A Bit of Optimism - Exploration with Leland Melvin

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Explorers discover new worlds and perspectives that change humanity forever.Leland Melvin has spent his life exploring.  He’s been a rocket scientist, an astronaut, and an NFL player.Now, he’s an educator who uses the dramatic ups-and-downs of his own life to inspire the next generation of explorers.  This is… A Bit of Optimism.For more on Leland and his work, check out: lelandmelvin.com 

When we think of an astronaut, we obviously think of exploration. But perhaps the desire to explore, that sense of curiosity, is what makes an astronaut. In fact, that sense of curiosity is what makes somebody have a remarkable life. Nobody embodies that more than Leland Melvin. He's been a professional football player. He's been a scientist. And yes, he's been an astronaut. And he has this insatiable curiosity, this optimism, and this desire to see things and do things that he's never done before.

And the results are absolutely inspiring. This is a bit of optimism. Can I just tell you how good it is to see you? One of the main reasons I wanted you to come on the podcast is because I just wanted to see your beautiful face and talk to you because I freaking miss you. And that's why I accept it. The same. For my beautiful face? Exactly. Exactly.

But, you know, the other thing is when we come together, it goes everywhere, but it usually ends up trying to solve a problem or think about a problem or something positive. And I think that's always been what's aligned us in this bit of optimism, right? It's always been about the future. And don't hold your phone up while you're watching a shuttle take off, because you're not going to experience it the best way. Okay, we have to give the audience context. So Leland and I go way, way back. We've known each other a bunch of years. We have to give the audience context. So Leland and I go way, way back. We've known each other a bunch of years.

And when you were still working at NASA, you invited me to watch a shuttle launch. So I went down to Cape Canaveral. And there I am standing at the same stand that they watched the Apollo missions launch. It was incredible and amazing. And as a nerd, it was magical. And as the shuttle is launching, I'm holding the phone to my side. The screen is not in front of my face. I'm holding the screen to the side. So I'm fully present, enjoying it. But I am videoing the shuttle is launching, I'm holding the phone to my side. The screen is not in front of my face. I'm holding the screen to the side, so I'm fully present enjoying it.

But I am videoing the shuttle launch. And you got mad at me for having my camera up during the shuttle launch. And I have to stress, it wasn't in front of my face. And you gave me grief for it. Then I think it was only a few months later, I remember the email saying, hey, do you have that footage? But you know, Simon, I really wanted you to experience it the best. You did have some good footage, by the way. I had some great footage. So, okay, let's go back to the beginning here. You said that one of the reasons you wanted to come on here is because you and I are both optimists and we both love to solve

problems. We're both curious and we both care about the world. True, true, and all true. Right. I got to meet the head of human space flight at NASA. And I asked him, what is the most important criterion in choosing someone who joins the astronaut corps? And he said, oh, easy. They have to be nice. Wow. I know. I know. And when you think about it, you're going to put a bunch of people in a tiny little space for a week to months. And I guess they have to get along. And I've had the opportunity to meet a few astronauts, primarily through you,

and they are all really, really nice. Okay. Spoiler alert. Yeah, I know. Spoiler alert, I'm sure. But the big thing that I'm really curious about is they're all really calm and i assume that's really important too because it's a high pressure invite they're all super calm and they all seem to have an optimism or worldview like why can't we all just get along a is that true is that sort of a theme i probably not all astronauts but on balance that there is optimism and calm and a desire that we all get along and And where does that come from? Why do they have it more than the rest of us?

I think a lot of that is like your life experiences. And many of the astronauts have always wanted to be astronauts. A lot of their grounding in what it means to be a good astronaut comes from doing the research, doing the work, talking to other astronauts and finding out what is the right stuff, reading the books, all of that stuff. So I think they had an expectation of how they had to be to fit in to the right stuff. But for people like me who never, when I went down to do my interview, I had to read books about what it means to be an astronaut because I didn't feel like I knew what it really was. Your career, by the way, you are living proof that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plan.

Right. I mean, you are living proof of having a life plan and how it can go so sideways. So we have to give the brief history of your ridiculous career. So you started off an academic, right? Not as an educator, but I was a research- No, you were a good student. Oh, you mean that's an academic to you as a student? Well, I mean- You have to go to school as a kid and- No, no. Okay. What I'm trying to get to is you never imagined being in the NFL, did you? That wasn't your childhood dream. No. When you were at college, what did you think your path was?

