Episode 77 - Denni Barrett From Business Owner To Hot Air Balloon Pilot, You Can Do The Thing

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacey Lauren. So I just love being able to live life and meet really amazing people and then realizing how unbelievable they would be to have on the podcast. And it's funny, my boyfriend surprised me with a hot air balloon ride one day and pretty much took me to Temecula, which is about an hour from where I live, and we were waiting at the line and saw all these people standing there and I still didn't know what it was until we went to the Starbucks to grab a drink before we were doing whatever this event was. And so the lady at the Starbucks asked me if we were going hot air balloon riding. And then I got really excited and then anyway proceeded to meet Denny, who is an unbelievable human that I was so impressed with his stories and just everything that he shared on the balloon ride and the fact that we're like, in this balloon without any kind of the way that he does it and it makes you feel comfortable. It was just really. The whole experience was really moving. And so I asked him afterwards if he would come on and talk to me about how he does the thing, because he definitely does the thing with everything he does. So I'm so excited to welcome Denny to the show.

Hello. Thank you, Stacy.

How are you?

Oh, you know what? I am blushing as red as the Stanford shirt that I'm wearing right now. That's.

Oh, cool. Well, I am so excited to hear more because you told me a few stories on the day of the hot air balloon ride. But I'm just excited, number one, for the listeners to hear about you and then to dive in even deeper. So do you mind just starting off and just sharing with everyone your story and your background?

Not at all, no. I can tell you the biggest challenge that a hot air balloon pilot has is getting people to remember them after the balloon ride. It's amazing if you talk to anybody you meet on the street and you say, have you been on a balloon ride before? And they say, oh, yeah, sure, I was in Napa or Cappadocia, Turkey or Albuquerque. And you say, oh, great, who did you fly with? They can't remember. What did your balloon look like? They remember that very well. But the moment you try to find out what the company or the pilot was, they draw a blank. So I've worked very hard at trying to get people to remember me, and I appreciate you being one of the fruits of that success.

That's amazing. And it's funny that you should say that because I was talking to my boyfriend after when you guys gave us that certificate and it had everything on there that like the whole experience was. What is that called? The red carpet experience. From like beginning to end. And they. Everyone just integrated humor and just surprise. And then you ended with like the champagne toast. And then to the point where we got the certificate, you had the balloon prayer, which maybe we'll get into if there's time, but you had the oh, serenity prayer on there. And. Or what is it called now that I want to say it the right way.

It's called the balloonist prayer.

Balloonist prayer, yeah. And then you, you thought through every detail throughout the process, and I just. And even to the point of having restaurants and wineries that you can go after and then getting a discount on, it just was this. I could tell how much thought is put into that entire system that you have. And it's just. It was really, it was really extraordinary.

Well, thanks. So what's happened with me in my life? I started. You remember the movie Top Gun?

Yes.

Well, Top Gun was released in 1986 to fantastic reviews. It inspired and entertained an entire generation of aviators, and I was one of them. By 1987, I obtained my pilot's license and was building an airplane in my garage. I distinctly recall the joy I felt when I stenciled my self proclaimed call sign underneath the canopy of my cockpit. Since then, I've gone on to fly other airplanes. Helicopters, gliders, seaplanes, even the MetLife blimp in Long Beach. But my favorite thing, absolute favorite thing to fly is hot air balloons. Everything else I fly, I can fly from point A to point B and I can fly by instrumentation. But the only thing you can do in a hot air balloon is have fun. And so it's true. Seat of the pants flying.

Yeah, yeah. And it's. How did you even get into that to start with? Like, how did that even become a thought in your mind?

