Dancing in the Clouds
Updrafts & Cloud Formation
An updraft is an upward current of air.
Updrafts occur when air is heated near the ground.
As a result, the air becomes less dense and rises.
As the air rises, it cools due to decreasing atmospheric pressure.
This cooling causes water vapor in the air to condense into liquid droplets.
The end result: clouds.
On August 2nd, I learned first-hand about updrafts and cloud formation.
On August 2nd, I checked off a bucket list item.
On August 2nd, for 24 minutes, I sat — dancing in the clouds over Dennison, MN — with my fears.
On August 2nd, I flew a glider plane.
The Bucket List Item
As a boy, my summers were spent in Morrisville, VT — a tiny town 10-miles outside of Stowe.
My mom grew up in Morrisville, and every summer the Steele family would make the 2- or 3-day trek from Dearborn, MI to visit my grandparents.
While there, going the 10 miles between the two Vermont towns, we’d drive by an airfield that always had glider planes parked on the ground.
Me: “Hey Dad and Mom, can we fly in one of those while we’re here?”
Dad or Mom: some version of “No.”
Maybe that’s how the bucket list item was created.
The Fear
I don’t know when my fear of heights took hold of me.
It hasn’t always been part of me.
But, at 45 years old, I’m acutely aware that it’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And it’s morphed and grown in how I experience it.
Flying these days scares the $%*# out of me.
Earlier this year, I was paralyzed by fear getting on a plane in Dallas, TX — it was so bad that I almost left the airport to rent a car and make the 14-hour drive up I-35 to Minneapolis.
Fears hold us back.
The Universe
At the outset of 2025, I set the following intention: lean into what scares me.
My thinking was that by finding and doing things that scare me, it would better equip me to lean into other things that scare me.
You see, over the past 4 years, I’ve realized there are a lot of little, daily things I have fear around and, as a result, I haven’t taken action — I haven’t leaned in — like I could.
I’ve been holding myself back.
My fears have held me back.
I believe the Universe gives you exactly what you need — when you need it.
And, the more that you believe that, the more you start to see it.
This year, for my 45th birthday, Julie gifted me a 6-week watercoloring class at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Stephen Nesser was my instructor.
To me, he is the definition of mastery.
As such, I got curious.
Here’s what I discovered on his website:
I began soaring in 1986. I have flown side-by-side with bald eagles, red tail hawks, and sandhill cranes. Once, I dropped last in line behind a vee of pelicans. The world is perfect 3,000 feet in the air, and so I painted the gliders I flew and the friends I shared the sky with.
The Universe gives you exactly what you need.
I’m so grateful I was open to seeing that — an opportunity to fulfill a bucket list item and lean into a fear.
Dancing in the Clouds
Part I: The Experience
Glider planes are able to fly because of the updrafts that create the clouds in the sky.
As such, glider pilots move from cloud to cloud to keep the aircraft in the sky.
In essence, like an eagle with wings spread out circling the sky, the pilot and the plane are dancing in the clouds.
Stephen Nesser and I danced in the clouds for 24 minutes.
And for 24 minutes I sat with one of the most acutely intense set of feelings I’ve ever experienced.
For 5 of those minutes, Stephen put me in full control of flying the plane.
Over the 24 minutes, I don’t know how many times I had to fight back the urge to ask Stephen to bring us down.
I wrestled with myself for the 5 minutes I was in control — I wanted to quit and give things back over to Stephen.
I was scared.
I was uncomfortable.
I was disoriented.
I was feeling things I’ve never felt before.
And this was exactly why I did it…
…to feel things I’ve never felt before…
…to teach myself that feelings don’t have to dictate actions…
…to train myself that it’s all going to be okay…
…to stop allowing my fears to hold me back.
Dancing in the Clouds
Part II: The Possibilities
Maybe updrafts and clouds are a perfect metaphor for fears.
As we lean into our fears, the air gets quite heated at ground level.
It’s scary, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s disorienting.
But, when we allow ourselves to search out and sit with those feelings, they get a bit less dense — less intense.
As a result, things start to rise and an updraft is created.
And, maybe, a glider plane is a perfect metaphor for a human.
Without the updrafts, the glider plane can’t fly.
Our fears keep us grounded.
But when we lean into them, we create the necessary conditions that allow us to soar.
When we lean into them, like a glider plane, we get to dance in the clouds.
I’ll end with this:
As my 4-year-old son continues to push the boundaries of what he is capable of doing, he tells me immediately after:
“Dad, I faced my fear.”
I’m in a continual state of awe watching him grow.
We can do the same.
Identify a fear.
Lean into it.
And then enjoy dancing in the clouds at a new elevation.
Thank you, Stephen Nesser — you have radically transformed my life in many ways!
Onward.
Want More?
Photography: my wife, Julie Anne Samson
More on fears: The 50th Law by 50 Cent & Robert Greene
Even more on fears: Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday