18 Into The Storm: Lessons From A Plane Crash

Life can change in a heartbeat. One beautiful spring evening on final approach the airplane lost power. A hard impact and serious injuries produced clarity for this a survivor. Today I’ll describe the crash, the memory gap, and the strange calm that comes when training takes over. We will trace a single cockpit command into a life and leadership philosophy: keep the nose down.

That counterintuitive move becomes our compass for work, relationships, and time. Instead of pulling up into denial, we talk about choosing control over comfort. Lower the nose, face the drag, and fly through the storm so you shorten exposure. Along the way we unpack the buffalo metaphor, why procrastination quietly compounds risk, and how leaders build habits that catch them when things go silent to protect what matters.

The near miss also sharpened my view of time. We will explore how crisis strips away trivial pursuits and spotlights faith, family, health, and meaningful work. You’ll hear how I rewired calendars to reflect real priorities, swapped busywork for deep work, and used gratitude to steady the hands that make hard choices. We close with a practical challenge: name your current storm and take one decisive step this week to move through it. If you’ve been circling on hope, this is your nudge to fly the approach that brings you home aligned.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s avoiding a decision, and leave a review with the one storm you’ll run toward next.

News article - https://www.wandtv.com/news/new-details-learned-about-lincoln-plane-crash-from-those-first-on-the-scene/article_b7928980-cf65-11ed-8f0e-cbdc17157325.html

Blinn Bates - BlinnBates.com

Woods & Bates - WoodsandBates.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back. The date was March 29th, 2023. I was involved in a plane crash. It was a plane I was flying. Thankfully, good Lord decided it wasn't my time yet. I considered it a miracle that we walked away from that incident with only serious injuries. But the incident certainly changed my mindset. This episode today is not about drama or fear. It's about perspective and a change in perspective. And moments like this force us to have some clarity around our priorities, around our leadership,

The Crash That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 0:30

and makes us realize how fragile and valuable time in life really is. When everything went quiet and I had time to reflect, came to realize what actually matters. So, like I said, it was March 29th, 2023, beautiful spring evening. I went out, did some flying. Had a gentleman with me that was a many, many thousands of hours flight instructor. Did some training and then we were just enjoying the evening doing some flying. We were coming in, doing the last landing and looked down. I could see my son's team was actually playing baseball at the junior high. I could see them playing. And then, you know, when I turned in, make the final approach, brought the plane down,

Training, Memory Gap, And Survival

SPEAKER_00 1:10

realized pretty quickly we didn't have any power. Now I have no memory from about that time until the time I woke up and it's never come back. But from what I've been told, we were probably about 400 feet from the ground, went down very quickly, and the realization happened very quickly that things were serious. We were not going to make it to the runway, we were not going to make it to the airport. And I think, you know, that's when the training kicks in. You have to trust it. And like we've talked about in the past, we fall back to the level of our habits. Now I know that I don't have any memory of this incident still in this little time period, but the gentleman I was flying with would later tell me that he was worried I might be upset with him because he kept yelling at me to keep the nose down. I'm going to come back to that. But the next thing I remember is when I woke up. And the question that the first responders said I kept asking over and over was, where am I? What happened? And what's all this blood from? Now, as you can tell, the outcome of this incident was that we survived, had pretty serious injuries, had a big gash in my forehead from where I hit the yoke, had broken nose, severe concussion, compression fractures in my lower lumbar. But, you know, I was able to walk away from this incident as was my passenger at the time. Took some recovery, but you know, even three days later, after being released from the hospital, getting put back together, I sat in a car in the outfield watching my son play baseball. As I sat there, things started to become clear to me that I was spending time in a way that needed an overhaul. And it also became pretty clear how quickly normal life can be interrupted, how thin that margin is between just another ordinary day and everything changes.