Well, I loved chemistry because my mother gave me an age-inappropriate, non-OSHA-certified chemistry set when I was in middle school, and I blew her living room up. So I had the chops and knew what it took to be a scientist. That's my point. I was right. You wanted to be an academic. You wanted to be a scientist. But also I played sports, football, basketball, and tennis, and I got a football scholarship to Richmond. So I was playing football there, but again, never imagined I had the right stuff or was good enough to go into the NFL. But it's like the little injury that could just keep going. I think I can, I think I can. And ended up getting drafted to the Detroit Lions because we turned a program around. We went from 0-10 to 3-8 to 8-5 in playoffs. And so

that got people's attention. But again, 0-10, my freshman year, NFL, no way, right? Right. But again, it's these little things along the way. Curious George, men in the yellow hat or women in the yellow hat who say, hey, try this, do this. This could be part of your journey. And it could be these little micro things that add to your journey and your career. So you think you're going to be a chemist or a scientist, but you also play sports. You got a sports scholarship. You're on a team that, of course, there's no prospect of going pro because your record is so bad. But you turn that record around, the scouts show up, you get drafted to the Detroit Lions.

Then what happened? I played some preseason games and pulled a hamstring. Hamstrings and wide receivers kind of go hand in hand. So I got cut from Detroit, started graduate school at University of Virginia in material science engineering. And then the Dallas Cowboys picked me up as a free agent for the next season. So I started grad school. They videotaped the courses, no online learning. They just videotaped VHS cassettes, send them to me in Dallas while I'm catching footballs with Danny White and Tom Landry and all this stuff. And I ended up pulling my hamstring for the second time.

And I ended up pulling my hamstring for the second time. And I thank Danny White for, actually, Danny White did an audible from a half speed 10 yard out to take it to the house, take it to the barn, go as fast as far as you can go. And I went forward and I pulled my hamstring the second time. So that was the end of my football career. And then I went back to grad school, got my master's and went to work for NASA, which every former NFL player does, right? They go work for NASA. Exactly. Exactly. That is the normal career path. And so you're now working at NASA doing what? I'm developing optical fiber sensors instead of for communication like you use to get your internet and all that. We're making them to actually go on the space shuttle to sniff for oxygen leaks, hydrogen leaks and oxygen leaks on those tanks. And so we're developing these sensors and things.

And my buddy, Charlie Camarda, who got into the astronaut program, he flies John Young, who's flown in every vehicle. I know John Young. Bob Crippen and John Young were the first two guys to fly the space shuttle. Exactly. So John Young is sitting in front of me. You didn't know that I knew that, did you? I knew you knew, because you know everything space. Space, what, Indiana Jones and Star Wars. Anything with those two and then NASA, you know, right? Usually you'd call it Star Trek. I'm impressed. Oh, wow. I'm working hard to come up to your level, man. So John Young comes to visit. And I'm telling him about my research and all this stuff.

And he falls asleep. And he's sleeping the whole time that I'm talking. And then he wakes up. And he says, Leland, man, that's some great work you're doing. You know, you got in the plot of the space program. You know, you're doing great work. And he says, Charlie, let's get the work you're doing. You know, you got to apply to the space program. You know, you're doing great work. And he says, Charlie, let's get the hell out of here and fly back to Houston. They flew in on the T-38.

And so I met them at the Air Force Base. We walked over and I saw this T-38 taking off. And I'm like, wow, Charlie gets to do that? And he's not a pilot? That's when I applied to the astronaut program. And you got in. And I got in. So you got into the astronaut corps. You I applied to the astronaut program. And you got in. And I got in. So you got into the astronaut corps.

You made it through the astronaut corps, because not everybody who gets into the astronaut corps gets to fly. And you flew on the Atlantis. Twice, yeah. But getting there, Simon, I mean, the other part of this story is I got injured and lost my hearing in a training accident. And the doctors did emergency surgery, went in and couldn't find what the culprit was. And they told me that I would never fly in space.

Even my astronaut bud said, you will never fly in space. They will never let you fly because you got injured. You got hearing back in your right ear, but nothing in your left. And we don't know what the smoking gun is. So why are we going to let you fly? Because what if you got up there and you couldn't hear and you caused everyone to perish? But I stayed with it. I kept going. I worked in education at NASA headquarters where we met. You came into the swag locker and you're like, hey, I want that thing. And I want this. And I want this. And I want this. Well, that's not quite how it started. You invited me to speak at a conference.

