“Most pilots don’t lack knowledge. They lack access to that knowledge under pressure.” In this episode of Behind the Prop, Bobby Doss and Wally Mulhearn sit down with Tammy Barlette, a former U.S. Air Force A-10 pilot, Weapons School graduate, and mental performance coach who now helps pilots perform at their best under pressure. Tammy shares how mental performance training—commonly used by elite athletes—can dramatically improve aviation performance by helping pilots access the knowledge and skills they already possess. Many pilots struggle not because they lack knowledge, but because stress and anxiety prevent them from accessing that knowledge when it matters most. Drawing from her experience as a fighter pilot and instructor, Tammy explains why aviation attracts perfectionists and how that mindset can sometimes work against pilots in training. She emphasizes the importance of process-based goals, staying present in the moment, and using mistakes as learning tools rather than defining moments. The conversation dives into practical strategies pilots can apply immediately, including simple techniques for resetting focus during flight, building confidence through small wins, and reframing the internal dialogue that shapes performance. Whether you're a student pilot preparing for your first checkride or a seasoned aviator looking to sharpen your edge, Tammy’s insights offer powerful tools to help pilots think more clearly, perform more consistently, and build the mental resilience needed for aviation.
Tammy Barlette
Former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and instructor with experience flying the A-10 Warthog, MQ-1 Predator, and MQ-9 Reaper. She now teaches mental performance training specifically designed for aviators through her company Crosscheck Mental Performance.
Tammy combines lessons from aviation, elite athletics, and performance psychology to help pilots improve focus, confidence, and decision-making under pressure.
Key Topics Discussed
Mental Performance Training for Pilots
Why many pilots struggle with performance rather than knowledge
How stress affects access to information in high-pressure situations
Techniques used by elite athletes that translate directly to aviation
Perfectionism in Aviation
Why perfectionism can hurt pilot performance
Learning to use mistakes as feedback instead of defining moments
Confidence and Internal Dialogue
How self-talk influences pilot performance
Why confidence must be intentionally built—not assumed
Process vs Outcome Goals
Why focusing only on checkrides or certificates can hurt motivation
Using process-based goals to build long-term success in flight training
Practical Techniques
The “What now?” reset technique to stay present in flight
Building confidence through small wins and self-recognition
Staying mentally focused during checkride preparation
Resources Tammy Shared
Crosscheck Online Community
https://www.skool.com/crosscheck/
Crosscheck Mental Performance Website
https://www.crosscheckmentalperformance.com/
Tammy Barlette on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammybarlette/
00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following. Twin traffic three mile final race straight. In Runway two five join four mile final. This is behind the prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:25
Bobby Doss
What's up, Wally?
00:26
Wally Mulhearn
Hey, Bobby, how are you?
00:28
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always this week. One of our listeners named Holly, I believe she's in northeast part of the United States, sent me a couple of guests that we had to reach out to. It's taken a couple weeks to coordinate the schedules, but we have Tammy Barlett with us on the show today and she's got all kinds of great stuff to share with you. Tammy, thanks for joining us on the show today.
00:49
Tammy Barlette
Thank you for having me and thank you, Holly. I appreciate that.
00:54
Bobby Doss
So Holly says she took your course. I'm excited to learn more about it. I've read a lot of it on the Internet and on my own level of research. And we've had a lot of good prep conversation before we started recording the show today. Tammy, I'm excited. I think I'm a high performer, but I could always get better at a high level. Part of the intro here. Why do people need high level or do they need performance training in general? What, what do they need that maybe we don't know we need?
01:25
Tammy Barlette
Well, honestly, most people spend a lot of time focused on their skill set. And sometimes when we get under extreme pressure, the access to that knowledge and the skill set is not as available as we'd like it to be. And it requires us to do mental performance training, really to have better access to that. And when you're flying, that's vital, right? Because you can't just pull over in a cloud. You have to keep your mind in the game and you just can't, you can't give up. So it's extremely important in aviation.
01:55
Bobby Doss
So give us some history and background. Tell us, like, where did you come from? How do you have these skills? And what makes you the performance coach that we all need to talk to as it relates to aviation? Give us a little bit of the aviation background for Tammy Barlett.
02:12
Tammy Barlette
Well, I grew up in Minnesota and I went through an ROTC program at the University of Minnesota and decided that I wanted to become a pilot. So I went to pilot training down in Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas. And my first assignment right out of pilot training was as a T37 instructor pilot. And it Wasn't necessarily the assignment I wanted, but it was a per, it was the perfect assignment for me. I, I learned that I really love teaching and I really like seeing positive change in people's lives and helping them become better. And so it couldn't have been a better job for me. Once that job was over, I got selected to fly the A10 Warthog, a single seat attack aircraft that's literally built around a 20 foot gun.
02:52
Tammy Barlette
And I went to training in Tucson, then I flew it in Korea and came back to Tucson. Then I had to have cervical spine reconstruction from an aircraft injury. So I went into the fly the unmanned platforms, so a lot of people call them drones. So the Predator and the Reaper. I went and flew full time for the Guard for six and a half years flying the Predator. And I also went to weapon school in that platform. So the Air Force's version of Top Gun, which is also where I flew the Reaper, which is the larger version of the unmanned platform. And I was flying combat missions the whole entire time I was in that platform because were in OEF OIF at that time. And then I wanted to get back to teaching in the high G environment.
03:33
Tammy Barlette
And so I got an exception to policy for my spine, the surgery I had. And I went back to Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas and I was a T38 instructor, which is a, a tandem two seat fighter trainer. Did that full time in the reserves for six and a half years. And that's really where I developed a lot of content. I teach now because I learned that the mind piece of aviation is so extremely important. And I spent a lot of time teaching that in order to get really, you know, get the students to really perform better, I, I focused on getting their head out of their own way before they would fly the aircraft because it was getting in their way a lot. Yep.
04:14
Tammy Barlette
And then I, I retired, I went into speaking and I still do that, but as I was speaking I developed a program that's a four module program that's mental performance training for aviators specifically. So it's the same content that elite athletes use mental performance training techniques and tools to be at their absolute best. And I took that and translated into aircraft, into the aviation world. And I focused mostly on GA and airline pilots, commercial whoever, you know, whoever really needs this. And it's truly everyone, but I just want to make it clear that I don't. A lot of people think I focus on the military because I'm prior military, but my Actual focus is civilian aviation.
04:56
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I think Wally and I can both relate tremendously. Wally, how many of your applicants have less knowledge or knowledge problems or performance problems? Where would you rate those scales of that balance?
05:12
Wally Mulhearn
I guess, yeah, I would say that the. Probably 60% of the people who have performance problems, they're not knowledge problems. You know, I think a couple of shows ago we gave an example of a young man. We talked about basic VFR weather minimums. And in the ground portion, yeah, he knew it. He knew it cold, and he gave me the answers. And it came time to go fly and I said, okay, are we good to go? He goes, oh, yeah, we're good to go. And, you know, I'm looking at the weather. And I said, well, how's the weather? He said, oh, we should be good. It's 800 broken. Okay. I says, we're trying to get a private pilot certificate here and it's below basic BFR weather minimums outside. And there was no correlation where.
06:04
Wally Mulhearn
Where an hour ago he had answered the question, but when it came time to apply that knowledge, he struggled with it.
06:13
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I guess, Tammy, that's a great backgrounder question too. Like, is that bigger problem that you see? I mean, people. I think I see more in a flight school owner. I see people who come in and they read the P Hack and the Pilot Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, and they kind of know the general topics, but the second you ask them to do something, they kind of freeze up. Right. Is that the performance anxiety? I get it in golf. I'm a terrible. The shot I see is perfect. The execution is normally a lot less perfect than that. Is that the performance type stuff that aviators that take your course get better at?
06:54
Tammy Barlette
Absolutely. That's one of the things we focus on, is accessing that content. If you think about. If you can picture an arena full of people and you know the concert's over and they open two sets of doors like it's going to take forever to get all those people out. Right. And that's the kind of thing that happens to people's brains a lot of times, is when they're under stress, there's only two doors open. And maybe the knowledge they need is way in the back of the arena. So you got to learn how to open all the doors so you can get to that content quicker. And. And that's the key. People don't think about that all the time. They think, oh, I know it, I can tell you it. But then they get under pressure and something just locks up.
07:30
Tammy Barlette
And that's actually a trainable skill that you can. You can work on, but you have to know how to decrease that anxiety and keep that access to that content that's inside your own brain.
07:43
Bobby Doss
And I think the one thing I fight the most at the flight school is everyone thinks flight training is about flight hours. If I could just fly more, I'd better. And they want to fly more. They want to go. And they don't believe me. They think I'm lying. And I'm really trying to save them both money and time and effort. But to go to the practice area to do steep turns or whatever the maneuver might be, and you haven't even read the maneuvers guide, that's going to be the most expensive, worthless lesson. And I'm sure you had many aviators in the military and people that you've met since the military that thought they were doing good by doing the skill of turning the yoke or the stick, but they weren't getting anything from it.
08:26
Bobby Doss
If I could stop that for my students, I think I would be the best flight school owner in the world. And I try, but no one believes me. They just think, give me a fourth lesson this week. That's all I need. And they build a hundred hours, and they don't have a private pilot certificate, but they don't realize they're not even accessing that performance skill that they need. They have the knowledge. They know what the rules are, the weather minimums. They know I can't lose 100ft in steep turns. But they can't do the actual work under pressure when Wally's sitting next to him. Wally's not an overbearing person, but it's the fact that he's a DPE and holds that paper in his hands that's going to make them a pilot.
