I don’t know if you have ever flown before in a small plane. A plane where you can sit next to the pilot and hear the communication between the pilot and the control towers in the headset. It’s a pretty cool experience. When I was a teenager I had a friend whose dad was a pilot and instructor. Every once in a while he would take us up with him and we would get to fly the plane. It’s an incredible experience! Scary…but exhilarating all wrapped up in the same feeling.

Before a pilot takes off he must communicate with the nearest tower and submit his flight plan. A pilot can request an altitude…but often the voice in the headset from the control tower would tell you otherwise. I learned that when we were going up on training flights the altitude given to us was always pretty low. This kept us out of the way of the big jets, heavier winds and potential problems. Staying closer to the ground never seemed to bother me. There was a sense of safety and comfort being able to see things that I was familiar with.

To be honest…I was very comfortable flying at a lower altitude until we took a trip. It wasn’t a training session…but I was able to sit in the same seat and go through the same process. This time because we were traveling a few hundred miles away we were given a greater altitude. Our journey started off pretty much the same as all my previous aerial sessions until we climbed above the clouds. It was a whole new experience…a whole new world (sorry for the Disney reference but I live in Florida…its mandatory). I felt like I was flying again for the very first time. I couldn’t believe how the altitude could make such a difference…but it did.

I could no longer see the ground…the clouds looked different…the air was smoother. While I felt less safe than when flying low to the ground, this experience was far superior to any I had had before. I couldn’t imagine going back to flying around at my previous altitudes. I had felt what it meant to truly soar and from that point forward nothing short of that would be as enjoyable.

What changed? Very little. It was the same plane. The same instruments. The same process. The same instructor. The only thing that really changed was the altitude. But what a difference that made.

Some pilots spend almost all their lives flying at low altitudes. They never advance far enough to go to the next level. Some make it to the next level, but because of fear, comfort or haste never quite get to soar. But then there are those pilots who take off and never look back. While they appreciate flying at a lower altitude because of how it prepared them, once they get a taste of flying high that is all they want to do.

Very few people ever get to have that feeling. Even being a passenger on such a flight is amazing. I am sure if you talk to a pilot about flying they would say it’s an incredible experience…A feeling that it is hard to define or explain. But when they are up in a plane above the clouds they feel they are exactly where they belong.

Are you where you belong? Are you flying safe at a low altitude when you know you need to be soaring above the clouds? Is it time to force an altitude change in your life?

Too many people go through life looking up, wishing they were flying high, but never take the step to increase their altitude. Take a risk this week. Take that first step to realizing your full potential.

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