And the head of education for NASA, Leland Melvin, invited me to have breakfast with him before I spoke. You don't know this, but when NASA called me, they called me and said, would you come and speak at an education conference? And I said, wait, NASA? They went, yeah, NASA. I said, how much do I have to pay you? I was so excited to do it. And it was just a joy to be a part of it and to do something for NASA. That was a childhood dream for me. And the fact that you and I got to meet and become friends was my goodness, talk about good luck. So you ended up overcoming your injury and then you've been to space twice. So the thing that I love about you, and this is my favorite thing about you, and I think there's two things that I think everybody needs to learn from you.

One is you are living proof of good news, bad news, who knows? I've told this story a number of times. It's a metaphor for the infinite game. And it's a Chinese story told many different ways. This is the way I know it, of a young man who's born with remarkable talent for riding horses. And everybody in the village says, you're so lucky. And the monk says, we'll see. And then he breaks his leg and his riding career is destroyed. And everybody in the village says, you're so unlucky. And the monk says, we'll see. And then war breaks out and all the young men are sent to battle, but he can't go

because of his busted leg. And everyone in the village says, oh my God, you're so lucky. And the monk says, we'll see. And this is your career. It's this wonderful, incredible, bumpy path where things that seem to end your career open up doors for new careers. You might have played in the NFL for 15 years and you would never have visited space. It was only because you pulled a hamstring twice that you even showed up at NASA. And I think the idea of viewing one's life as a journey, not as a series of events, you are living proof of that. And you've lived this and continue to live this magical life because I think you have that mentality.

I'm not saying you didn't get sad when bad things happened. Where did that come from? Did you go into depression before you found the next path? How come it worked like it did for you? It can't just be luck. I mean, we talk about grit and resilience and mindset, all these things and your why, knowing what your why is. I think all of those books have elements of what gives you that ability to not give up. And then also the perspective that you have, you know, your worldview, your life perspective. When you say I had, what was it that you were able to,

and maybe you weren't able to stay positive. Maybe it was the people around you. I don't know, like where did your grit come from? But I think for the football stuff, that was never really my why. It was a cool thing to get drafted and make some money and be around these people. But that wasn't really what was at the core of what I was. I mean, I was always this nerd, you know, blurred, you know, black nerd that was tinkering, making stuff, blowing stuff up. And so I think that's why I was probably not that sad

that I didn't make it in the NFL, but then that opened up other opportunities for me. And I think as we meander on this journey, the little things that you try over here and the little things that you try over here help shape you to get to that truth source of journey where you want to be. And I think also my parents, you know, I saw my parents in Lynchburg, Virginia, during the civil rights movement, all the things that happened to them, they had to keep going because they had a family they had to take care of, just injustice, racism, you know, all these things. But my dad, I never saw him really like down, you know, and he probably did that with my mom when I wasn't around, but it was this ability to just keep rising and keeping the perspective.

So I think about Harriet Tubman. I mean, think Harriet Tubman's a slave. She escapes, gets to freedom. And she says, I'm going back to get my family. The guy says, you can't do that. She says, watch me. Not I'm going to do it. Watch me do it because I'm doing it. And so this legacy and history of people that have overcome these odds through all of this Southern Jim Crow stuff, I think builds a certain resilience in people, in me. I mean, not people, in me. And I appreciate that your dad modeled optimism. Always. I'm sure he had a lot of emotion, but as you said, he modeled optimism for you and it stuck.

It'll work out, stuck. I know this about you. When I'm in a dark place or I'm struggling with something, you're one of the first people I call because you'll work it through with me and you're so good at modeling optimism for those around you. I mean, one of the things that you do is you do a lot of stuff for kids. A lot of former astronauts do all kinds of things and you've always put a lot of your attention to kids. Do you think that's what it is? Is it trying to perpetuate your parents' legacy? Definitely. I mean, my parents, between the two of them, had 60 years of teaching in Lynchburg. And there are people that come up to me, I moved back to Lynchburg to be with my dad

and he passed the next day. But the things he said to me, he said, get married, have some kids, get some land and take care of your mother. But within that, it's like, take care of the community, take care of the people around you. And one of the people that he showed up at the prison, when this guy was getting out of jail, he showed up with a car and a job. And he said, you need this car to get to the job I got you. It costs $100. But if you get in trouble, you're going to give me the car back and give me the $100 back. And I went to this guy's wedding about three months ago. He's getting married. And my father's legacy was all in that wedding. And I saw the optimism that he had because of my dad. And so how do I even begin to do what my parents did in this community? I'm just chipping at it. I'm doing a little bit here and there and whatever. But 60 years of instruction into the people that are now telling me, if it wasn't for your father, I'd have been in drugs, in jail, dead, whatever.