Oh, sure. I want to say the late 90s, 1999, we sold our business in Orange County. And the guy that was helping me sell my business lived in Temecula wine country. And he said, hey, Denny, now that you sold your business, what do you want to do? And I said, jeff, I want to do something romantic. And he goes, well, I know what you need to do. You need to come out to Temecula and make wine. I thought about it. Drinking wine with the pretty girls, romantic movies about making wine, like a walk in the clouds is romantic. So that's what I did. I sold my business, came out to Temecula, about ten and a half acres of vineyard. And the first thing I learned about making wine is it's not romantic at all. It's farming. It's political, it's expensive. It's everything I didn't want to do. Well, one morning, I'm out in my field. I've got 10 and a half acres of vines to prune and tie to the trestle all by my myself. Now, while I'm doing that, there's a balloon overhead, 12 people on board. They're all yelling down, hi, how are you? Beautiful day. Now, I was not in a good mood, so I just kept my head down and my mouth closed. It was going to be really hot that day. And after about 10 minutes, somebody yelled down, hey, we're talking to you. How are you? And I said, I know. When they cursed at me, it startled me. I cut into my finger with my tin snips. Blood everywhere. Still have the scar. I turned around, I yelled up to that balloon. What the. Blankety blank blank. Blankety blank blank. Blankety blank blank. Do you want. You know, that balloon was quiet. All I could hear was the sound of the burner for about 15 minutes. Well, an hour and a half later, the pilot, Dominic Camello, comes walking onto my property, waving a champagne bottle. Friendly, friendly. He comes up to me and he goes, you know, I'm real sorry I bothered you. I could tell I was bothering you. I just couldn't find any wind to get off your property. Why don't you drink this bottle of champagne and come for a free balloon ride? So I drank the bottle of champagne that afternoon. I went for the balloon ride that very next day. And then I realized flying a balloon was a lot more romantic than making wine. So I sold my winery and vineyard in Temecula, took the money, paid for lessons, bought balloons, vans, trailers and trucks, and started the balloon business.

Oh, my gosh, that's so incredible. And it's funny, I remember you telling us on the balloon about People not being happy if you yell down at them. And I didn't realize that that was you and.

Yeah, very self aware. Exactly right.

It's almost like it hits you, the universe sort of just hit it in your face by saying like you're not happy and then we're showing you another way, basically.

Yeah. And I really had a head start with a passion of aviation to begin with. Right. So for me it was an easy transition from doing that to what I'm doing now. And I really, you know, I'm still surprised I get paid to do this. It's just an absolute joy to do what I get to do.

And then I want to go back to that more. But I just wanted to ask you about you. You mentioned before that when, before you bought the winery, you sold. You sold your business. What kind of business did you have?

Yeah, so it was a high tech business for those who care. It's electronic data interchange. The technology is called edi. It's basically business to business software. We focused in the healthcare market. And so I sold that business and got out of high tech. I was employee number seven of Logitech back in 1982. That long ago? So I've been in. I was in high tech through a series of growth, sell acquisition. Growth sell acquisition since then. Until you call this my retirement gig.

Yeah. That's amazing. Well, you turned it into a thriving business. Now, I'm guessing it's just from your experience with your other business and then the experience before then, you were able to systemize everything similarly, but just different industries.

I'd say the biggest change. You're right. The biggest difference between my success and maybe some of my competitors is having those high tech industry backgrounds. We had partnerships and channels and we knew how to use the Internet to advertise and market. And that made it very easy for me to compete with a lot of mom and pop businesses, balloon businesses that had a passion for aviation, but didn't understand the value of like working with Viator or Airbnb or Groupon and knowing how to advertise online. Of course, that difference has been less and less now that everybody's maturing in the Internet space.

Yeah, definitely. So you really were able to use the skills that you learned from that and then moved it over. So that's why. Because when I saw everything, I was so just unbelievably impressed with just the 360 degree view you had from the beginning, the very beginning, when someone comes in to the end and then what they get to take home with Them.

Well, I owe a great deal of that to my many, many years. Disneyland and being a Club 33 member, I guess I tried to. You probably noticed from some of the designs of our balloons, we have a very theme park oriented viewpoint. Yeah. Every one of my six kids have grown up at Disneyland.

