Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - An Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible | Mike Massimino

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

What drives us to pursue impossible dreams, fail repeatedly, and keep trying?Our guest, former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, truly embodies the spirit of never giving up.Despite a fear of heights, bad eyesight, multiple rejections from NASA, and other setbacks, Mike's unwavering determination led him to perform heroic spacewalks to repair the Hubble Telescope and to send the first-ever Tweet from beyond Earth’s atmosphere.But how did he maintain his persistence? What psychological skills did Mike need to master to face down failure after failure and keep reaching higher?This conversation isn't just about outer space; it's about the space within us all that holds the power of persistence, teamwork, and awe.Mike's journey from New York neighborhood to NASA is a testament to the extraordinary feats we’re all capable of achieving. His story is a beacon of hope for anyone who's ever been told they can't. And he's here to share the wisdom gained from a lifetime of looking up and stepping forward into the unknown.So, as we embark on this journey with Mike Massimino, prepare to be inspired, to learn, and to see our own challenges a little differently. Because sometimes, reaching for the stars teaches us more about ourselves than we ever imagined.I’m excited for you to apply what Mike has to teach us!_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. There's a lot to it. It's not just being smart or being the best athlete

or being the best looking. It's what's inside of you. One in a million is not zero. So if your chances are one in a million, which they are in just about anything you might try, that means you stand the chance. You really can't control what the outcome of your effort is going to be. You can only control your effort. All the successful people that I've met, they're not people who never fail. They're people who never let failure stop them. Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist.

And today, I want you to ponder a question that goes to the heart of human ambition and resilience. What drives us to pursue impossible dreams, to fail repeatedly, and to keep trying? Our guest, former NASA astronaut, Dr. Mike Massimino, embodies the spirit of never giving up. Despite a fear of heights, bad eyesight, multiple rejections from NASA, and a host of other setbacks, Mike's unwavering determination led him to embarking on multiple spacewalks, repairing the Hubble's telescope, and sending the first ever tweet from beyond Earth's atmosphere. How about it? But how did he

maintain his persistence? What psychological skills did Mike need to master to face down failure after failure and keep reaching higher? This conversation isn't just about outer space. It's about the space within us that holds the power of persistence, teamwork, and awe. Mike's journey from a New York neighborhood to NASA astronaut is a testament to the extraordinary feats we are all capable of achieving. His story is a beacon of hope for anyone who's ever been told they can't. And he's here to share the wisdom gained from a lifetime of looking up and stepping forward into the unknown. As we embark on this journey

with Mike, I hope you'll be inspired to see your own challenges a little differently. So with that, let's dive into this extraordinary conversation with Mike Massimino. Mike, I am so stoked to sit down with you. And before we get started, just how are you? I'm all right. How are you doing, Mike? Yeah, I'm good. When you say all right, what does that mean? It means I'm A-OK. Everything's fine. I'm doing OK. I'm hanging in there. It's a busy day, but trying to get things done. It's getting close to the holidays. But no, we're managing doing well. Look, your body of work and what you've done,

like it's incredible. I could stop after the first one PhD from MIT. Like, okay. But then Nobel Prize winner? No, I'm not a Nobel Prize winner. I'm not a Nobel Prize winner. No. How did I get that wrong?

I don't know. Talk to the publicist no we i'm not a nobel prize winner maybe you want to get another guy in here no i uh we worked i worked on the hubble and uh i think where that confusion came from was that uh we i installed an instrument on my first spacewalk or actually my second spacewalk on my first flight, that was the advanced camera for surveys that was used for the discovery of dark energy. They thought that dark energy existed, but they needed to take some more readings to verify and confirm that. And so we installed this instrument that they used to confirm the existence of dark energy. And that led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize for the astronomers involved.

So the work they did gave them the tools they needed to make that discovery. But no, the Nobel Prize in physics, I have not won that. That went to three astronomers, although they're very appreciative. When I see them, occasionally I'll see these guys from that team, and they'll say, oh, thank you very much for what you're doing, and we couldn't have done it without you, and thanks for risking your life and all that. But they're not going to share the Nobel Prize.

That's theirs. So I just want to make really clear that I did not win the Nobel Prize. You know what's really good about that is like, okay, sorry for the miscue, and I feel a little bit better about myself. Yeah. I really haven't done much then. I wouldn't worry about it. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You guys, I think it's my publicist was a little overzealous with my biography. Yeah. That's not your fault. Yeah.

No. Okay. Good. That's what was told to you, but it's, yeah. But it does not take away from MIT. I've tried to correct that, Mike. Yeah. But that's different than the Nobel Prize. That is different was told to you, but it's – But it does not take away PhD from MIT. I'm trying to correct that, Mike. Yeah, but that's different than the Nobel Prize. That is different, right.

Yeah, yeah. But no one is going to want to listen anymore. Like, oh, we got this guy. Now we're throwing him out. This guy is anybody. No wonder. Anybody can not win the Nobel Prize. Yeah, anyone can go to space a couple times.

Anyone can not win that. It really takes a lot of effort to win the prize, but not to win the prize is not a big deal. But we did, I think, contribute what we did in space, contributed to that discovery, which led to the Nobel Prize. So that's why. Did you always want to be a spacewalker? I wanted to be an astronaut since I was a little kid. But once reality started setting in, and I'm old enough to remember Neil Armstrong on the moon, so I was six years old when that happened. By the time I was eight years old, I crossed it off the list of possibilities. I grew up in a nice working class neighborhood.

