Aim Point LLC

It's time to celebrate Adria Sanders, yet another wonderful author who I had the honor of working with to create her own inspiring book. Her book, On the Edge: A Soul-Stirring Memoir of Self-Discovery and Spiritual Awakening, was released earlier this month and is available in paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon. It can be purchased using this link: https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Soul-Stirring-Self-Discovery-Spiritual-Awakening/dp/9730426848

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Here's one of five 5-star reviews (and counting!) of On the Edge on Amazon:

Adria Sanders is a powerful, inspiring author, and her latest book, On the Edge, is an extraordinary example of her wisdom, courage, and insight. Diving into metaphysical and spiritual topics such as past lives, astral projection, and non-terrestrial contact, Adria tells her fascinating story in an engaging, relatable way. We feel what she feels and sense what she senses as she unfolds a series of incredible experiences that help us understand her perspective on the nature of the universe. As a bestselling author myself, I highly recommend On the Edge, regardless of whether the reader has any prior understanding of the topics Adria raises.

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To find out more about Adria and her new book, I invite you to listen to this engaging and informative podcast I conducted with her as the featured guest -- Inside On The Edge: Questions That Matter: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5wwft3x9ew98tpp1muhvp/On-the-Edge-audio-podcast-9-1-2025.mp3?rlkey=yp25jwtgimh6w37ayjzxxt4ox&e=2&dl=0.

This could be you! Almost all of the wonderful authors I coach are first-timers with extraordinary stories to tell, JUST LIKE YOU! I would love for you to join us at our upcoming retreat in a little over one month on December 6-7. It's all done virtually, so there's no travel involved.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to sign up for the retreat yet, there's still room left. Whether you've attended a retreat before or you're new to this experience, this is a wonderful gift to give yourself as you fulfill the promise you made to yourself to write the book that lives within you and yearns to come out! Even if we haven't talked for a while, now is the perfect time to make this commitment ... and it's fun, too! Come join the ranks of all the wonderful authors who have published their extraordinary books through this program.

If you're new to our retreats and if you feel inspired to buy this unique and invigorating experience for yourself or someone you love, you can sign up right now using this link: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/hermes?flow=1-P&ulReturn=true&token=5PY82638KA211301K&useraction=commit&flowType=WPS&mfid=1761937252656_c997565d129e7&ssrt=1761937253326&rcache=1&cookieBannerVariant=hidden

The cost remains a very affordable $197 for newcomers —- this includes a bonus one-hour coaching session with me, where I provide uplifting and encouraging feedback on what you wrote over the weekend.

For those who have attended a retreat previously, whether it's been a long time or not, I would love to see you again. Come join us. Several published authors in this program have used these retreats as their primary method of writing. This method is especially useful for those who are working full-time.

Now is the perfect time for you to move forward on your lifelong goal of publishing your very own book -- even if you haven't thought about it for quite a while. Just send me a quick email, and we can start our conversation.

Best wishes to you and your families. I hope we have a chance to talk soon. 😊

“Room Ten-Hut!”

I was a 23-year-old second lieutenant student pilot at Air Force pilot training. All 19 of the students in my section jumped out of our chairs and stood at attention, eyes facing forward. The instructor pilots in our flight filed in and gathered at the back of the room while one of them walked to the front and stood at the podium. He addressed us. We remained at attention.

“You are in Muleshoe Area. You are near the end of your training mission. You look at your fuel gauge and you’ve reached bingo fuel. Time to return to base. Suddenly, your #1 engine fire light comes on. you look over your left shoulder and you see your plane is trailing smoke. What do you do … Lieutenant Hurd?”

The other 18 students sit down. It’s my turn in the barrel. They have chosen me today. I carefully responded to the scenario, reciting the precisely memorized procedures we used for specific emergency procedures. The instructor continued with follow-up questions to ensure I properly reacted to whichever way the scenario developed. Finally, after several minutes standing at attention and answering questions, the instructor told me I could sit down. I had passed.

There is no winning in this situation. If I answer the scenario correctly, complete with follow-up questions and alternative situations, I get to remain on the flying schedule. I’m expected to answer correctly. If I don’t get everything right, I’m unceremoniously removed from the flying schedule, and I get a failing mark for the entire day. Worse than that, if I fail, I’m on my way to developing a reputation for being lazy, unprepared, and not able to perform under pressure. “Can this guy even cut it?” the instructors would wonder. It was a no-win situation —the best I could do was not lose any ground. This ritual went on every day of our flight training for the entire year. And this was only one of the many ways the instructors used to intimidate students.

Air Force pilot training was hard. It was in-your-face, it was relentless, and it lasted a full year. The Air Force designed it to put constant pressure on student pilots. Many of the instructors were hardcore, no-bullsh*t, Vietnam veterans in this all-male environment. Any actions or words that showed the slightest trace of uncertainty or weakness were magnified 10 times and shown to the entire world. There was a saying among many of the instructors that the best motivators for a student were “fear, sarcasm, and ridicule.” It became clear that those students unprepared for the day’s training flights, failed stand-up, or just weren’t hacking it would get a lot more unwanted attention.
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The passage above is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of my book “Aim Point: An Air Force Pilot’s Lessons for Navigating Life” – the chapter that focuses on what I regard as the most difficult single year of my life: the year I went through Air Force pilot training.

The reason I thought about my pilot training experience so many years ago was because I ran across a fascinating article in Air & Space Forces Magazine, the official publication of the Air & Space Forces Association – formerly known as the Air Force Association. The article focused on a new training program designed to help instill mental toughness in Air Force pilots.

Here’s the link to the article: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-pilot-training-craft-mental-toughness/

It would be easy to wonder why today’s USAF pilots need to go through a training course to become mentally tough. Aren’t they tough enough already? Yet, when I look back on 1978 -- my year in pilot training – and my career serving as a pilot in the Air Force, I realize that developing mental toughness was essential to my flying success.

This lesson goes far beyond the cockpit, though. We all need to develop mental resiliency, refuse to dwell on our mistakes, regain our focus when things go wrong, and handle stressful situations effectively. This is true no matter what we do in our professional and personal lives.

I applaud the Air Force for recognizing the need for this type of training. It will make for better, more effective pilots and will lead to greater mission success. And because the Air Force is markedly smaller than when I joined in 1978, it’s more important than ever to get the most we can from our wonderful Airmen.