09:06
Wally Mulhearn
Right?
09:07
Bobby Doss
Why were you able to do this? What's the how of Tammy's story? I mean, if you did it, other people can do it. What's your how?
09:15
Tammy Barlette
Well, there's a lot of parts moving in this that have to come together, right. It's not just like I like to say, it's a lot of simple things. When I tell people one technique, they're like, oh, I don't need your class. That's so simple. Well, right. Everything I teach is very simple. You have to put it all together and you have to actually use it. And one of the biggest things, the one thing that popped into my mind when you were mentioning that is aviation attracts a lot of perfectionists. And perfectionism is not conducive to aviation. I mean, you can use a simple example of if you have a student in your. A student even knows that if you told them to hold exactly the airspeed the entire time, one airspeed, like that's crazy.
09:57
Tammy Barlette
But some people are still attempting to try and be perfect. You know, that's why we give them parameters, right? So you give them a plus or minus airspeed, a plus or minus altitude, and a plus or minus bank maybe when you're doing that steep turn. So they're not, there's not so much pressure to be perf. Because now if they're trying to be perfect in one area, their cross check or their instrument scan, as some people, other people say, is not going to be as good and they're not gonna be able to keep all those things in check. So they're trying to be this perfectionist. We have to understand that deviations and even unfortunately, failure sometime is part of aviation. And I always used to tell my students, the only difference between you, like there's no perfect flight.
10:38
Tammy Barlette
And the only difference between you and me is how many mistakes you make and how big they are. I make them too. And I, when I make them, I would show them how do I handle it with the aircraft as well as how am I handling it mentally? What am I doing with a mistake? Am I going to beat myself up and define myself by the error, or am I going to go, huh? Well, that's interesting. That's some feedback for me next time I do this. So it can inform. It needs to inform you, not define you.
11:07
Bobby Doss
So, so we've had a number of professional female pilots on the show. We've probably had more professional male perform pilots on the show because it's obviously an imbalance a little bit. You've been doing this for a long time. How did you get into it? How did you maintain it? How did you have a family and do all this? That couldn't have been easy.
11:31
Wally Mulhearn
Do.
11:31
Bobby Doss
Can people handle more than they think they can handle?
11:35
Tammy Barlette
Absolutely. And it's interesting because one of the things I think the military taught me, and for me, military and aviation go hand in hand because that's where I learned to fly. But one of the things the military and aviation taught me is that we can do so much more than we thought or we think proper English. Because, you know, when you get into the military, you can't just quit. You have to keep going. And so you find a way and you realize that you can do so much More than you think. Now the problem is, let's say you're sitting there listening to this and you're not in the military and you can quit, then you have to absorb that mentality yourself.
12:15
Tammy Barlette
Meaning I like to say if you have set a goal and it is, you know, it's in alignment with your personal core values, it's not your dad's dream, it's not something you're doing because it's cool, but you really want to do this, then set the goal. Say, this is my goal. And once you set yourself down the path, quitting is not an option. You will, you gotta adopt that mentality of I will fail out before I ever pull those handles and bail out. I will go until failure. And you'd be surprised at how much you can accomplish. So this is the other thing. When you adopt a no quit mentality, you don't waste mental energy on should I quit? What do I look like if it quits? What are people gonna say if I quit?
12:59
Tammy Barlette
Like, cause if you start going down that maybe I should quit path, it's probably because you're in a challenging spot in on this journey and that's the time, that's the time and place on this journey where you need all of your mental energy. You don't need to be letting some of it seep out going, well, maybe I should quit. You're just gonna create a self fulfilling prophecy. So did I have those thoughts? Absolutely. It's what you do with your thoughts that counts. I like to say that's important in what I teach. I like to tell people it's not that, you know, I don't have these thoughts, it's what you do with them. So I would go, okay, I acknowledge you, hey, I want to quit thought. But you're going, you can go. Acknowledge, dismiss, acknowledge, dismiss.
13:39
Tammy Barlette
Like I'm, I have a goal and I'm going to run towards failure and it looks like I'm going to jump off a cliff. But guess what, the road usually turns 90 degrees right and it's amazing. So don't give up on yourself. Like, that's like the foundation of where I come from and what I've done.
13:55
Bobby Doss
Well, from what I've read and what I've learned, you didn't quit. But there had to be some really big hurdles that you overcame. I think we prepped a little bit and talked about kids maybe being pregnant and flying. What were some of those big hurdles and how did you overcome them and how did you make Some of those decisions that we, maybe most of us might have chosen to quit and you didn't quit. What's the how behind some of those?