So tell us some of the. So for me, doing the thing or for. For people doing the thing is everything right? Which it sounds like that's how you've just been living your life. Between all of the flying you've done, to opening that business, to selling the business, to then getting the 10 acre vineyard, to then deciding it wasn't the right fit for you and selling that and then starting this balloon business. I wanted to also have you kind of dive in a little bit into some of the stuff you've been doing on the balloon because that has been, I mean, some of those stories like you mentioned being up 33,000ft in the air.

The Chile to Argentina flights.

Oh yes, that one.

Yeah, yeah. Where we take off in Los Angeles, Chile, we fly over Agungawa on the Los Angeles mountain range and we try to land as close as we can to GPS coordinates in Mendoza, Argentina. Yeah. So all of my personal best have been on those flights, at least in hot air balloons. Well, actually, yeah, those are my personal best. So the highest altitude we got to because we had to get in the jet stream to get the speed and velocity we needed was 33,916ft. So we were high enough in the air that we could actually see the contrails of jet planes flying below us. We were about 50 miles away from Agankawa, the peak. But that mountain range is so massive and that peak is so massive, I was really concerned I was going to run into it in the jet stream. We were traveling 111 miles an hour and of course we had oxygen on board. Full face, oxygen mask, thermal underwear, electric underwear, heavy arctic parkas to keep warm and still freezing. Our Katusha.

Yes. So how did you even get the idea to do that? And that's. So that's. You have your business with the hot air balloon, but then you have now your personally ballooning like yours, I don't know the term. Sorry, forgive me, but you're. It's like a personal. That's like a. That's for fun, right? The. Where you did that.

Yeah. So in addition to the ride business, we are professional race pilots and we compete domestically and internationally in balloon races. And so this balloon race, they're not doing it anymore, unfortunately, due to so many people getting hurt or killed. But this balloon race is different than the others. Most balloon races and one's coming up in fact in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the first two weeks of October are like giant festivals in the sky. What happens is during a balloon race is you'll fly over several days just playing in a golf tournament each day. You're only flying once or twice a day. Each flight you'll have multiple tasks. Links on the golf course where you fly from point A to point B. On the ground is this huge X or some other target and you'll throw a six ounce beanbag with a three foot nylon tail out of the basket to the X on the ground. Just hitting a golf ball to a pen. There's a measuring team on the ground. They measure how close you get to the center of the X. Whoever gets the closest gets the highest score for that task. We have a leaderboard and our scores change over the course of the race. Just in a golf tournament. And whoever has the most points at the end of the race wins the event. And that's typical balloon racing. There are some notable exceptions and the one, one major exception while it's short lived now, but while it was happening is the Chile to Argentina race. And that's the one that I'm talking about.

I think it's important to explore this because so many people are interested in doing things that are outside of the norm in terms of. But then something stopping them. And honestly I'm even talking about. I posted something in a group this morning just trying to get a gauge of what people are wanting to do that they haven't done yet. And I said my question was what is the thing you've been yearning to do but haven't yet? And I was expecting for people to say start a business or have a family, but they're all saying travel. Like I'm looking at it right now. One of them says safari to the Serengeti, go to Australia and the South Pacific, travel the Amalfi coast in Italy. Everyone is literally talking about traveling. And so I'm just thinking about trying to figure out how are you making the decision to just do something this extraordinary? You know what I mean? Then it's. And then other people are just being held back by going to this one different place. So that's what I'm trying to connect the dots to because I think that's really fascinating.

