40+FAB Blog

Breaking barriers

On the 14th of October 1947, Chuck Yeager a US World War Two pilot broke the sound barrier to achieve flight faster than the speed of sound.
Supersonic speed was finally achieved after several years and trials by various scientists and engineers all over the world. Before this was achieved, pilots noticed that as they approached the speed of sound, there was a great resisting force that pushed on the aircraft preventing it from going any faster. Finally with the increase in power and the design of the X-1 aircraft, that barrier was overcome.

In 2007 as I sat in the living room of my host in The Netherlands, I heard a loud boom and all the windows in the house were rattling. I was alarmed and asked what was happening. I was assured that there was nothing to worry about as the Dutch military were carrying out a test flight of one of their supersonic jet fighters. I rushed out and looked up in the sky to look for the jet, but it was way out of sight in less than the minute it took me to look out.
The loud sound that we heard was the jet breaking the sound barrier. My only hope of seeing that jet would have been before it broke the barrier, but after it breaks that barrier it would be far out of sight in seconds.

There are several barriers that we face in life and the reality is that the effort to fly before the barrier is similar to the effort that it takes to fly after the barrier. The difference however is that the effort you put in after the barrier produces exponential results. We all have 24 hours in a day, yet some people make ten times as much as others every single day. They are both working hard, but one has broken an income barrier that the other hasn’t.

One needs to go through a boost and a significant shift in the mindset and outlook on life to break any barrier. For a period of time every focus and concentration will have to be on getting past that point. It takes a season to break a barrier, but once the barrier is broken then people will hear of your progress and before they locate you, you will be far out of sight.
Put in what it takes to break your barriers.