14:22
Tammy Barlette
Well, the. For, you know, the first one I want to address is honestly in pilot training. It. It's a very common, you know, place where people want to quit, but I do want to address it because that's probably where I first. That's where the foundation of this comes from. I'm not quitting. I mean, you can quit in pilot training, but I did not want to be that person who was like, I'm done, I'm out. And a lot of people want to quit because they think if they choose to. To leave, then it. They have more control. But honestly, you know, it looks better if you honestly wash out because at least you gave it your all right. And I wasn't going to be a quitter. So in pilot training, there was.
14:56
Tammy Barlette
I. I always thought I was three rides away from failing out of the program. Always. Now looking back, I wasn't. I. I wasn't going to fail out, but it felt like it every single day. And how did I. Why, how did I keep going? I mean, I showed up at pilot training surrounded by mostly men with engineering degrees who wanted to fly since they were three. And I decided I wanted to fly when I was 18, when I showed up at Air Force ROTC and they said, do you want to be a pilot? And I was like, what? Yeah, let's do that. Like, that sounds awesome. I hadn't even thought of it, but I thought, yes, let's do it. And so I was really late to the game.
15:31
Tammy Barlette
I was, you know, I was a minority, if you will, and my degree was in gerontology. Old people, like the social and psychological study of aging. Nothing to do with aviation. But how did I keep going? Why did I not quit? Because the Air Force said that I was qualified. They picked me. They said, she's good to go. And I believed them. And sometimes it takes belief in from somewhere else to just keep going. They. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna doubt myself because somebody said, I can do this. In this case, it was the Air Force. And now probably the next big hurdle was when I got pregnant the first time and I went to the flight, I was flying unmanned platforms, and I went to the flight doc, and I'm like, I just want to make sure I'm pregnant.
16:15
Tammy Barlette
And he's like, yeah, you're pregnant. And he's like, and you're grounded. I'm like, what am I grounded for? I'm like three feet off the ground on the other side of the base flying an aircraft like from the ground that's somewhere in, you know, Iraq or Afghanistan. He said, well, the regulations haven't caught up. We don't have any regulations for you. So we changed the regulations, we sought a waiver, like put in the paperwork. And I actually flew all the way till 36 weeks once I was cleared. And so here I am, very pregnant, fighting the war on terror, all sorts of shifts just to show that, you know, this can be done. And it wasn't easy, but it's, there's so many things that are doable.
16:55
Tammy Barlette
And then, you know, later I went to weapons school when my kids were 3 months old and 18 months old because my husband said, go do it. Don't turn this opportunity down. And he said, yeah, we both were like, this is going to be super hard, but we can do this and we can do it together. And then, you know, I'm working on my master's with three kids and a full time job. And I mean, we can do hard things. It's a matter of framing it. You know, do you think you can? And then on top of it, are you one of those kind of people who is always looking for the rest? Like, where can I rest? Where can I get a break? Where can I? And that's important. But in my humble opinion, we can weave those things into our regular day.
17:35
Tammy Barlette
Like I get my mental rest and peace, like in moments throughout the day, like when I'm driving in the car, like, why don't I just use this time to chill when I'm getting ready in the morning instead of being like, oh my God, I gotta anxiously get to the next thing, or I'm oh my gosh, I gotta get ready super fast and get out the door. Like, I find those moments throughout the day where I can do a ton of things and kind of mentally reset and be able to accomplish a lot. We can do a lot.
18:06
Bobby Doss
Yeah. I had a mentor many years ago when I worked at Microsoft and he was pretty big deal at Microsoft in those days. I wanted to be a big deal at Microsoft in those days. And he said, work life balance is a choice. I know none of young people want to hear that, but it's a choice. And if you want to be an executive one day, you're not going to have the same work life balance that you probably want to have. You're not going to get five days a week off. And then run the company named Microsoft. And I always thought that was both bullish and also very telling that, you know, it's not necessarily what we all want in the short term, it's what we want in the long term. And I think delayed gratification is part of that.
18:49
Bobby Doss
And we can accomplish so much if we put our minds to it. Some of us, including me, sometimes lose track of how do we put our minds to it and how do we overcome that stuff. And I think that's a little bit of what I've read about your courses and your performance training. So let's jump into that. We've learned about the how, we've learned about some of the other things that you've accomplished in your aviation career. But what is the course and who could benefit from course and what makes the course valuable? Obviously, Holly turned us on to you and the conversation. She got a lot from it. And she's just an, I believe, a private or instrument rated pilot.
19:30
Bobby Doss
What, what do you want the people out there listening to behind the prop all over the world to learn about your course and what they could benefit from it?
