Who’s Packing Your Parachute?

Charlie Plumb flew 74 successful combat missions over North Vietnam and made over 100 carrier landings. On his 75th mission, just five days before the end of his tour, Plumb was shot down over Hanoi, taken prisoner, tortured, and spent the next 2,103 days in North Vietnamese Prisoner of War camps.

 Years after his repatriation and retirement, a man came up to him and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

 Plumb was confused and asked how the man knew about that. “I packed your parachute,” the man replied.’ The man shook his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him it had and said, “If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.” Plumb thought a lot about that man who held the fate of someone he did not even know in his hands. He kept pondering how many times he might have seen the guy, and not even said anything because he was a fighter pilot, and the stranger was just a sailor.”

 Charles Plumb is now a motivational speaker telling this story to hundreds. After telling it, he always asks his audiences,

“Who’s packing your parachute?”

Teamwork is all about learning to pack one another’s parachutes. In our lives, be it personal or work-related, many people have a hand in our parachutes. Are you taking the time to acknowledge, thank, and reward them? It is very easy to overlook the work of many. It takes many people to create a team.