He Spent His Entire Career Perfecting Two Seconds, Proof That Mastery Lives On A Continuum

Last week I was at Feld Entertainment’s headquarters in Ellenton, Florida for meetings and caught a glimpse of early rehearsals for the next edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, opening January 2026.

While there, I ran into Brian Miser, the man once known as Bailey’s Comet. Brian was recruited 23 years ago for the 133rd edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey to be featured as the human cannonball who would rocket 110 feet across the arena at nearly 65 miles per hour, lit on fire, and land safely in an airbag to the amazement of the audience.

At his peak, Brian launched himself up to thirteen times a week, spending nearly all his waking hours perfecting those few seconds of flight. He told me he had recently taken a three-year hiatus from cannon launching but, now in his sixties, has returned to it with limited events. His 22-year-old daughter, Skylar, is following in his ignition trail as a featured performer in the next edition, a daughter born in the circus, now taking flight in her own right.

The act lasts two seconds. The preparation is endless.

If you passed Brian at a gas station, you’d never guess he has spent his life flying through the air. He looks like anyone else filling up his RV. But he’s a meticulous aerodynamic mechanic who restores historic human cannons and calculates every variable: speed, humidity, air pressure, trajectory, timing, and distance. The difference between precision and error is life or death.

I spent two decades calculating different variables too, tour dates, production schedules, creative teams, marketing efforts, audience demographics, operating costs, performer logistics, and so much more. When I stepped away from that world, I wondered if that expertise still mattered. If I’d lost what made me good at what I did.

But standing there, watching Brian talk with his daughter about humidity levels, I understood something simpler. The skills that make you excellent at one thing don’t evaporate when that thing ends. They wait for you to aim them somewhere new. The discipline, the attention to detail, the ability to calculate risk and commit anyway.  None of that requires a specific arena.

You just have to trust yourself enough to find a new trajectory.

From your biggest champion,
Nicole