Aisle. Up. Out. How Crisis Lessons Drive Career Success

The water doesn’t care how you feel about it.

On January 15, 2009, I stood in the aisle of US Airways Flight 1549 as the Hudson River poured in through the back of the plane. I was the last passenger out. In the minutes after both engines failed, an old phrase took on a meaning I had never understood before.

This too shall pass.

I first found those words years earlier, when Denis Waitley was coaching me. He recommended Og Mandino’s classic, The Greatest Salesman in the World, and I have never forgotten it. Mandino’s scrolls teach you to say those four words in every season. When life hits hard, the phrase gives you hope. When life goes well, it keeps you humble.

Most people remember only the first half. They treat “this too shall pass” as permission to wait. Keep your head down. Ride it out. Let time do the work.

That cabin taught me something different. Time does no work at all. People do.

The moment passed because we moved

Nobody on that plane survived by waiting for the crisis to end. It ended because a captain faced reality, a crew executed its training, and passengers acted. My own game plan fit in three words. Aisle. Up. Out.

That day gave me the filter I now run on every problem. I ask three questions. Is this permanent? Is it pervasive? Is it personal?

Almost nothing passes all three tests. Problems feel permanent. They feel like they touch everything. They feel like a verdict on who you are. They aren’t. They are moments, and every moment asks the same question.

What now?

That is my version of Mandino’s lesson. “This too shall pass” tells you the problem has an end. “What now” tells you who will end it.

Success passes too

The second half of the lesson matters just as much.

Early in my career as a manager at KPMG, I won the Coca-Cola supply chain engagement. I could have treated that win as proof I had arrived. Instead, I broke down what worked and ran that same framework on every large pursuit across a 38-year sales career. The win faded. The process stayed.

Before Flight 1549, I would have told you my mission was to make money. Then came January 15 and 16, 2009.

After the rescue, a ferry took me to the NY Waterway terminal in Weehawken, New Jersey. I was soaked and freezing. A Red Cross volunteer met me there, and together with two EMTs, one man and one woman, he helped carry me to the triage center. None of them waited for the moment to pass. They stepped into it.

That was the first of three Red Cross experiences I had over those two days. Each one showed me what it means to show up for people at their worst moment. The Red Cross was there for every one of us on Flight 1549, so I made a commitment to be there for them. That commitment changed my mission, and I have kept it ever since.

Good seasons end. Hard seasons end. What you build during both is what lasts.

Gratitude is how you honor what passes

Here is the part most people skip.

Tony Robbins taught me that proximity is power. Put yourself around people who have done what you want to do, and model them. I spent a decade as his Director of Security, and that lesson still shapes every room I walk into.

Bill, my mentor, shaped how I make decisions, how I treat people, and how I see opportunity. I didn’t know our last meeting would be our last. That moment passed too. Before it did, I made him a promise: do not let this die with you. Every keynote, every book, and every client conversation keeps that promise.

That is why I built my W.A.T.E.R. Framework which I will explain in detail in my upcoming book “When it Hits the Water,” the way I did. Why. Allies. Take Action. Execute. Reflect. Denis, Tony, Bill, and the Red Cross all live in the Allies step. The final step, Reflect, is where gratitude lives. You can’t hold on to moments. You can honor them by acting on what they taught you.

Your move this week

So here is my challenge. Name the one thing you are waiting out right now. Know your why. Call one ally. Then take one action before Friday.

The hard season will pass. The good season will pass. The only question that matters is what you will do while it is here.

When failure is not an option, preparation becomes the advantage. And gratitude makes the journey worth taking.