Submitted by: Steve O’Brien

What exactly is it that allows a 100,000 pound commercial aircraft to travel through the atmosphere at 500 miles per hour, yet land on a narrow strip of concrete? Or better yet how does a fighter plane land on the deck of an aircraft carrier rocking in rough ocean waters? The answer is a combination of four things: navigation, experience, thrust, and skill.

Through repetition, communication and training, pilots learn how to land an aircraft safely to the point that todays traveling public rarely gives the takeoff and landing a second thought.

Similarly, to achieve success in our lives, we must do four things: Observe, Think, Believe and Act. Through repetition, communication, and training, one can learn the steps to success by applying these four principles.

The pilot who lands a commercial airline goes through a series of procedures and check offs to land safely. One is navigation. Where am I in space? What is the altitude? How far am I from the airport? What is my visibility? Then experience is factored. What is the wind velocity?

From which direction is the wind coming? How does that impact my landing? Then thrust must be considered. That involves the power to make the plane move through space. How fast should I be going? Do I increase speed, given the crosswinds or reduce speed as I reduce altitude?

Finally, the skill of the pilot comes into play. All four must be brought together to make the right decisions at the right time to cause the plane to safely land at a given spot at a given time. If the pilot ignores any one of the four, the result could be disaster.

Like a pilot landing a plane, the four principles of success must become part of ones routine. Observation involves understanding a situation and taking in all the facts to develop a construct around a series of events.

You are a sponge and you take in as much information as you can on a given situation. In the analogy of the airplane, observation is navigation. Take in all the relevant information. Then one must think.

Thinking is a process of adaptation and elimination. What are the options? What happens if I do this or that? Who would know the answer?

The process of thinking makes the issue personal. Thinking is the way one puts a situation in context and that context may be different for each person. Thinking is the experience in the airplane comparison. The pilot has the background to understand how the airplane moves and the circumstances that can impact the flight. Experience processes the information from navigation and frames the actions of the pilot.

Believing is the next step. Belief is one of the most misunderstood concepts because people think it is something beyond them or outside of them. Belief is, again, very personal. There are many shared beliefs, but to be successful your belief must come from within. Love, faith, and confidence are all exercises in belief and they are also deeply personal and unique. Belief is the thrust that fuels the individual. Without strong beliefs and conviction, the plane will not have the thrust to make it through storms and high winds. It wont have the thrust to make it to the designated destination.

Finally one must act. The individual must process by observing, thinking and believing. Without action, the first three are meaningless. Our pilot takes in all the information from navigation systems, then he overlays that on his experience, he has the appropriate amount of thrust to place him in the correct spot to begin a safe landing. What if he stops there? What if he freezes? All the knowledge and experience cannot land the plane. Having the plane in the correct spot to begin a landing pattern doesnt matter if the pilot doesnt employ his skill to land the plane.

Success is the same way. All four of the principlesobserve, think, believe, actmust be employed in order to become successful. The absence of any one, like the absence of any one of the pieces required to land a plane, can result in disaster.

If one does not observe, then the thinking is likely to be flawed and despite the correct beliefs and action, the target will be missed. One will have thought, believed and done the wrong thing. Observation without thinking will similarly miss the target. Each person has unique skills and abilities. Thinking is highly personalized such that original thought is the key to creating a successful outcome. Like our pilot, all the navigational information is useless in the hands of one who knows nothing about flying airplanes.

Similarly, a person attempting to take action without belief is like landing a plane that is suddenly without power. Belief is our world view, our construct through which we process information. Beliefs must become a part of who we are and how we function. Many ask, What should I believe in? The answer is believe in yourself. Believe you can make a difference. Belief is a muscle that must be used or it will weaken.

Observation, thought and action without belief will be weak and ineffective.

Finally, one must act. This is the part that is all too often forgotten.

One can observe, think and believe, but then fail to act. Sometimes the failure is due to expecting someone else to act, so the person waits and waits and waits. They miss their life and miss the change they can make because they expect someone else to do it. Following the first three but failing to act, makes one a victim. It is someone elses problem; it is not for me to fix, what can I do? These are responses of victims.

These people are buffeted by the vagaries of life. They dont do things. Rather, things happen to them. They are not in control of their lives or their surroundings because they fail to take action. In this case the clich is all too true; it is far better to try and fail than to fail to try.

Achieving success is like landing an airplane. It requires the interplay of four concepts, observation, thought, belief and action, the same as landing a plane requires navigation, experience, thrust and skill. You are the pilot of your life. Only you can land the plane. Observe, think, believe, act. The best intentions with only three of the four can result in disaster or perhaps worse, missing a life changing opportunity.

(Originally published at GoArticles and reprinted with permission from the author, Steve O’Brien).

About the Author: Steve O’Brien is a lawyer and fiction writer. Elijah’s Coin is a story of redemption and transformation. A young man suffers a tragic loss and begins spiraling out of control. Through an encounter with a mysterious night watchman, he begins a journey of renewal and self-discovery. Visit

Elijah’s Coin

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