Yeah, that's actually a timely concept. I'm in a leadership program at Stanford right now and it's this, in this program they're talking about what forces a person to change. And that's where you have this strategic, this survival anxiety. And you're comparing that to your ability to enjoy life or basically receiving the fruits of the change. But then you've got the delta of not knowing that basically the fear of what's going to happen if you're not successful with that change. And you would think that as I'm gotten older it would be a harder decision for me to make some of those decisions to do things differently. But the reality is the one thing that's certain in life is change. And if you don't push yourself, if you stay doing, if you don't push yourself to change, you're just going to stay doing exactly in that Ruth that you. And there's nothing wrong with being in that routine if that's where you're happy. But if there's some things that you're wanting to do to increase your happiness or your wealth or your sense of purpose, you have to make that leap. And that's a struggle for everybody, I think.

What do you think is the biggest thing that gets in the way besides fear?

Well, certainly there's some constraints, whether they be economic or educational. But a lot, a lot of people, I think one of their biggest anchors is themselves and that is they resist change because they don't know what that's going to do to their, their sense of self. Because you're competent at a certain point and now you're trying to expand your yourself and you don't know if you're going to be competent, that's going to make you very vulnerable. And I think people are afraid of that, of vulnerability.

And what do you think would help them the most to be able to overcome that or work through it?

Oh, goodness gracious, go on a balloon ride.

I like that answer. I like that because it's like you're being like playing with life then and seeing how expansive it could be.

Exactly right. Yeah. Baby step it. But yeah, expand your horizons and whether that be in self help books or adventures, I think adventures are a lot easier because you're expanding your horizons without realizing it.

What do you think is your big thing that you do to help yourself when you're kind of coming into these challenges mindset wise. Do you have something that you say to yourself or something that you do?

Yeah, I try to keep a. Learn an open mind as a lot of people call it, but a learning mindset. I struggle really not to get set in my ways at any time. And so that would Be the one thing. I'll give you a perfect example. Last year I was accepted into Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Now I'm going on 60 years old. Why would someone at my age want to go back to school and do that? But I am, and for that very reason is to. To keep learning and to keep an open mind and keep expanding.

Definitely. And so when you're learning stuff, what, so you're just having no, like, no fixed, rigid thoughts, you're just completely like. Talk about that more. How do you really keep your mind open to everything?

Well, as a balloon pilot, I think I may have said this a different way. I'll give you another example. As an airplane pilot, you might have two or three working plans at any time, but as a balloon pilot, you got to have about a dozen because we're being controlled by the wind. So if we're in a job where we control stuff, it makes it very, very difficult to be a hot air balloon pilot because you got to be adaptable to change. And in my case, keeping an open mind allows me to recognize opportunities where they exist to increase my business, for example, or expand my business. I'll give you a perfect example of where we're looking. So we tried running a helicopter tour business here in Temecula wine country. And it sounded like a great idea, one of those areas to expand, but it failed miserably because we were making too much noise going 20 minute circuits over wine country all day long, got everybody up in arms. But it was a great idea, ballooning. Unfortunately, we can only do one time a day, early in the morning. Well, we've now realized that there are some newer technologies. These electric drone aircraft, well, not drone, but electric VTOL aircraft that can take off vertically and land like a helicopter, but fly like a plane. They're coming up on the market in the next couple of years and that looks like a great way for us to expand that tour business in aviation over wine country with something new and different.

That's amazing. So you're just keeping your mind open to whatever new is coming and then that's opening up new, even revenue opportunities, potentially.

Yes, exactly. Right. And cool and fun. Most importantly, fun.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Let's talk about the fun aspect, because you live fun. I mean, I see it through everything that you were doing that day. I was, I think, where everyone was. So just not only is the balloon ride fun, but you're fun. And how do you keep. I mean, obviously when you're on a hot air balloon, a little Easier. Although you're managing so many things, like you're talking on the walkie talkie, you're looking at the wind, and then you're somehow also able to engage with the people on the balloon. How do you do that? What's your way of. And then also making it seem like it's all just easy and, and fun. How. How do you do that?