People worked hard and had good parents and all that, but it wasn't like I knew anyone who would grow up to do anything like be an astronaut. That seemed a little over the top. I was afraid of heights. My eyesight went bad when I was young, so I needed glasses at an early age. I didn't see myself growing up to be Neil Armstrong. So it's something that I was always interested in, but I never thought it would be possible. How do you do stuff like that? It wasn't until I was in college that I started thinking more about just working in the space program and seeing what I want to do. And I didn't do much about it right after college. I waited a couple of years, but then I went to grad school and started to pursue not only

the astronaut program, but also a career in the space program. I thought that was doable. Now, becoming an astronaut, I thought still was impossible. But I thought at least I could do something in the space program. Were you, like growing up, were you the neighborhood underdog? Or were you like, that kid's going to do something special? You guys what? Like that kid, hey, you know, Mike, you're different now. Like you're different than everyone.

You're going to do something special. I don't think I was the underdog. And I don't think I different than everyone. You're going to do something special. I don't think I was the underdog, and I don't think I was the guy they thought was going to do anything special either. I think what happened is, I'll give you an example, Mike. When I went back to my elementary school, right? This is back in, I was 35 years old. I'd been an astronaut for a couple of years. So some of my teachers were still there, right? My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Oko, was still there. She was a young teacher when I had her, and now she was more seasoned.

And so I had lunch with her. And when I saw her, she said, you know, my son, she had two boys. And she said, I think they were like 10 and 12 or something like that, and she said that she told her kids when they were having breakfast that I'm going to see one of my former students, and he's an astronaut. And so one of her sons said, wow, he must have been really smart, right? And Mrs. Oko said, well, I'm sure he was bright, but if he was really smart, I would have remembered.

So I didn't think, you know, I wasn't the smartest kid in the class. And then she went on to say, but that's not always what's, I told my sons, that's not what's important. You know, that what's important is hard, you know, other things, you know, like working hard and doing your best and things like that. And so I think I was seeing more like that. Although I will say though, Mike, that one of the things that did help me and encourage me is that, you know, along the way, there might've been people that, you know, didn't think that good things could happen or, you know, weren't necessarily encouraging, but I tended not to listen to them, which I think was a smart thing. But I did have a couple teachers along

the way and other people that I encountered that did maybe see something in me. I don't think it was like everybody, but I had a social studies teacher. I remember when I was in 11th grade, my parents came back from like the parent's teacher day, night or whatever it was, you know, to meet your teachers. And they had said, you know, your social studies teacher, Mr. Stern, thinks quite highly of you. I'm like, really? And he said he thinks you should go to an Ivy League school. I'm like, what?

That was like the first time that thought was even put in my mind. So I think that it's, I think, important to try to maybe not believe all the bad things that people say and try to, or they say, don't really say anything bad, in my case, but it wasn't like, you know, you're, you're destined for greatness. I don't think we, I don't know if we really know that because it's, there's a lot to it. It's not just being smart. It's, or being the best athlete or being the best looking it's what's inside of you.

And it's hard to see that people don't know. They can't really see what's inside of you. Some people do see it like a teacher or someone else that might see something in you and and luckily i've had enough of those things along the way where it was uh and it inspired me to to try things and to keep going but to answer your question i don't think there's anything not i don't think anyone would say i think if you would have told my friends or whoever anybody any of my teachers that i was going to grow up to be an astronaut they would have been in disbelief so that's cool man including me you would have told my friends or whoever, anybody, any of my teachers that I was going to grow up to be an astronaut, they would have been in disbelief.

That's cool, man. Including me, I would have been in disbelief back then too. Yeah. What I hear you saying is like, you're just kind of rolling. You're kind of like falling to breadcrumbs and doing your thing. You know, like, and then you, I don't know, 30, 40 years later, you remember a moment where somebody said to you, you could fit in in one of the greatest institutions on the planet. Yeah, that wasn't 30 or 40 years later. I mean, that was, I think that that seed was planted. So I went to Columbia as an undergrad.

So I thought, oh, maybe I can go to a really good college. You know, maybe I can do better than I thought I could. And it was interesting, too, even at Columbia, somehow I got an interview with the Dean of Admissions. And if you look at my GPA was okay, my class rank was good, my SATs were okay, but there was really nothing that special. I played basketball, but I wasn't going to be an athlete at the school. I played in a band, but I wasn't going to be a musician at the school. I wasn't coming in with anything that would be extraordinary. And my academic record was solid, but it probably was sort of below average for who they would take. But I think that dean of admissions that I

interviewed with, his name was Roland Hentz. I think he saw something in me. And they let me in the school. And I think they're happy about that now in retrospect. There, and he, and he, they let me in the school and, um, I think they're happy about that now in retrospect, there's a lot of schools that rejected me. I got rejected by a lot of schools too. It was a big drop off there, you know, but, uh, but I got into this, you know, I got, I was fortunate enough to get into the school that I, that I wanted to get into. I think the, um, that was my first choice and I'm always grateful. That really changed my life. I think that changed my thinking about things because going there kind of took me out of my little neighborhood that I grew up in and showed me what was possible at an institution like that. So I think that it's – I wouldn't say that – and I don't know.

I mean, you think back, maybe you can all picture people that we thought were going to be super successful when they were young. And maybe some of them have become. But for the most part, you never really can tell. I don't think. