'Life Happens' is the podcast that helps you build mental fitness, speaking to inspirational people about life’s ups and downs, how they’ve overcome setbacks and what it means to them to be mentally fit.

When you’re performing aerobatics with the Red Arrows, there’s no room for error. Yet our latest guest on ‘Life Happens’ admits to failing over and over in his pursuit of a childhood dream to become a fighter pilot.

Dan Lowes knew from an early age that he wanted to fly with the RAF. A failed application at the age of 17 set him up to understand the concept of failure and he succeeded in his second application as a more rounded and savvier youngster. As he progressed through training, he continued to experience failure, but in his own words, “It’s not so much the failure that’s the issue. It’s how you learn, how you react and how you adapt.”

Passing his course as the pilot that his instructors would ‘most want to go to war with’, highlighting his dependability, he spent eight years on the frontline before joining the world-renowned Red Arrows as a display pilot.

Listen to the interview to get Dan’s take on high performance and how he brings what he has learned into everyday life. Performance and focus when it matters is key to being the best we can be but it is also crucial to be able to switch off from that focus to help deal with stress.

Most importantly, as someone who has operated at such elite levels, Dan has learned repeatedly that failure is not something to be feared. If we don’t let it knock us, it is something that can prepare us better and ultimately allow us to succeed.

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