19:39
Tammy Barlette
Well, I really want people to know that if they have not done mental performance training, specifically with aviation, whether it's my course or they just go find a sport and performance psychology book and apply the techniques, then they're not performing at their absolute best. And I think all pilots should want to perform at their absolute best, not only for their safety, but the safety of others. I think it's really important. The program is literally a level up, so you could be struggling and they can help you or you can be really a great performer and it just make you that much better. And it's really all about self awareness because so much of what we do and how we perform it starts between our ears. Which sounds very basic, but like the course starts with what are you thinking about all day long?
20:24
Tammy Barlette
Like people, honestly, a lot of people have zero clue where their mind goes all day long. And that's a conversation that happens inside your head all day long. Whatever you're saying to yourself, just picture someone walking next to you saying that all day long. I mean, you're listening to it, you're saying it means you're kind of hearing it twice, right? And is it helpful or is it hurtful? Because that really affects our subconscious and that ultimately affects our performance and we don't always understand why we're not performing. And if you're probably, if you're wondering why you're not performing or how you can perform better. You've done all the studying. You're just not getting better. Sometimes studying is not the answer.
21:03
Tammy Barlette
And I'm not saying don't study, but if you go study and then you don't do as well as you want to, and then you just go study more, you might actually be increasing your anxiety, which might actually increase the problem. Because again, we need to have access to that content that you're putting in your mind. And you want to have access to it in a way where you're calm and focused. Because as we all know, in aviation, things don't always go as planned. I've had several different emergencies. And you have to be able to manage it in a way that gives you access to whatever it is you need to help you with that emergency. You can't just freak out, but you can train your mind. You can train that in advance to not spin out.
21:47
Bobby Doss
I'm probably going to butcher it, but there's some saying that something like, you're only going to be your best on your worst day, as you were your best on your best day when you were trying to perform. Right? There is a big piece of that I'm sure Wally experiences more than I do on a daily basis. But there's. There's a level of anxiety that comes in and normally it's not the book work. Right? So, Wally, what you. We've talked about this a lot, but what would you. What would be your guidance to applicants as they're preparing to go to a checkride and it's noon the day before and they've already accepted the checkride they prepared. They know the maintenance records are there. They're going to meet you tomorrow morning at 8am what should that student do?
22:35
Wally Mulhearn
Probably go to a movie or something like that. Try to relax. Really, really try to relax. Because at. At that point, and you know, I want. Just went through training on another airplane last week. Did my check ride last Thursday, and so.
22:56
Bobby Doss
Wait a second. Wally did a check ride?
22:58
Wally Mulhearn
I did. I did.
22:59
Bobby Doss
Now be honest. Did you go watch a movie?
23:02
Wally Mulhearn
No, I didn't. I studied. I studied, so I didn't even take my own advice.
23:06
Bobby Doss
So it's not common. It's. It's not. Do what I do, but do what I say. I like it.
23:11
Wally Mulhearn
But I will say this. My. My check, right, started at noon the next day. I got up and I. I started to open up the books and I said, you know what? Hey, I don't know it by now. I'm not going to learn it the next three hours. So I, I did kind of enjoy my coffee that morning. But, you know, I, I think I mentioned this at some point. I mean, many, many years ago when the movie Forrest Gump came out. I, I was a 727 instructor. I think that was somewhere in the 90s or something like that. I used to, I used to get students and they would kind of hit a wall. This was the 727 second officers back in the day.
23:54
Wally Mulhearn
And, and the students would hit a wall, and they would all hit this wall at about the same time. And it was, they were studying, studying, reading, reading, studying, you know, and it, I, I, the homework I would give in to them was, hey, go back to your hotel. The hotel that they were staying at was close to a local mall here in Houston. I'd say, I want you to go across the street to the movie. I want you to watch Forrest Gump tonight and come back tomorrow. And they would come back and they would, it would be like a new light came on. So, you know, I don't know what happened, but sometimes you got to get away. Sometimes you just got to get away from the stuff because. Begins to clog things up, you know? You know, it's like clogging up.
24:47
Wally Mulhearn
You put too much stuff down your garbage disposal and it's going to quit working.
24:53
Tammy Barlette
Yeah, you need to.
24:54
Bobby Doss
Tammy's example of the two doors, right? Like, Tammy, tell us, like, what, where do we all miss the boat on that stuff? Like, everyone's still studying. Anyone who has a check ride tomorrow morning, anywhere in the world, they are, they're reading something, trying to memorize one more cloud triangle to make sure they know the minimums for everything. Like, how do they crack the surface and break through it to open more doors? Is there some secret sauce that don't give away your course but give us a nugget?