You know, Stacy, it's an acquired skill, just like everything else. But I appreciate you recognizing that there are a lot of moving parts, and it's really a hard thing to. For me as a business owner to find qualified pilot. You know, safety, safety, safety. It's the number one thing in our business, paramount above everything else. But there are a lot of pilots out there that are super safe and great as pilots, but terrible as host or host entertaining guests. And then I've run into other pilots who are very good at entertaining people, but terrible as pilots. And so it's. It's very hard to. To find that mix. Some of it might be natural, some of it. Most of it, though, I think is an acquired, learned skill. But yeah, I've been doing this since, well, flying since 1987, doing this since 1999 in this business here in Temecula. So I'd say it's an acquired skill over time.

So when you say acquired skill, it just means you've been doing it for so long. And then even before the hot air balloon ride, because you had already done that through flying other airplanes and things like that, it was something that you've constantly practiced. That muscle of managing multiple things at the same time.

Correct, exactly right. A heightened sense of situational awareness coupled by the fact that, you know, the great joy I get isn't even about flying anymore. It used to be, but now what excites me is getting to spend time with new and different people every day that I otherwise would never get to meet. And that's what really makes it unique and why I kind of gasp when I hear people complaining in the hospitality industry about why they're not happy when they get this opportunity to meet and interact with so many different people every day.

Yeah, definitely. I like that that's where you're finding the joy. I was curious too. How do you keep it fun? How do you embrace that attitude of fun?

I try to be a mirror. So the reason our flight was so fun is because you and your partner were there. But. And that's not aggrandizing statement. I mean that sincerely. Our flight was particularly fun because you guys were there, but I try to be a member, read the basketball, read the room, so to speak, and mirror what our passengers are dealing with. For example, if I can sense that some of our passengers are having a real hard time with the flight height, I might change the flight profile so we're closer to the ground. I don't know why, but if we're flying at 500ft above the ground and if somebody were to fall out of the basket, they're just as dead if we were at 3,000ft. But for some reason, people will feel much more comfortable somewhere between 500 and 1,000ft than at 3,000ft. So that'll be one of the things that I'll do to make it more enjoyable for guests who might have concerns.

Okay, that's funny. I wouldn't have ever thought about that. That's. That's a good point, though. And then. Do you mind sharing? So the balloonist prayer, is that something you came up with or is that a balloonist kind of a thing?

No, no, there is a very serious history to that. The balloon's prayer was invented by an Irish clergyman back in the early 1800s. Back then, balloons were made of paper. They were flying higher and higher, falling apart. People were getting hurt. In fact, old balloon pilots used to carry these buckets of water soaked sponges strapped to their chest. And during the flight, they would fling these wet water soaked sponges up into the paper hot air balloon they were flying to try to put out the fire as they were flying along. So one Irish clergyman who was fond of ballooning said to himself, self, I think I've got to come up with a balloonist prayer. Something to send my fellow countrymen on a safe flight and a soft landing. And that prayer is now what we say is our toast after the balloon ride. We used to say it before the balloon ride in prayer, but we discovered we were frightening our passengers. We started praying. Every balloon pilot in the world has to memorize and recite that prayer when they get their pilot's license, albeit in the language they take their test in.

Okay, I didn't realize that. That's amazing. Yeah, I thought it was a beautiful. I thought it was a beautiful moment and what a great way to end the. End the flight. The other thing I wanted to ask you about that I thought was really interesting was how you have the people that are helping with the balloon and you had mentioned they're exchanging time for learning how to fly. And I love, I love that concept because a lot of people will say, like, they can't afford to do something and that's kind of like a reason why they can't do it. But it's. You're empowering these people to learn something just by putting some work in. And I was wondering where, where that idea came from.

