Above the Clouds

Recently, a friend posted a photo from an airplane flight and shared a short but striking story. Their plane had been flying through turbulent, rainy, thunder-filled skies. It was bumpy, dark, and unsettling. But then the pilot ascended. The aircraft rose above the storm, and suddenly there was sunlight. Calm skies. Fluffy clouds resting below them like a soft, glowing carpet. It was peaceful, beautiful, and completely still.

The storm hadn’t disappeared. It was still raging below. But from a higher altitude, everything looked different. The sun had been there all along.

When we rise above the chaos, the confusion, the pain, we find clarity.

President Russell M. Nelson once said that the root of so much struggle in life can be traced to one word:

myopic

. When our vision is limited, when we see only what’s right in front of us, it distorts our thinking. Our emotions tighten around what we can’t control. We react, we spiral, we lose sight of the bigger picture. But when we elevate our perspective, even grief and fear can begin to make sense.

There’s a term for this shift in view: the Overview Effect.

When the Apollo 8 astronauts orbited the moon and looked back toward Earth, they were awestruck. They saw our planet as a small, fragile blue-and-white sphere floating in the vastness of space. Suddenly, all of Earth’s problems seemed… manageable. The wars, the politics, the worries—they shrank. “Peace on Earth?” one astronaut said. “No problem!” When you’re far enough away, the impossible feels doable. (Tamara W. Runia, October 2023 General Conference)

And that’s not just a cosmic truth, it’s a business truth, too.

I remember listening to Dave Ramsey years ago, talking about the MBAs on his team. What he appreciated most about them wasn’t their technical knowledge, it was their habit of thinking from the 10,000-foot view. When you look at problems from above, you don’t get bogged down in the weeds.

Author Gino Wickman believes so strongly in this concept that he recommends all long-term strategy sessions happen off-site. You can’t think big if you’re sitting in your same old office chair surrounded by emails and task lists. You have to physically and mentally change your vantage point.

So what does this mean for us on hard days, in big decisions, in our relationships, our health, our teams?

It means that when the sky is dark and the turbulence rattles us, we can

choose

to climb higher. We can dial out. Shift our frame. Refuse to let the current moment define the entire story.

The sun is still there. Sometimes, we just need to rise high enough to see it again.