25:25
Tammy Barlette
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm happy to give you what I can. The thing about this content is, like I said, I give you one technique, and you're like, that's it. Oh, I'm not. But they're layered, and then you can choose the things that work best for you. So I will offer some stuff up, but one of the biggest problems that a lot of people have is not being in the moment, right? So what happens is people, they make a mistake and they're going, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I just did that. And they're looking backwards, thinking, oh, and replaying it and what could I done different? Now is not the time to be doing that because your plane is still flying forward hopefully and you need to be in that moment.
26:04
Tammy Barlette
The other thing they're doing is they're projecting forward going, what if I do that again? What if this other thing happens? What if, what if? And we're what if. Now we all know that planning for contingencies or what ifs is a good thing. But in this case what I'm talking about is not a good thing. You need to be in the moment. You don't need to be like spinning out about what could happen when you're flying an aircraft, right? So you need to be in the moment. So I have a more, a much more advanced technique on how to. You practice it on the ground so you have access in the air and people love it. It's called the recage technique. So if you're an older pilot who's actually flown with non glass attitude indicators, you'd re cage them, right.
26:40
Tammy Barlette
Anyways, like a reset technique. But the, the quickest way I can teach you without teaching that because it's like a whole module is to say the words to yourself, what now? What now? Because it brings your brain to the actual moment and it's very simple but it's very powerful to bring your brain back to the moment. Cause that's usually what's happening. You're usually forward or you're backward. The other thing is that pilots often are always, they're looking at the top of the mountain, they're looking at that goal. And that's, that is an outcome based goal. Right? So we all have outcome based goals. And we're usually just going after that thing and we'll hit marks along the way, but we just kind of pass them quickly and go on. But I'm going there.
27:28
Tammy Barlette
And a lot of times we're comparing ourselves at going, well, I'm just a private pilot. I am just a, I just soloed. I just, instead of being like celebrating what we did. So what am I getting at? A couple things. First of all, yes, set the, set that outcome based goal. But then start looking closer to yourself, like what's next? What's the next thing I'm doing? And when you hit that next mark, celebrate it. It doesn't be a party, just has to be like, hey, good job me, like I'm flying a plane. Most people in the world never fly planes. You would be surprised at how these tiny little. Give myself accolades I'm not saying be arrogant. I'm saying celebrate yourself, even if it's just internally or writing it down in a notebook saying, hey, I did this today. It was awesome.
28:11
Tammy Barlette
It's really good for building your confidence. And you have to build your confidence. This is grow on its own. It doesn't just grow because you have more hours. You actually have to build it. Now the other quick thing I think that people love to hear that's related to this is the process based goal. So a lot of us have that outcome based goal, but we need process based goals too. So I like to use my cross country running daughter to give this example. Let's say she has, she wants to break 20 minutes on her 5K and that's the only goal she sets. She hits the end of the season and she doesn't make it, is she a failure? She's not a failure. Right, but she's going to feel like one if that's the only goal she set.
28:52
Tammy Barlette
So what we do along the path is we pick out things that are the things the process to getting her there. So for example, for a week we'll make a little chart that says every day that has a box that says, okay, I slept for eight hours. I ate lunch. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner, had two snacks, I went to my workout, I had a good attitude at my workout. You know, I, I praised three of my teammates. I visualized my race three times like, and all these things that she can check the box that she did. Now she doesn't necessarily do them all the time, but as she goes, she checks all these off so that if she were to fail at the goal, she doesn't look back, she has something to fall back on. Said, hey, I did the work.
29:28
Tammy Barlette
Let me only go after this again, I can do this flying has the same thing. Like I want to, you know, I'm going to study one hour a day, five days a week. If I get weathered out, I'm going to go talk to, you know, pilots around here for 20 minutes and hear their best stories of aviation, their biggest tips. I'm going to chair fly, you know, twice a week. I'm going to debrief myself with my thing I did well and thing I didn't do well. And a question I have, et cetera. Like you can create process based goals along the way. So you, if that thing doesn't, because we don't always pass checkrides like it happens, it's not the end of the world like we want to pass. Right. But there you go. Couple tips.
30:09
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I think our next show is actually about overcoming a disapproval that we recorded a while back, but we've been holding it in the can. And I think it is one of those things where many professional pilots, many military aviators, many family pilots have failed a checkride. And they are extremely safe. Right. That is not the determination that you're not a good pilot. It's a determination that maybe you made a mistake on a day. Like, golly, we've all made a mistake on a day. The other thing that I keep hearing you say over and over, and I just want to tell my listeners and any of my employees and anyone who's listening that this is not necessarily just about flying. It's about teaching. Like you embody what you're saying. Everything you're saying is teaching people.