Well, it came through again, self interest and practice. You're right. Learning to fly is a very expensive process. And when you think about it, hot air balloons are. The hot air balloon pilot's license is the same license as airplanes, helicopters, gliders, seaplanes. It's just a different rating. So if you want to compare it, it would be like having a driver's license in California for a motorcycle versus a car. So most of the information and knowledge you have to learn is the same for whatever your, whatever kind of pilot you want to be. But then you've got the added complexity of flying a hot air balloon where you have to learn to read the wind and have a higher skill set on things like situational awareness. For me, it was very. I didn't learn to fly in the military or anything, so I had to pay for that out of my pocket. And I remember that being a big sting at the time. So we do have an internship program where our crew people will come out, they'll crew for us and they'll build time or exchange their crew training, which helps them anyways with their piloting and then they'll earn hours to learn to fly hot air balloons. I've had probably about nine students so far that have gone all the way through and gotten their pilot's license. Three are now working for airlines. So what they, they do is they'll leapfrog from balloons into. Because it's the same rules, same regulation, same ideas of navigation and weather. The only thing is different is reading different instruments. So it's, it's a very good way for youth especially or people in college to come and help get their pilot's license.

Yeah, And I think that's such an important point because regardless of what someone wants to do, there's someone that is skilled in that area and just by even potentially talking to them about what can they trade based on value, you know, can help them learn that thing. I just think there was something really cool about that, that it just takes the excuse out of learning something from an expert, I think.

Yeah. And for. In the self interest for me is suddenly it's no longer just an employer employee relationship where you're coming and you're getting some exchange of value. Right. Money for your time. When we become teams and the. You might have sensed it, at least with our balloon, but the relationship between the pilot and the crew, almost familial, almost like family, where now we're bonding on a different level, makes it a lot more fun.

Oh, definitely. Yeah, no, I definitely, definitely sensed it. I was wondering also when you mentioned that over time, that practice of being able to handle multiple things at the same time and then also be able to maintain your fun attitude, how could somebody that isn't flying an air. Hot air. Hot air balloon or flying planes, like, how can they kind of start building that muscle? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Yes, the. It's all about comfort. Comfort. And you get. You gain comfort from your competency. So when you become. When you feel comfortable in your competency at whatever you're doing, then you're able to not have to focus so much on that one thing, so you're able to expand out and do more. The other thing is you need to have compassion. And when I say compassion, I don't mean rug mat, doormat kind of thing, or care to donate all the time. When I mean compassion. You have to have compassion to interact with others, to want to get to know people. There are some people who say they're introverted and they'd rather sit in a room by themselves. You need to develop that compassion muscle to want to interact with other people. And I think that's going to be important.

And what do you think is the hardest thing or has been the hardest thing for you to be able to do the thing?

Oh, the hardest thing for me is I have a business that's built on trespassing. So regardless of how well we are as pilots, how great the weather is, our launches and landings are always on, for the most part, always on somebody else's property. And so I have to spend a lot of time and effort making sure that we have great landowner relationships, that we're working with the industry partners and local government here, because really, my business wouldn't exist without their charity if. And we've seen that in other flight zones like in Palm Desert and in San Diego, where the city has come in and said, hey, sorry, we've revoked permission. You have no more permission to launch and land on any city property here in San Diego. And everything else is built out now. So the only open spaces left are city parks and park preserves. And yet with. With no permission to launch and land, it basically shuts your flight zone down. So that would be the hardest part about my business, is making sure we keep our landowners happy and tolerant of us.

You do the thing where you bring the champagne over like that.

And more. Yeah. We've taken plenty of our neighbors on free balloon rides, believe me.

Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. That's funny. I wouldn't even think about that. But I guess that's true. That would be a great, that would be a great touch for them. So what's been the worst flight that.