I would have been pregnant. I would have been this, I would have been that. You know, it's just I'm constantly getting fed this playbook that my parents instilled here. Your dad is the living embodiment of what it means to live an infinite life, right? Right. Because our lives are finite, but life is infinite. And I was walking Hollywood Walk of Fame not that long ago, and I was reading these names. And in their day, these were the most famous people in the world,

actors and directors and producers and writers, and I'd heard of none of them. And it sort of occurred to me, it's like, you know, think of Ryan Reynolds or Samuel L. Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, you know, they have their names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And in 50 years or 60 years from now, no one will know who they are. And so no matter how much fame or fortune you achieve in this lifetime, it is only valuable in this lifetime. And yet it's people like your dad who had such a profound impact in the life of the people around them who lived lives of service, who lived a life of service that he literally is living on beyond his own life. He lived an infinite life. His star

continues to shine where his legacy is showing up in somebody else's wedding and he's not even there to attend is I think what it means to live a life of service. The other theme that's in your life is there were always people who gave you a second chance. Tell me the names of one or two of them who they shouldn't have, but they believed in you or saw something in you and they're like, all right, we're going to do this one more time. Dr. Bill Myers was my chemistry professor at the University of Richmond. My freshman year, I got kicked out of school for allegedly cheating. So the professors are connected to the Honor Council, right? And he found out about this, got me back in school, told me that you're going to have to work for me as a research assistant

until you graduate. Okay. I'm playing football at Richmond, taking all these other courses, and I'm having to go to chemistry lab two or three times a week to be his assistant. And he came to every one of my football games. He came to both of my shuttle launches. And when he was in the hospital with cancer, brain cancer, I was there pushing him around the hospital. And he said, when are you getting married? When are you carrying that legacy on? He's still doing it. And so he's one. And then Rich Williams, who was the doctor, the flight surgeon, that gave me the chance to get back on flight status. He didn't have to do that. We had plenty of astronauts that could fly, they had perfect vision, perfect hearing. So in taking a chance on me could have jeopardized

things, but he believed in me because I didn't give up. I kept working. Remember, I worked in education. We hired three teachers to become astronauts. And one of those teachers, Joe Acaba, is now the chief of the astronaut office. Just think about that. He gave me this shot because he believed in me when many people didn't. Have you modeled that behavior yourself? Are you good at giving other people a second shot? Always. It's sometimes the disenfranchised that don't get the first shot because of whatever situation that people see them in. And that's probably one of your best employees that they get a shot. You think about second chances. I mean, instead of firing an employee, you give them the second shot and they're your star because they

didn't get fired for doing this thing or whatever happened. They're your best employee. It comes with some nuance, right? Because as I'm listening to your stories, there's accountability built in. Your professor, when he gave you a second chance, he made you be his research assistant for four years. When your dad took a chance on the guy who got out of prison, he said, here's your car and it cost a hundred bucks, but if you screw this up, you owe me the car and you owe me the hundred bucks. There was accountability built in all of these things. The second shots aren't free.

Right. But I think so many people don't give that second chance at all. They won't even contemplate it even with the caveats. Which is ironic, right? Because if you think about it, if every single one of us can close our eyes and think back to junior high school or high school and think of that one teacher who saw something in us that others didn't see, who believed in us more than others, that in some way, shape, or form helped us be who we are today. Mine were Mr. D'Ambra, Doc Sharatsky, Professor Jacobson in college.

These people who gave me multiple second chances. Professor Jacobson, I'm not very good. This is a terrible thing to admit publicly, but I'm not very good at being told what to do. And so the worst grades I got in college were all of my course requirements because I had to take them and had no choice. I wanted to be an anthro major. And so I had to take intro to whatever, right? Taught by Professor Jacobson. And Jacobson, because you can read about the professors in the review book, and he was renowned for being a really tough professor. And he was renowned for never, ever, ever giving extra credit or second chances or anything. It was like a known thing. When you get these intro classes, they do them on rotation. And so I got Professor Jacobson. I was like a known thing. When you get these intro classes, it's like they do them on rotation. And so I got Professor Jacobson. I was like, duh. I did so badly in that class.

