When the Dream Keeps Getting Grounded

Fun fact #4,762 about me. I love hot air balloons, and I mean LOVE them.

The seed was planted when I was younger and a family friend got engaged on one. I remember thinking, how cool is that? Going up in a hot air balloon has been at the top of my bucket list for about a decade. The ride itself has a way of getting canceled.

When I traveled to Thailand, my parents wanted to gift me a balloon ride for my birthday. I told a few friends back home, and they were scared for me. Was it regulated? Had the pilots been properly trained? There's no seatbelt up there! I'd never considered any of that. Right as I was about to book, I saw a chance of rain in the forecast and backed out.

It didn't rain on my birthday. There wasn't even a drop of water on the ground.

Looking back, the weather was just an excuse. My friends were scared of what they didn't know, and I let their fear become mine.

Since then, the dream has been grounded again and again. A surprise sunrise ride in Broken Bow was canceled for weather. My husband, Patrick, planned to propose on a Thanksgiving Day balloon ride, complete with champagne glasses etched with our names, and that one was canceled the night before. Last week, for our second anniversary, my parents took us to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta to watch the mass ascension. We were on the field by 4:30 a.m. Then the call came. Wind and rain at 500 feet kept all 500 balloons on the ground.

Patrick joked, "Are we just bad luck? Like, balloons maybe aren't our thing."

So many of us ask that exact question in our leadership. Think about the goal you keep circling, the hard conversation that keeps getting pushed back, or the client you've hoped to work with for years. After enough misses, it's tempting to decide this just isn't for you.

Here's what I've learned. Most of my balloon rides were grounded by weather, and that one in Thailand was grounded by a fear I borrowed from my friends. Add a few misses on top of borrowed fear, and "this isn't my thing" starts to sound like fact. It's a story, and the story you choose shapes what you do next.

A canceled ride is a weather report. It says nothing about your worth, your dream, or your ability to lead.

And while I stood on that launch field waiting for a main event that never came, I watched the crews inflate each balloon in the dark. Had those 500 balloons risen, I don't know that I would have paid much attention. That's where the lesson took shape for me. Hold the dream tightly and the outcome loosely.

In this week's episode of The MindHER Podcast, I share the whole story, plus what the dawn patrol taught me about the forces you can't see and who you become each time you choose to show up.

Listen to the full episode of The MindHER Podcast here - When The Dream Keeps Getting Grounded.