You'Ve had in all my years as an airplane, helicopter, glider pilot, whatever. The worst flight that I the most that scared me the most happened to be a hot air balloon flight in Palm Desert in March of 2007. I remember it like it was yesterday. Now, if you're not familiar with the Coachella Valley and Palm Desert, we can only fly six months out of the year. There's because of the heat, the wind patterns are such that we can fly twice a day there. In the morning, we have to fly down the valley towards the Salton Sea. And then in the afternoon, the winds reverse and head back towards Palm Springs. So we take off out in the desert, we fly back towards Palm Springs, always landing before Bob Hope Drive. That's like the red line. Do not cross. Do not enter international Palm Springs, International airspace. Well, I was younger as a pilot then and in those days I took off first. I tried to be the first balloon in the air. And this flight was an afternoon flight in Palm Desert. We went out to the. There were seven of us balloons. I took off first. I had 12 people on board. About 10 minutes into the flight, I noticed that all the balloons that were taking off after me were dive bombing to the ground like lawn darts. Now, I couldn't tell while they were landing so quickly, so I just kept on with my tour. Well, I turned around to point out the Salton Sea and I couldn't see it. There was a wall of sand headed straight towards us. It's called a hubbub. A sandstorm. It looked like something right out of the movie the Mummy. There was no way I could land before the sandstorm hit us. And it was way too high for me to try to climb over in time. So I briefed my passenger, said, look, guys, we're going to get caught in the storm. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to maintain a level altitude higher than any obstacles on the sectional chart. We're going to ride this out. Eventually the sandstorm will clear and I can take corrective action. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with hot air balloons, we travel with the wind. So in our case we didn't feel any turbulence at all. It was like moving. It was like flying through a cloud. We saw brown around us, but we weren't getting pelted with sand or any of those issues. When the sandstorm cleared, though, I had some issues. The first issue was I was now way past Bob Oak Drive, over downtown congested Palm Springs. I had nothing below me but busy streets, power lines, businesses, you name it. No easy place to land. But that wasn't the worst of it. I was now close enough to the Palm Springs International Airport that I could see the silhouette of the guys in the tower looking out at me, wondering who I was. And while I was there, that wasn't the worst of it. I was headed straight towards those blenders they call the Banning Pass with the windmill farms. And you know those aren't good for balloons. That wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was at treetop level. I was going 37 miles an hour. Now, Stacy, when we came in land, I think we might have been doing two miles an hour. We don't want to be in the balloon landing if we don't have to when we're going greater than seven miles an hour. So I was going 37 miles an hour. I knew I had to get ourselves on the ground. I pointed out a courtyard. Three sides of the courtyard were these tall Italian cypress privacy trees, and on the end of the courtyard was a three story condominium. I pointed it out to my pastor, said, look, guys, we got to get ourselves on the ground. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to lower the basket down low enough so I can drag the basket through the trees to try to slow us down. We're going to go into that courtyard. I'm going to pull this red line on the balloon. It's going to open a big hole in the top of the balloon. We're going to sink into the courtyard. We're going to drag across that courtyard. The envelope is going to wrap around the condominium like a business, like a Christmas present. Our basket is going to tip over on the side. We're going to fall into a pile. But don't worry, we're going to be okay. I got nothing but blank stares back. Well, after about 15%, 15 seconds of pure terror, convincing my passengers I was serious, I got them all braced in a nice tight landing brace position, lined up for those trees, lowered the basket to drag the basket through the trees, pulled that red vent line, sank into the courtyard, and the weirdest thing happened. As I sank into that courtyard, those three sides of privacy trees and three story condominium created a box of still, calm air. I had a softer stand up landing that afternoon than Stacy we had the day of your flight.

I took a deep breath, turned around, faced my passengers. I said, look, guys, we're somewhere we're not supposed to be. You better let me do all the talking. And my passengers just busted out laughing. I mean, we're not talking like snickers or giggles. We're talking guffaws and snot coming out of orifices. They were really belly laughing. And I couldn't figure out why they were laughing. At first I thought they'd seen the fear behind my eyes. But then I realized they weren't even looking at me. They were looking behind me. So I turned around to see what they were looking at. And it was all of the people coming out of the condominium to see what had happened and if they could help. I had landed at the Desert Sun Nudist Resort.

Oh, my God.

Truth is stranger than fiction. You know, they had some fun at my expense. Oh, my gosh. They made me and my crew take off our shirts to get our balloon out. They left my passengers alone. They wanted us to go all the way, but we just told them we were going to leave the equipment.