30:58
Bobby Doss
And I wish all my flight instructors, and I know Wally wishes every flight instructor would focus more on the teaching aspect and less about the flying. It's not about 60 hours, 50 hours, 30 hours. It's about teaching the fundamentals of making good pilots and building upon that and having those checklists like a cross country runner would that if I do these things, I've got to be getting better at my skill. The skill is less about the outcome than the work that you do every step of the way to get to that outcome. And I'm sure your course shares a lot of that with your students as well. So I love it. How about a few questions that I'm just curious about how a performance coach would maybe answer some of these things.
31:45
Bobby Doss
So in this aviation focus, what's the most common mistake you see that pilots make evaluating themselves?
31:56
Tammy Barlette
Oh, well, they define themselves by the error. They don't use it as information. You know, like I had. I had two pilots share the story about a prop strike. I mean, not a prop strike, a tail strike. Sorry. One pilot essentially was like, I shouldn't even be a pilot. I can't believe I did this, like, beating themselves up. The other one literally said, well, I had this prop strike, but I learned that when I do X, Y happens. So I don't do X anymore. So you had the first pilot using the. Defining themselves by this simple error, going, oh my gosh, I shouldn't be doing this and having that dialogue in there. Back to the dialogue in your own head. Right. Like that matters.
32:34
Tammy Barlette
And then the other pilot who was like, oh, whoops, I learned this and I'm not going to do it again. And that's. I think that's huge.
32:44
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I meet a lot of people. Wally and I have a common acquaintance that if she's listening, she'll know who she is. Probably, but probably beats herself up. Says she's never ready. Not that good. Wally did her instrument checkride six to nine months ago and said something to the effect afterwards that she might be a better instrument instructor than some of my other instructors. Just the perspective she contains. But she can't see it at all. Like, doesn't even feel it. And luckily for us and our student base, she's an instructor now and probably will be one of the best. But what's your guidance to someone like that who has that? And I'm a perfectionist, so I get it. I have this layer of it's never good enough. If I think I'm at 100%, I feel like I gotta get to 120%. Right.
33:41
Bobby Doss
Nothing's ever good enough. So what would be your performance coaching to someone like that who has all the knowledge, can perform and doesn't ever accept the goodness that they can give to the aviation community?
33:54
Tammy Barlette
Yeah, well, I like. So my. One of the sayings I like to share is strive for perfection, but don't be a perfectionist. Now, what that means is I don't want you to lower your standards to less than perfection because you know you're not gonna perfect because it's impossible. Like, okay, so I'm not gonna be. I'm not gonna shoot for it. That's dumb. But know on the backside that something's not going to be perfect. And you use that as information again, you're not gonna define yourself out. You're gonna go, well, I'm shooting for the moon. I'm gonna probably come up short, but that's cool. Cause this is gonna be where I learn. I'll be honest with you.
34:26
Tammy Barlette
And I was in the fighter world, if I didn't get a debrief, if I didn't get to learn what I did wrong, I felt shorted because I can't get any better if I'm not being told. Like, if they say, hey, that was a good flight. See y' all later. We're not going to debrief today. It sounds great because we can go have lunch, right? But hey, I just wasted. Not wasted, but there's an hour, 10 minutes up there that I learned something, but I don't know what it is because I need your feedback. But the other thing I want to share is that what you look for is really important. So if you're.
35:00
Tammy Barlette
For example, if I show you a picture that has a bunch of, you know, items on it and they're all different colors, and I tell you to pick out all the yellow ones, and then I take the picture away and I tell you to tell me what, tell me which red ones were on there. You'd be like, wait, I was looking at yellow. Because that's a filtration system, right? Well, our brain uses that same filtration system based on what you believe. So if I believe I am. If I say to myself I'm a bad pilot, I can't land. My brain is all day looking for data to validate that because it. It has to filter. And that's what it's using as a filtration system because it can't take in everything. So it's going to go well. I believe I'm bad at landing, so that.
35:38
Tammy Barlette
That's bad. These, all these things say I'm bad at landing. So that's why it's so important what you think. And it sounds like with this young woman, she. She is such an awesome pilot that it doesn't matter that she doesn't think she's that good. Can you imagine how amazing she would be if she actually believed it? You know what I mean? Like, she sounds like she's incredible. I want her to know that.
36:01
Bobby Doss
I'll remind her of that tomorrow. Yeah, for sure. So one last big question then, maybe a little rapid fire before we wrap completely up. If you could change one thing about flight training culture, whether it's at United Flight Systems, in the military, at the airlines, what's the one thing you would change about flight training culture?
36:22
Tammy Barlette
Well, I can only speak intelligently to the military culture when I was there, which is even maybe different now. And I can base it on what I hear other people saying. But what I would change is that I would make. Well, I do two things. First of all, the student is the center, right? I believe that an instructor should modify their. The way they instruct based on the needs of the student. And I don't think that a student should have to modify how they learn based on how an instructor teaches. That comes with experience. I get it. But that's the goal, right? The student is the center. And they're like. They're the mystery that the instructors, they're the detective trying to solve. And the other thing I would put out there is that what the student is thinking matters. It truly matters.
