Dierks Bentley Reveals How He Manifested His Pilot’s License and Opry Membership

Dierks Bentley is a firm believer in manifestation, recently revealing how he made two of his biggest dreams come true. 

During a conversation with Bobby Bones on The Bobbycast, Bentley shared how he manifested earning his pilot’s license and becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

First, Bentley recalled a pivotal moment early in his career when he flew home after a show with Kenny Cheney and Keith Urban on a small private plane. 

“It’s me, Kenny, and Keith Urban way back in the day, and Kenny offers to fly me back home and I’m like, ‘yeah, I’d love to fly home with you…’ It’s the three of us in this little private plane. We landed back in Nashville and we pulled into a different airport, not the big airport, but a small little building,” he recalled. “I remember looking up and the building said ‘Signature,’ which is a fixed base operator for private jets…But I was like, this is so cool. We don’t go through the real airport. We’re going through this side thing. And I was like, ‘wow, I want that to be like, I want this. I want to travel this way. This is like 2004.” 

He even made “Signature” his computer password as a daily reminder of the dream, despite the career struggles he faced in 2008 and 2009.

“So I made that my password on all my computers and devices. Signature with some other stuff behind it. Long story short, 2008, 2009, my career is totally going off a cliff. I went out there, tried to headline. I spent two years just getting my butt kicked, playing these arenas we’d already booked. I’m playing for like 2,500 people…and that went on for a while, but I’m still typing that thing in there every day.” 

Bentley remembered that one day, during a gig with Halfway to Hazard, a plane flew overhead, and he soon learned it belonged to Tim McGraw, who was actually flying himself to his show. 

“He came to the gig. We start talking about the plane. It’s this new plane called a Cirrus. It has a parachute built into the airframe. If there’s an accident, you pull the handle and the whole plane comes down under a canopy. He’s like, it’s the only plane that my wife, Faith, will let me fly in,” Bentley explained. 

McGraw soon introduced Bentley to his instructor and before he knew it, Bentley was a licensed pilot. 

“I started flying the next day to gigs because you could fly, if you’re going to play a gig in Indiana, even though it’s only a two hour drive, you’re still going to leave at midnight and the bus to get there. You lose a whole day of your kids, a whole night at home. Now I’m flying a straight line. This little propeller plane… got totally hooked into it. And I remember thinking, well, it’s never going to come true, the dream I had, but this is pretty cool. I’m getting more time at home.” 

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On day, flying into Chicago in his own small plane, Bentley had a moment of reflection: while sitting next to a professional pilot, he realized he had become one too, with the ‘Signature’ sign above him as a reminder.

“It hit me like, ‘wow. It did happen in a totally different way than I wanted it to,’ which is where the universe works. I put it out there,” Bentley pointed out. “I wanted to sit in the back of a jet that never worked out, but it came back to me in a way where I actually had to go get my pilot’s license and my instrument rating, and I’m actually sitting up left seat in the front of the plane.”

Bentley used the same manifestation approach for another lifelong dream: the Grand Ole Opry.

Pete Fisher was my password forever on my computer, and I did become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry was such a big part of my life, just that I could play the Opry stage, everything would happen. So I was typing Pete Fisher, who ran the Opry back then. I dunno, it might sound trivial talking about it, but these, these things have happened, but I’m like, I really believe the power of putting it out there, it will come back to you.” 

Bentley made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry on April 18, 2003 and was officially welcomed as a member on October 21, 2005.