Two weeks later, I got a call from a passenger and they said, hey, Denny, just wanted to let you know if you ever need to land at the Desert sun again, don't worry, we're now members and you have our permission.

Oh, my gosh, that's amazing.

So I sold a membership. Yeah. So in my 30 plus 34 or more years of flying, that was my scariest flight ever. Wow.

Oh, my gosh, what a funny. And oh my gosh, what an insane story.

And I would imagine that's left an imprint on all your passengers too, in a different way. Like, how cool though, that you were able to, like, keep your calm and then it ended up in this like, hilarity moment.

Yeah. And you know what? The Desert sun tried for three years to have us come back and do a tether on their property, but I was just too embarrassed to do it. I couldn't do the tether. Yeah.

Well, so I'd love to hear also one more thing. So what would be your biggest piece of advice? To get people to do the thing.

To do the thing. Okay, so whatever the thing is, you mean, right?

Yep. Travel the world, go 33,000ft in the air, Be a nudist at the Nudist Colony. Open a business, sell a business. I'm like thinking of all these things that you can connect to.

Yeah. So well. And sometimes those decisions can be really hard, especially if they're hard decisions for people. I understand, understand that. But the thing to remember is you've only got one life, and you want to lead a purposeful life in whatever way you can. And sometimes that sacrifice, if that means holding you back, isn't. Why do we sacrifice? Right. We sacrificed for the service of others, but that's okay. That's what I mean about sometimes that being a difficult choice if they're not in alignment. But yeah, you can't fulfill your purpose if you don't do the thing. That's. That's the point I'm trying to make. So you've only got one chance to do it, One life to do it. And me, I'm doing it late in life, but yeah, you got to get it done.

That's great advice. So why don't you share with everyone where they can learn more about you and then come take a balloon flights. If they're not in Temecula, they should travel to Temecula because you guys have even recommendations on all kinds of stuff on restaurants and things around there they can do in addition to the hot air balloon.

Oh, yeah. Temecula is truly the jewel of Southern California. A lot of people don't, don't realize we're even here still. We're centrally located between Los Angeles, San Diego and Riverside. There are the 49 current wineries open for wine tasting and shopping every day. We've got breweries, we've got Old Town Temecula. Lots of other activities, local lakes, local hiking trails, gambling casinos. So there's a lot to do in Temecula. The balloon ride itself, even though it's early in the morning, it's worth every penny. We have great weather out here. We fly every day. Whether it's rarely a factor to cancel, we have a wonderful assortment of scenery from the vineyards, the wineries, estate homes, lots of wildlife, local lakes, local mountains, and distant ocean and island views. So definitely Temecula is the place to do it. I've flown all over the United States since I started ballooning, and I can tell you one of my favorite places to fly is right here in Southern California, in Temecula.

That's amazing. I know. It was so gorgeous, too. I'm missing it already. And I love how you time. I forgot to mention that in the beginning, you time each song with where you're at in the ride too. And even at the end it's all like perfectly orchestrated. Why don't you share also the website? They can find out about you too.

Oh sure. Yeah. So find out us online. It's hotairfun.com h o t a I r f as in frankun.com hot air fun.com company name is magical Adventure Balloon Rides. We're also on Facebook as a magical adventure. And yeah, come see us. I need the activity when I mean activity I now crave meeting people. Isn't that strange?

It's great. I mean it's connection is the antidote for everything, right? You know, being able to connect with others, especially people that are like minded, that want adventure and fun.

Absolutely. Yes.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for doing this with me. This is fabulous. Getting to know you better. And yeah, I love how we were able to get into so many different things that I've been exploring with change and learning how to like live that. Live that life that you, that we all want to live. So I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with everybody.

Stacy, thank you so much.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast cast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at do the Thing callcast. Co. Or email us at hello and do the same thingpodcast. Com.