The Miracle Landing And Aftermath

SPEAKER_00 2:57

When we hit the ground going pretty quickly, we still carried about 70 gallons of fuel on the airplane. And we hit a tree, we hit a flower box, we came to a stop, and it is to this day an absolute miracle to me that we did not explode. There is a disability policy that I have. And long ago, when I got it, they put an aviation writer on that policy because they knew that I did some piloting and that disability policy was going to pay out a little bit later than normal because of the aviation, if it was an aviation-related incident. And with tongue in cheek, I used to joke that you know people in aviation accidents don't usually need to worry about disability. They're a lot more concerned about life insurance. And boy, I'm really surprised that we weren't in worse shape than we were. Did learn some lessons from this incident, though. And those lessons are lessons that I think we can apply to business, and it's a counterintuitive lesson. And that lesson is what that passenger of mine, that flight instructor, knew was to keep the nose down. And this is an aviation principle. And in emergency situations like this, the instinct is you want to pull up because you want to keep flying. But if you pull up, you're going to stall that airplane and you're going to fall out of the sky. And there

Keep The Nose Down: Core Lesson

SPEAKER_00 4:16

is absolutely no chance of survival. And the counterintuitive move, the one that increases the risk of survival exponentially, is keeping that nose down and flying into that storm. This is what he knew in that moment, and this is what he was telling me. Now, how does that translate to business and to life? When we get into situations that feel frightening, scary, we often avoid difficult conversations. We often delay tough decisions, try to protect our comfort. But our survival and progress often require leaning into the discomfort. So doing things like addressing cash flow problems early instead of just sitting back and hoping it will fix itself. Maybe making some difficult personnel changes before they become crises,

Turning Aviation Into Leadership

SPEAKER_00 5:04

facing performance issues directly head on, having difficult conversations with clients, with employees, with spouse, with children, or you know, getting rid of that lousy client that's just driving you insane. Sometimes the move that feels wrong to us in the moment is the one that's going to save us. Now there's an old story that's told about the buffalo, and they say that cows tend to run away from storms. When storms approach, the cows run away. But the buffalo run into that storm. And by doing so, what they do is they shorten the amount of time they're exposed to it because they're running through it. So they know it's coming, they know it's gonna hit them, and rather than run away from it and extend the time that they're in the storm, they run through it. Now, we as humans most of the time try to outrun discomfort. We procrastinate, we avoid, we hope problems just resolve themselves, even worse, you know, things like numbing with drugs and alcohol. Leaders in business

Run Into The Storm

SPEAKER_00 6:04

and in life run towards problems. They confront the issues early, they make the decisions faster, and they don't wait for perfect conditions. These are not going to be comfortable things. Or tackling maybe the hardest thing first, having that uncomfortable meeting today and not putting it off until next month, reviewing those financials when things are feeling tight, making some difficult decisions or making some strategic changes before burnout sets in, running into that storm and doing those things that are uncomfortable is going to shorten that storm and it's gonna make our lives better. So, what can crises reveal about our time? As we know, our time is finite. We do not know how much time we have left. This realization and having a crisis like this strips away trivial concerns and it reveals to us what's important, things like faith, family, health, purpose, our relationships, meaningful work, not just work for the sake of busy being busy, but meaningful work. As I reflected on this incident

Time, Priorities, And Intentional Living

SPEAKER_00 7:06

and how it has reshaped my thinking, I personally have less tolerance for busy work. I don't need to be busy just for the sake of being busy. I have less patience for things that don't matter. I have greater urgency around living intentionally, living around the things that matter and fulfilling my obligations to my family, to my business in a way that maximizes my time. We don't give bonus days just for procrastinating the things that are important to us. So this week, I want you to identify what is your current storm. What are you avoiding? What needs attention right now? I want you to put the nose down and I want you to make a decision that you've been delaying. Run toward the storm and address that one hard thing this week. Take a look at your calendar and see does my time actually reflect what matters to me. Now, I want to close this episode with some gratitude. I still have an immense amount of gratitude for the miracle that we survived that day and the many miracles

Weekly Challenge And Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 8:06

that came before it in my life. Gratitude for walking away from that incident and giving me the ability to see what's important. Gratitude for family, friends, and all those that supported me through the recovery. That was a brutal couple months in there. And gratitude for another chance to serve, lead, and live out my purpose. I certainly don't take any of that for granted. And every day that we get is a gift, and we don't want to waste it running from storms. If there's something that this experience has reinforced for me, it's certainly that we need to face challenges head on. We need to protect our time for what matters and live intentionally, because that's how we're gonna maximize our time and elevate our lives.