37:07
Tammy Barlette
So I came back, I debriefed A student once. And essentially, I discovered as I was watching him and paying attention to what was going on, he was having massive confidence issues. I could see that he could fly, but he didn't have. He didn't believe it. I could have come back and in the debrief, said, you did this wrong. You did that wrong. You did this wrong. Fix it this way. This is how you fix this. It wouldn't help them at all. Instead, what did I do? I sat him down, I looked him right in the eye, and I said, how are you doing? And he was like, what? Like, he froze. Nobody asked me how I'm doing here at pilot training. He didn't answer me. And finally I just said, here's the deal.
37:45
Tammy Barlette
I'm picking up feelings of defeat because I was reading him, like, caring about who he was as a person, not just his grade book. I could see his grade book was fine, but his grade book's not flying. He's flying. So I had to pay attention to him. So I think it's so important that we pay attention to the student. And what he said to me was, yeah, I don't think I'm supposed to be here. I didn't have any trouble landing the T6, but I can't land the T38. Instantly, I was so relieved because that's a simple problem. The T38 is really hard to land. And I just told him that. I said, it's got tiny little wings, tiny little gear, lands really fast. Just give yourself time. I don't.
38:24
Tammy Barlette
I haven't seen anything that you did today or that's in your grade book that tells me you can't do this by the time you need to do it. But if you're not looking for the root cause of the problem and you're just looking for surface, like, this is the surface result, you're not. You're not being as effective as an instructor for your students.
38:43
Bobby Doss
And I think that's a great place to kind of wrap up some of the conversation. We had a past Blue angel on the show, call sign intake, and he had all kinds of stories about debriefing and having conversations. And it was always about, if I'm debriefing you, I'm telling you all this stuff because I think you can get better. Like, I want you to get better. And I. I think we all take it as a personal attack, right? Like, in most cases. But your open candidates of how are you doing? Is. Is one of those things where you want to get the information from that person so that you can help them be successful. It's. We have a team. If I systems called student success. Like we want everyone to achieve success.
39:23
Bobby Doss
Wally, if you could ever get to this point, wouldn't you love to be a DP that had 100% pass rate?
39:32
Wally Mulhearn
Absolutely, yeah.
39:33
Bobby Doss
Do you, do you come in on Saturday morning even if you've had a bad night, a bad day, a terrible cup of coffee, are I'm gonna fail this person?
39:41
Wally Mulhearn
No, no.
39:43
Bobby Doss
I mean, everyone has to understand, although I think we wake up and go, I'm gonna fail. And as you said, Tammy, we, our brain starts to look for reasons why failing is going to be okay, and we shouldn't let that be the case. I think we could all use a little bit of that performance training, a little bit of that thing that that female instructor now instructor needs to believe in herself more than we do, to take it and share it with her students and make them the best pilots in the world. Tammy, anything you'd like to share with our listeners all around the world before we wrap up tonight?
40:21
Tammy Barlette
Yeah, I think there's two things I'd like to share. So when we think about pilots synonymously, we think confidence, right? Pilot confidence. That makes sense. But what happens in life when you either have something that happens in flying or maybe life itself is overwhelming and your confidence starts to dip? People think instead of like realizing they can fix the confidence because there's ways to fix it and ways to work on confidence and build confidence, they start to feel like they're not a pilot anymore or they're not as good of a pilot anymore. Instead of, instead of bringing their confidence up, they kind of bring the belief in themselves down, which can happen to people who are, have been in aviation for a long time.
41:01
Tammy Barlette
In fact, a lot of people who are confident through their entire career, if they hit something that suddenly is like, shakes their confidence, they're, it's very scary. They're like, I've never felt this before. I don't know what to do about it, but it's fixable. I just want people to know that. And the last thing I want to say is, you know, you're going into that checkride, you're going into that flight instead of going, oh my gosh, what am I going to screw up today? A dialogue again. The dialogue inside your head. Self awareness is a superpower. You gotta pay attention to what's going on inside your own head. But instead of saying those things flip the script and have go into it saying let's see how great I can do this and it'll make a huge difference.
41:42
Bobby Doss
That's awesome. Great guidance to our listeners. If you're out there and you have anything coming up or think you could benefit, check out the show notes. We'll put a bunch of links to find out more information about Tammy, more information about her courses and all of her performance training. If you enjoy the show, give us 5 stars if we earned it. As always, fly safely and stay behind the Prop.
42:07
Speaker 1
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@bravetheprop.com behind the Prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co host is Wally Mulhern. The show is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember, fly safe.