More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Becoming an astronaut, someone who reliably makes good decisions when the consequences really matter, takes more than a phone call. It’s not something anyone else can confer on you, actually. It takes years of serious, sustained effort, because you need to build a new knowledge base, develop your physical capabilities and dramatically expand your technical skill set. But the most important thing you need to change? Your mind. You need to learn to think like an astronaut.
It encompasses ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything.
Ultimately, I don’t determine whether I arrive at the desired professional destination. Too many variables are out of my control. There’s really just one thing I can control: my attitude during the journey, which is what keeps me feeling steady and stable, and what keeps me headed in the right direction. So I consciously monitor and correct, if necessary, because losing attitude would be far worse than not achieving my goal.
To me, it’s simple: if you’ve got the time, use it to get ready. What else could you possibly have to do that’s more important? Yes, maybe you’ll learn how to do a few things you’ll never wind up actually needing to do, but that’s a much better problem to have than needing to do something and having no clue where to start.
People tend to think astronauts have the courage of a superhero—or maybe the emotional range of a robot. But in order to stay calm in a high-stress, high-stakes situation, all you really need is knowledge.
We practice what we’ll do if there’s engine trouble, a computer meltdown, an explosion. Being forced to confront the prospect of failure head-on—to study it, dissect it, tease apart all its components and consequences—really works. After a few years of doing that pretty much daily, you’ve forged the strongest possible armor to defend against fear: hard-won competence.
Like most astronauts, I’m pretty sure that I can deal with what life throws at me because I’ve thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That’s the power of negative thinking.
Early success is a terrible teacher. You’re essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can’t do it. You don’t know how.
expeditionary behavior, which
ability to parse and solve complex problems rapidly, with incomplete information, in a hostile environment—was not something any of us had been born with. But by this point, we all had it. We’d developed it on the job.
lay of the land,
other side, they were kicking it with all their might. But the Russian engineers had taped, strapped and sealed our docking module’s hatch just a little too enthusiastically, with multiple layers. So we did the true space-age thing: we broke into Mir using a Swiss Army knife. Never leave the planet without one.
don’t assume you know everything, and try to be ready for anything.
aiming to be a zero is a good game plan. My goals had been modest—fulfill my responsibilities to the best of my ability, and not distract or cause any trouble for anyone else on the crew—and I’d achieved them.
