Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane as destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”
“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.
“ I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”
Plumb thought of the man hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides or provided what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say “hello,” “please”, or “thank you”. As you go through today start to recognize people that have packed your parachute and allowed you to be where you are today.
Coaches/Athlete Corner:
Use this story and message for pregame. Ask each player to think about one person that without them they wouldn’t have this opportunity to play tonight. Then put their initials on their body somewhere and take them out on the field/court with them. Encourage them to share this with that person via text, phone, email afterwards if possible. Or dedicate in honor of someone no longer with them. Not only does this make the receiving person feel amazing but it strengthens the resolve of the athlete as well.
Tami Matheny is a Mental Game Coach and Author of “The Confident Athlete: 4 Easy Steps to Build and Maintain Confidence”. She owns and runs, Refuse2LoseCoaching. Follow her on twitter @r2lcoaching and Instagram @refuse2losecoaching.
For more information about “The Confident Athlete” visit: hhttps://r2lc.com/the-confident-athlete-4-easy-steps-to-build-and-maintain-confidence/. It can be purchased online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. For group discounts contact tami@r2l.mysites.io
For daily confidence tips, follow “The Confident Athlete” on twitter @tamimatheny and sign up for the monthly confidence calendar: https://r2lc.com/monthly-confidence-calendar-newsletter/