And I remember he would ask about the reading and I would try and bumble an answer. And then he'd look at me in the middle of the class and goes, did you do the reading or not? He called you out? I would say, no. This is a terrible thing. So we had a final paper to write and I didn't write it. And I know he doesn't give second chances. And I went to talk to him and he gave me a second chance. He let me write the paper late and I still didn't write it. I was a freshman or maybe I was a sophomore. Anyway, so I still didn't write it. And the guy gave me a D. He didn't flunk me. He gave me a D.

And I don't know why, but he did. And I went to see him. And I sat down with him after the semester was over. And I said, I know you think I'm an idiot. He goes, I don't think you're an idiot. He goes, I said, no, no, I know you think I'm an idiot. And so I want you to know I've signed up for another one of your classes, because I'm going to prove to you that I'm not an idiot. And I took another class, and I ended up getting an A in his class and he ended up becoming my advisor. But the question is, who do we take bets on? Are they random people or are they people that we see a little bit of ourselves in them? Not everybody who screws up gets a second chance, you know, who works with you. Some people do. I think if someone exhibits that they have integrity, that they care about others, exhibits that they have integrity, that they care about others, and that this could have been that one-off thing that was just a bad day. It was a bad moment. Maybe they were in a bad space.

Maybe something at home is happening. With COVID and all these other things, there's so much layered into how people are feeling now. And so maybe they just need that one little picnic or asking the question, hey, how do you feel? No, how do you really feel? Hey, what's going on in your life? You know, getting to know what that person's all about. And that can also lead to you to giving them a second chance, finding out more about your people. I'm curious about these life changes, right? Were you the same person after you came back from space after your first trip? Were you the same person after you came back from space after your first trip?

I mean, you spent a week in space. Who were you when you launched and who were you when you landed? I launched as a curious explorer, not connected to the planet. I was connected in micro locations. You know, if you go somewhere, you feel connected here. But in space, you have this perspective shift called the overview effect, where you're going around the entire planet every 90 minutes. You see a sunrise and a sunset every 45 minutes. And I was doing this while breaking bread with people we used to fight against, Russians, Germans, the first female commander. It was like a Benetton commercial in space, African-American, Asian-American, French, German, Russian, the first female commander. And we're floating food to our mouths and we're listening to Sade's smooth operator at 17,500 miles per hour. And we were flying over Lynchburg, my hometown, where I am right now, looking down, having a meal up there. And I'm thinking my parents are probably having meatloaf

and mashed potatoes. And we're flying five minutes later over Paris. And Leo Eihart is saying, yeah, my parents are probably having wine and cheese. And Yuri, who's Russian, looks off to Moscow. My parents are probably having borscht. I mean, in this little short span of time, we're in multiple time zones and thinking about what people are eating while we're eating. And it's just mind-blowing. So you come back, and if you didn't want to do things to help the planet, help people, before, you come back because you feel connected to the entire, not just planet, the universe. So the overview effect is a real thing. I know there's some astronauts that said that they didn't experience that.

I don't see how they didn't because of the enormity of now their perspective on the planet. Google Maps can't give it to you. Google Earth cannot give it to you. It's experiential. It's visual. 8K cameras can't give it to you. You got to see it with these. These are the best. It's not just the seeing, it's visual 8k cameras can't give it to you you got to see it with these these are the best it's not just the seeing it's the feeling feeling right and hearing feeling it hearing the sounds

of the motors and the the things that are whirring and moving and because you don't hear anything fruit outside but it's like this experiential thing and you hear someone on the comms speaking in Russian and speaking in French. And so you're in this world machine spaceship going around the world. It's so experiential, man. For those who don't know, the overview effect is this thing that a lot of astronauts experience where you look down on the planet, you see no borders, you see no lines, you see only the earth. And you ask yourself the question, why can't we all just get along? We're all one people, one planet. You don't see any political borders, you see geographical borders. And that's because the map that you're used to looking at has

Latvia, Uzbekistan, and now you've got just beautiful mountain ranges and volcanoes and oceans and snow-capped mountains. And just, it blows your mind, Simon. Do you think we will inhabit the moon or Mars? Yeah. Will we land on Mars in our lifetime? I think we will land on Mars in our lifetime. Yes. Yeah, you and me. You and I are getting older. Our lifetime, you and me. I've got a birthday coming up in a few, man.

