Friends,
I was out on a run today thinking about long flights and eternity.
Not because they are the same thing, but because they oddly sit close together in my mind.
Long flights have a way of stripping away the illusion of control. You can prepare, plan, pack, and optimize. But once the door closes, you are no longer in charge. You are receiving the journey.
That thought pulled me back to a flight my family took from Australia to Dallas after living overseas. My wife and I had spent weeks preparing. The packing, the logistics, the mental stamina required for two little kids on a transpacific flight.
Our daughters did none of that.
They simply showed up.
They trusted us completely.
As we landed in Dallas and began taxiing off the runway, my three-year-old looked up at me and asked, “Dad, is this our stop?”
Yes. Yes it was.
That moment has stayed with me because it says something profound about how we move through life. We spend so much energy trying to control journeys we were never meant to pilot. We forget that receiving is not passive. It is participatory trust.
Travel has taught me that again and again.
It has also taught me something else lately, especially as I think about airline service and hospitality.
I read a piece today describing wildly inconsistent service on the same airline within minutes of each other. Anyone who flies regularly in the USA has lived this. Exceptional professionalism followed immediately by total disengagement.
What is often missing from those conversations is just how exhausting frontline service work actually is. Airline employees interact with hundreds or thousands of people a day. Many are confused. Some are frustrated. A few are hostile.
That wears on you.
Without strong culture and support, exhaustion turns into resignation. And resignation shows up in the product whether we like it or not.
That matters more than ever in 2026. People spend differently now. Loyalty is earned through consistency, not slogans.
A few travel notes worth knowing as we close:
But beneath all of that is the same quiet question.
Are we trying to control the journey, or are we willing to receive it?
Sometimes the most meaningful moment comes right at the end, when you finally hear the question you didn’t know you were waiting for.
Is this our stop?
Fly well.
