How do we become great?

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Jesper Stubbendorff
  • 9th Aerial Refueling Squadron

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – I recently watched a movie that I really enjoyed, "Free Solo." It is a documentary about a rock climber, Alex Honnold, and his attempt to become the first person to free solo El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, California. Free solo is a form of rock climbing where the climber climbs without ropes. Honnold has a quote in the movie about achieving greatness. He says, "Nobody achieves anything great because they are happy and cozy." Like Honnold, most of us strive for greatness, but we also like being comfortable.

I spent most of my youth growing up in Southern Florida. However, every winter, my family headed west for our annual ski trips. I loved these ski trips and have many fond memories of them. What I remember most though, is at the end of the day, my dad asked me how many times I fell and what I learned from those falls. My dad would then discuss how every time I fell, I was learning just how hard I could push myself and still stay upright on the skis. 

If I was not falling, I was not learning how hard I could push the limits. The important part was recognizing what those limits were and when I was approaching them. In order to become a better skier, I needed to push out of my comfort zone. At the same time, there is a difference between a simple fall versus tumbling down a cliff and breaking a leg. A simple fall will not end the ski season, but a broken leg will. 

In order to achieve greatness, we need to push our limits. By doing so, we open ourselves up to failure or an uncomfortable fall. We need to step out of our comfort zone, challenge ourselves and think outside the box. This is how we will grow and accomplish great things, both in life and in the Air Force. 

In his book, "Sharing Success -- Owning Failure," U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein states, "It is from studying our failures that we learn, grow and improve as officers and leaders.” I grew up playing sports. Sports teach us many valuable life lessons like teamwork and perseverance. Perhaps one of the greatest lessons that it teaches us is dealing with failure. As all of us know, in sports you fail…and you fail a lot. It is learning to overcome this failure that leads us to success. 

Spoiler alert: Honnold does, in fact, climb El Capitan without ropes. He made the 3,000-foot vertical assent and became the first person to do so. It took him years of preparation, hard work, training and determination. 

At the same time, Honnold also experienced failures in his life. In the case of his free solo of El Capitan, those failures came in practice, when he was using ropes. Honnold could afford to fail when he was training with safety measures, but he could not afford to fail when he was free soloing El Capitan. It was his lifetime of training and overcoming those subsequent failures that led him to his greatest accomplishment. 

Goldfein has told us “not every idea is a home run. If an idea fails, we want it to fail fast and our Airmen to learn even faster. And because we’ve shown them we believe in their ideas, I want them to keep swinging until we find the answer.” 

He is encouraging us to take risks, to know failure may result from those risks and to learn from those failures. In the Air Force, we have no-fail missions. These missions are practiced so that when the time comes to perform them, we are trained and prepared. 

As an Air Force, we must accept some risk and understand failure can happen as a result of that risk. Overcoming this failure will be what makes us great. We need to leave our comfort zone and challenge ourselves. We need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. This will allow us to do things that were previously thought impossible, like climb a challenging ascent, break the sound barrier and accomplish the next great thing.