Sully: My Search for What Really Matters

We all have heard about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They act courageously or responsibly, and their efforts are described as if they opted to act that way on the spur of the moment... I believe many people in those situations actually have made descisions years before.

Everyone’s reputation is made on a daily basis. There are little incremental things—worthwhile efforts, moments you were helpful to others—and after a lifetime, they can add up to something. You can feel as if you lived and it mattered.

Integrity means doing the right thing even when it’s not convenient.

We need to try to do the right thing every time, to perform at our best, because we never know which moment in our lives we’ll be judged on.

He knew the best way to learn responsibility was to be given the opportunity to be responsible, and at as young an age as possible.

IT’S TRUE FOR all of us. Everyone we’ve ever known and loved, every experience we’ve had, every decision we’ve made, every regret we have had to deal with and accept—these are what make us who we are.

On January 15, I was traveling with four library books, including a copy of Just Culture, a book about safety issues. I later called my local library to apologize for leaving the books on the plane, and they agreed not to charge me for replacing them.

In so many areas of life, you need to be a long-term optimist but a short-term realist.

Not every situation can be foreseen or anticipated. There isn’t a checklist for everything.

realized that flying a plane meant not making mistakes. You had to maintain control of everything. You had to look out for the wires, the birds, the trees, the fog, while monitoring everything in the cockpit. You had to be vigilant and alert. It was equally important to know what was possible and what was not. One simple mistake could mean death.

If you’re not a runner, then be a walker, a hiker, a dancer,” she tells women now. “Just be brave. Find your thing and do it. As

We leave a little bit of ourselves with everybody we come in contact with.” He

The transcripts of our conversation also show how Patrick’s choice of phrasing was helpful to me. Rather than telling me what airport I had to aim for, he asked me what airport I wanted. His words let me know that he understood that these hard choices were mine to make, and it wasn’t going to help if he tried to dictate a plan to me.

Lorrie believes that to meet your goals in life, it’s important to write them down. But that’s not enough. You also need to take what she and others call “authentic action” every day to achieve them. That means you have to knock on a door, or make a phone call, or do something concrete to get you closer to your goal.

People had been losing their jobs in large numbers. Home foreclosures were up. Life savings had been decimated. A lot of people felt like they had been hit by a double bird strike in their own lives. But Flight 1549 had shown people that there are always further actions you can take. There are ways out of the tightest spots. We as individuals, and as a society, can find them.

Mostly, we buy regular tickets for flights now, because the hassles and uncertainties of trying to use my employee travel benefits just aren’t worth it.

It means no longer focusing negative energy on things beyond our control.

In the cultures of some companies, management depends heavily on the innate goodness and professionalism of its employees to constantly compensate for systemic deficiencies, chronic understaffing, and substandard subcontractors.

Before deregulation, flying was relatively more expensive, and for a lot of people, it felt like a special occasion when they went to the airport to fly somewhere. When

We were each sent into the woods for four days without food and water. This was called SERE training, which stood for “survival, evasion, resistance, and escape.” It

As we get deeper into our marriage, Lorrie and I have become big believers in the idea that we should focus on what we have rather than what we don’t have. We

Unlike a lot of men of his generation, my dad thought of being with his family as his priority; work was secondary. I

My mom wore white gloves and a hat. I was in a sport coat and slacks. That’s how people traveled then. In their Sunday best.

all of us have to find the courage to leave the shore. That means leaving the crutch of our lifelong complaints and resentments, or our unhappiness over our upbringing or our bodies or whatever. It means no longer focusing negative energy on things beyond our control. It means looking beyond the safety of the familiar.

From everything I saw, knew, and felt, my decision had been made: LaGuardia was out. Wishing or hoping otherwise wasn’t going to help.

A delay is better than a disaster.