For The Record, Anyone Can Fly A Plane

Have you ever met someone and instantly been impressed with their profession, resume, followers, or even just how they hold themselves when they walk into a room?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week, and I’m curious just how much we subconsciously fill in about someone based on how little we actually know about them.

If someone were to walk up to you and tell you they are a pilot, what does your brain do with that information? Do you assume they are intelligent? Successful? Disciplined? Adventurous? Capable? Maybe a little more interesting than someone telling you they’re an accountant?

But why, though?

This is the part I’m stuck on because knowing someone’s profession – seeing their accomplishments, follower count, house, or whatever – that gives us very little detail as to who that person really is. And yet, we fill in the blanks.

I want to poke holes in this for a minute.

A specialized skill is still a learned skill.
People aren’t born knowing how to fly an airplane. This is a learned skill. Someone taught them what the instruments meant, walked them through procedures and checklists, helped them practice takeoffs and landings. They studied, got their hours in, and did whatever else needed to be done to get there. It’s impressive, yes, but we tend to forget that learning an impressive skill makes you skilled. It doesn’t make you superior to those around you.

This is true of pilots, doctors, lawyers, authors, entrepreneurs, athletes, and photographers. Anyone who has spent enough time developing some sort of expertise that results in an amazing product.

Expertise looks like magic when you don’t understand it.
I can look at something I don’t understand and assume it must be incredibly difficult simply because I don’t understand it, but my lack of knowledge tells me nothing about how difficult a skill actually is. This only tells me that I haven’t learned that skill.

When you step into the cockpit without training, it’s overwhelming. Gauges everywhere, checklists, acronyms, the military alphabet… it would be very easy to look over at the pilot and say to yourself, I could never do something like this. But familiarity has the ability to disguise itself as exceptional.

Consider something you’ve done for a decade. To the untrained eye, it’s impressive and maybe even complex, but to you it’s almost like working on autopilot.

Uncommon doesn’t automatically mean extraordinary.
We are even more impressed when someone has accomplished something that we find to be rare. Maybe you don’t personally know a pilot, or maybe you just know one. But there are all sorts of reasons why people may not have chosen that direction, and it’s not because it’s hard to do. Maybe they couldn’t afford the training, didn’t have access to an airplane, or spent thousands of hours being remarkably good at something else.

Rarity can tell us something about an accomplishment, but it can’t tell us everything about the person who accomplished it. Someone knowing something you don’t know isn’t evidence that they are more capable than you.

Being exceptional at something doesn’t make you an exceptional person.
What does someone else’s accomplishment actually give me permission to assume about their character? Almost nothing, which is wild when you consider how often we do it.

Competence and character aren’t the same thing. You can be amazing at your job and horrible in relationships, command a room and struggle to apologize, build a multi-million dollar company and seriously lack empathy, earn impressive credentials and still have very little self awareness. You can fly an airplane and still be spectacularly wrong about the things that are happening on the ground.

Accomplishment tells me what you’ve done; character tells me who you are. And, trust me when I say this, we get ourselves into trouble when we confuse the two because we give people authority in areas they’ve never earned it simply because they’ve impressed us in other ways.

Admiration can quietly become hierarchy
There is absolutely nothing wrong with admiring people. The problem is when that admiring someone turns into something like: You’re impressive, so I must be less impressive. You’re smarter than me, so I should trust your judgement over mine. You’re successful, so you understand life better than I do. You know something I don’t, so you get to define what I’m capable of.

NO. You can admire someone without surrendering your worth.

Stop comparing someone’s practiced ability to your untrained one.
Now, I want you to put them behind your desk, give them your responsibilities. Drop them into the thing you’ve spent a decade learning, and ask them to navigate in your world. Hopefully then you’ll see that the comparison looks incredibly different.

We are all walking around carrying expertise that others can’t see. Some come with uniforms, licenses, and impressive titles… some don’t. But that doesn’t make what we do less valuable; it doesn’t make who we are less valuable.

Consider who you’ve put on a pedestal.
I’m curious, who have you unconsciously decided is somehow above you, and why? Is it their job, how much money they make, or the degrees or credentials they put after their name? Is it how many followers they have, what they look like, or a talent they get to share with the world?

What characteristics have you mistaken for evidence that they are more capable, valuable, intelligent or worthy than you? And maybe more importantly: What have you allowed yourself to believe about you because of it?

Anyone can fly a plane.
Okay no, not literally everyone… that’s not the point. The point is that the person sitting in that cockpit was once a person who didn’t know how to fly that plane. They learned! And whatever impressive thing someone else knows how to do, I want you to remember that you’re looking at the result of their education, experience, opportunity, repetition, and commitment. You are not looking at evidence of a superior being.

So admire people, learn from them, celebrate their accomplishments.
Don’t confuse someone’s altitude with their worth. And most certainly do not use it to determine yours.

See you,
Amy