In the 1990’s I was hired to produce a promotional video for an environmental company. Their headquarters was located in Danville VA, and their labs were in Blacksburg, VA. The plan was to fly up to Danville in this little 4 seat piper cub, and after shooting some footage of their headquarters, fly on to Blacksburg. I had never been in a plane that small before but enjoyed the flight to Danville. It was smooth and we got to fly low and take in the scenery. After our shooting was completed, this relaxing flight was followed by an even more scenic one to Blacksburg. Blacksburg is situated on a plateau between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains. We landed at a small airport and shot the lab in record time.
When we went to leave, however, we saw that a severe thunderstorm was moving in fast. We took off and once airborne, we began the terrifying 300+ mile trip back to Chesapeake. I watched as the windthrow our plane all over the sky. Many of these gusts forced us dangerously close to the mountains. Clearly, the pilot had no real control of the situation, and I was certainly no help. So, as I held on tight, I thought about the above quote. “Control the way you respond, because that’s where your power is,” I responded with PANIC and PRAYER. That’s not the response the quote was hoping to inspire, be we did eventually fly out of it and although the panic did not help, the prayer probably did.
