At fourteen years old, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a Marine Corps pilot. But not just any pilot. I wanted to fly the F/A-18 Hornet, in a single- seat, carrier-based squadron on the West Coast. That was the dream. And after years of training, I found myself just one step away from achieving it. The only thing left to do was to land my plane on a piece of steel out in the Pacific Ocean.
If you’ve seen the movie Top Gun, you’ve heard the phrase, “Maverick has a ball.” The “meatball” is a glowing light that indicates your position relative to the ship during a landing. Though it’s technically a rectangular light, it glows bright enough that it looks like a little ball from thousands of feet away. If the ball is lined up with the green lights on either side, you’re on the glidepath, in line with the carrier. If the ball is above the green lights, you’re too high and you’ll float over the landing area. But if the ball is below the green lights, you’re too low and close to slamming into the back of the ship. So, in carrier aviation, there’s one simple rule to survive: don’t go low.
In the final eighteen seconds before touchdown, every pilot is “flying the ball,” just like Maverick did in the movie. Pilots must make constant corrections to keep the ball centered for the landing. That’s the process. But in my mind, I wasn’t just trying to land. I was trying to be perfect. After all, that’s what I thought it would take to get selected for my dream squadron.
Three years of training, and a decade of dreaming, all came down to this moment. And my first two passes were awful.
The Landing Signal Officers, or LSOs, observe your attempt and grade every single landing on the ship. And in my first two attempts, they didn’t hold back on the feedback. I was dangerously close to failing.
I calculated that I had six more landings to prove myself. If I failed, the dream I had been chasing for over a decade would be over. The pressure was overwhelming. On my third attempt, I finally touched down on the carrier. I wasn’t exactly on glidepath, but I was close, just a tiny bit low. You could barely tell. I held it where it was and got aboard.
When I felt the arresting wire tug on my jet, I was relieved. And thankfully, the LSOs didn’t have anything to say. I thought I was in the clear and repeated the same for three subsequent passes. I kept the same mindset throughout. Don’t overreact. Be calm. Be cool. Be perfect.
I finished my flight and walked into the debrief thinking I had salvaged the day. I expected to talk through with all of the LSOs about how the first two weren’t great, but I nailed those last six landings. But the room was empty, except for the senior LSO staring me down.
My heart sank as I heard a very stern, “Chip, that wasn’t very good.”
Instead of debriefing, he asked pointedly, “What did you see out there?”
“Maybe I was a tiny bit low?” I phrased the statement as a question, hoping to get away with it.
And then he unloaded. “You were low! You know you were low. And you didn’t fix it. What’s the one rule we don’t break? EVER? Don’t accept being low.”
I knew that rule. So, why hadn’t I corrected that little mistake?
I tried to justify my actions, but I came across like a 5-year-old who was trying to get out of trouble. He wasn’t berating my performance; that wasn’t the issue. He was shocked at my unwillingness to admit being off the glidepath and fix my mistakes. In my mind if I corrected being a tiny bit low, I’d be exposed for being off and fail. So, I tried to hide them instead.
“I’ve witnessed thousands of these carrier landings. Did you not think I would see it?” He wasn’t just disappointed. He was angry. He was frustrated because he was telling me something I already knew.
“I’m not looking for perfection. I’m looking for corrections. The sooner you accept your deviations, the faster you’ll fix them.”
I hadn’t corrected my errors because I was afraid. Afraid that if I made adjustments, it would look sloppy. Afraid that it would expose me as less than perfect, which put my dream at risk. I thought hiding mistakes was safer than fixing them. But it nearly cost me my career.
“You’re not flying tonight,” the LSO stated. I was benched, which crushed me. But luckily, he was giving me a pass and a chance to regroup.
“If I fly you again tomorrow, can you prove to me that you’ll follow one rule in naval aviation? Can you prove that you can fly a jet on and off this ship?”
I had one last shot, so the next morning, I launched off the ship for one more try. I had four more landings. None of them were perfect. But every time I was low, I adjusted. I made minor corrections to improve. I never stopped correcting.
And after, the debrief had a far better greeting. Of course, the LSOs all had feedback points, but I embraced their comments as areas for improvement.
There is no such thing as a perfect pass. In military aviation, every single landing on an aircraft carrier gets graded. Whether it’s your first or hundredth landing, the highest grade you can earn is “OK.” Because perfection doesn’t exist.
That lesson has followed me far beyond the cockpit. Perfection is a lie, and believing it doesn’t just hurt us as individuals. It poisons our teams, our families, and our organizations.
When we believe we must be perfect, we stop admitting mistakes, hide them, and deny them. Instead of recognizing imperfections, we become fearful of them. We become afraid of failure, of risk, of falling short, of being exposed. The expectation of perfection leads to stagnation, resentment, and distrust. If this becomes the culture inside a team, absolute failure is imminent.
We all want excellence. We all want high standards. But excellence comes from honesty, consistency, and practice, not from pretending mistakes don’t exist. The path to excellence runs straight through imperfection. Mistakes are feedback. They are opportunities to learn. And if we have the courage to admit and correct them, we improve.
Don’t hide your mistakes. Don’t get defensive. Don’t buy into the lie that it’s perfection or nothing. Use mistakes to get better. The sooner you face your imperfections, the closer you’ll get to perfection.
Interested in more? The Need To Lead by Dave Berke is available now!
Dave Berke is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, fighter pilot, and ground combat leader. A seasoned F/A-18 Hornet pilot, Dave deployed twice aboard aircraft carriers in support of combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He became an Instructor Pilot at TOPGUN, where he qualified in the F-16 Fighting Falcon and served as the Training Officer, the senior instructor at TOPGUN. He went on to serve as a Forward Air Controller, become the only Marine ever to fly the F-22 Raptor, and command the world’s first F-35B squadron. Since transitioning from the military, Dave has continued to apply his leadership expertise as the Chief Development Officer at Echelon Front, where he advises, instructs, and speaks on leadership and personal growth.
