing the mountain. And he said, you know, people get three quarters of the way and then they find out that this path isn't working. They want to get up there, but they can't get there. And they go, man, I'm going to have to go all the way back down to this bottom and find another route back up. And he said, the average person won't do that. The average person will just give up. Screw it. I spent all this time and money, but I can't get there. So, ending note, you know, it's another motivational thing that was so true, right? It's like all you people that are working on your ratings, and now we know there's so many of you out there that have worked on them for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years. The guy that went back and retested after 27 years of after failing, buys ground school. I'm plugging my stuff, gets his knowledge fresh because he failed 27 years prior on knowledge, gets his knowledge fresh, goes and flies with his instructor, freshens up his maneuvering in the aircraft, and he goes back and he gets his checkride done. 27 years later, Pink slip in hand. Moral of the story, there's nothing wrong with failure. There's got to be a fear of failure. Because you do fail, it doesn't mean you're. It doesn't mean you're done. You go back, you. You study harder, you do the maneuvers, you do what you got to do. Last night, talking late night with my buddy Dr. Nick, you know, owns the black helicopter. And, you know, I look up to him and he's such a wonderful man and this accomplished doctor. And he's. And I told him what happened, and he's like, oh, man. Hey, tell Gloria I failed my first driver's license. I'm like, awesome. I'll go, I'll tell her that, because I know that would probably make her feel better. And today she's laughing and smiling, and she jumps in the Jeep and I'm giving her a ride with her friend, and she says, oh, yeah, I'm retesting in a week. And my daughter laughs. She goes, yeah, she just took hers the other day and she fell, too. I go, well, see, you both got something common, right? So the whole theme of the failure is just on my mind in training. And I got a whole bunch more stuff that I'm going to cover. Just the things I've learned in the last few days, so I'm not running out of content. Ain't gonna happen. So the good old Jeep cup, day 236. I think I mentioned that at the beginning. We're finishing that up. Day 236. Come back tomorrow for day 237. Like the video, don't hit dislike because you're a punk if you do. But if you do, go ahead and hit it twice because that'll work out good for us and you if you hit it twice. And Heather's last but not least, the Labor Day sale. Okay, I'm gonna throw this out. You know, you may be watching later on and see this video years down the road. So here's what we're gonna do. If you missed this cell, something that I do and I hadn't really taught Heather to do yet, but I'm a teacher right now. If you email us at any point in time with a question about ground school and you give us a little background, just short two, three sentences, hey, I'm looking at your ground school and this is what I'm looking for. We'll always throw you a code. So if you missed this Labor Day cell, know that you can get a code. You can get a discount anytime just by reaching out to us and giving us a little bit of your background and tell us what you're looking for. And if you're looking to sign up, we'll always throw in a discount. This is on yearly memberships and Professional pilot. We currently don't discount the monthly because it's so damn cheap anyway. But Labor Day sell. We just come up with the code Labor 30. So Labor 30, enter that in a coupon box and we're going to give you 30% off any of the yearly memberships for private, commercial, CFI and instrument and also off that big professional Pilot package. So you enter that code in the coupon box during checkout you and it'll reveal the discount. And I'm also going to go below this video and put actual links where you can go direct to the one that you want. You won't even have to enter the code, it'll just boo. Pop up. I think that's the way it works. But even if you need to go to Labor 30, so if you miss this Labor Day sell, you can always come back later. Send us an email. It won't be as big as today's, but we have an average discount that we just throw out on a daily basis. When somebody takes the time to ask us a question, we'll always say, well, hey, you know what? If you're interested in the yearly professional, here's the code ending Monday night. Labor Day. Monday. Right. So Monday night will be the end of the 30%. Remember, there is a 30 day money back guarantee on all this. And for the Yearly, there's a 24 hour test flight on that. You can sign up at that discounted price, go in for 24 hours, check it out. If it's not right for you, just remove your credit card before the end of the 24 hour cycle and you will be billed nothing. And also if you decide to take us up on this yearly offer. Remember, it's a membership so you have a full access for one year. If you want to keep it for year number two, that's great. Keep it for year number two. But know that you will be billed again unless in within that one year or within that one year you need to go in and remove your credit card or end it in PayPal or email us and say hey, I don't want to be billed for year number two and we can do it for you. It is a subscription. Just like the monthly is a subscription when you want to end it. You either have to do it yourself or ask us to do it for you. The professional pilot that doesn't have the test flight but it still has the 30 day money back. No hassle guarantee. Been in place for seven and a half years. I'm going to wrap it up because I got to. I got a roll. Give us a thumbs up. Subscribe Click the bell. When you do, leave us a comment down below about your failures, your successes or anything you want to talk about because we got a whole lot more cool stuff coming. Day 2 06:36 Peace out. Hell yeah.