It's getting close to that. Oh, I know. Trust me. We're closer to the day we're going to die than the day we were born. I know. I know, right? I think it's going to happen, though,

because, I mean, right now, we're doing so much in our power to have people living on the moon. They're picking crews. There's a short list for the next mission to go around the moon and then the ones that are going to be walking back on the moon and building habitats. I think the Mars thing, maybe 10 to 15 years, people living on the Martian planet. But the Martian planet is so aggressive. Space is so aggressive. It is so inhospitable. It raises the philosophical

question, we're investing all this time and energy to figure out how to live in an inhospitable place, a place that does not, Mars does not want us and the earth does want us. The question is, why can't we invest that kind of energy in making the earth continue to support human life rather than trying to go to a place that is inhospitable to human life. We did something recently where we launched a rocket back in November of 21 to an asteroid, the DART mission, 7 million miles away. We slammed into an asteroid. We don't want to be the dinosaurs. We really don't want to be the dinosaurs where the Yucatan Peninsula turns into a firestorm of smoke and fury and everything's gone. Everything gets wiped. We

get an ice age. So do we put the money into planetary protection from asteroids? Do we look at building systems for heating and cooling on other planets that will never fail. So maybe we can, if we did go to a place where the climate is changing, we're heated up, that we're going to be a barren Mars-like planet and we need those systems that will work here. That's the whole thing about exploration, Simon, is that we sometimes don't know why we're going to need that push to go there, but it eventually ends up, I mean, look at the spinoffs from us going to the moon, hard pacemakers, smoke detectors, all of these things that people were back then, they were Ralph Abernathy and a bunch of people

were at the launch for the moon landing saying, we've got people that are dying. We've got people that don't have food to eat. But I think if you have a balance of an exploration budget and a balance of taking care of people also back on the planet, then there's some healthy balance between the two that we need to- How did pacemakers come from the space program? Because you were monitoring everyone's heart while you were up there. Ah. And so because you needed everyone's vitals to see if they're freaking out, if they're...

So the pacemaker was a byproduct of those monitors of the heart, from what I understand. There's a whole book that's published every year from NASA called NASA Spinoffs, all the things that have come from space exploration. In the most beautiful, elegant way, this takes us full circle back to where we started talking about your folks and living an infinite life. So many of the investments we make

are for short-term gain or to stop a short-term problem. But the whole point of exploration is to risk our lives very often, but definitely our bounty, our blood and our bounty, to go discover and the unknown discoveries that come out of those things. And your point about like learning to create

heating and cooling systems that can last in every condition and last forever, hopefully we'll never need them back on earth. But what if, or even if it's just to serve those who are suffering drought or famine, that we figured out this technology because of the space program and because of exploration. And we think about exploration even before we went to space, like the discoveries of science and language just when we were circumnavigating the earth. And that was shared across cultures for the good of humankind. And so I think this is a beautiful way of thinking about what the value of exploration is and not just going to space, which is we should all be curious and we should all explore and we should all do things

that make us uncomfortable and we should all do things that are unfamiliar because you just don't know what you're going to learn. And sometimes you'll learn a little and sometimes you'll get a lot. And the point is to go out there and keep at it. What a beautiful circle we've gone around here. The other thing, Simon, is that when kids are young, they look up at the night sky. They look up. They're not looking at a pad. They're looking up. And the curiosity around exploration is, I think, one of those critical things that we do. We're wired as human beings to be explorers.

Our DNA has this exploration in it. John Young told me this at a social function after my interview. He said, Leland, he says, once we stop exploring as a civilization, we will falter. We will die. And he was just like, deadpan, we will die. And so we must explore whatever that exploration is. Oceans, Mars, Tatooine, you know. Look at you with the drop in the Star Wars. Look at you. You taught me a little bit, you know. You don't even know who's from Tatooine though, do you?

I do know, but I'm not going to tell you. Who? Who? When we started this conversation, you said, when you and I get together, at some point, we get all optimistic and want to solve problems. And we've done that. We've come to the end of this conversation full of optimism, solving problems, that exploration matters, risk matters, discomfort matters, and most important, going on those journeys with friends you love. I love you so much.

It's so good to see you. You too, brother. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like to learn more about the topic you just heard, please check out the Optimism Library at simonsenik.com, where you can get access to more than 35 undemandemand classes about leadership, culture, purpose, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.