We were lucky to catch up with Jimmy Peterson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jimmy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

Successful is probably a different meaning for everyone, mostly probably relate money to success. I think being successful is to be happy and loving what you do everyday. Sadly a lot of people I fly with tell me “I’m doing it right, and if they could they’d go back and do what I’m doing”. When hearing something like that it makes me think of how I would be as a person if I had so many other jobs.

I’m very lucky and extremely grateful that I’ve taken the time and put in the work to be able to fly Hot Air Balloons and take people on Tandem BASE jumps for my careers. It wasn’t easy and has taken an incredible amount of time and work to get to this point in life. I would recommend everyone follow their dreams and continue to chase them as they change, because they will.

Obviously you have to make money at what you do, but it’s also important to be happy and love what you do. So I’m my mind being successful is to be happy while also making enough money to do the things you want to do in life.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Becoming a Hot Air Balloon Pilot was by chance. I had started skydiving shortly before meeting my old boss while teaching snowboarding. I knew the mountain really well and showed him around. I continually asked him to jump out of his Balloon and that turned into me working on the ground crew.

After a few years of being on the ground crew I became a skydiving instructor. After 7-8,000 skydives I realized I would want to do something else eventually and that’s when I went to Hot Air Balloon school.

After many years of flying Balloons I decided to open my own company in Moab, UT. I couldn’t be more thrilled to share an amazing experience with people over one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I’m most proud of myself for sticking with the things I’ve set my mind to. I’m the only person in the world that can take you on a Hot Air Balloon ride and then Tandem BASE jumping right after. I have a perfect safety record and look forward to sharing these experiences with everyone I can.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Opening my business January 2020 right before the COVID shutdown happened. Definitely one of the scariest times in my life.

I had spent an incredible amount of money getting everything I needed to start flying and just when I was permitted and ready to go the world shutdown with no end in sight. It was months before anyone started to travel again.

I had a very very slow start and had to be patient while people started traveling again.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Google 100%. I have all my clients answer how they found me a 98% say google.

In 2022 I was awarded the top business of Utah by google.

When I first built my website I was researching how to get my google rankings up and came across google coding. I spent months of my life learning how to write to google code, eventually figuring out on my own.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.redrockballooning.com
• Instagram: Redrock_Ballooning
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/redrockballooning
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/@redrockballooning6036

Image Credits
Myself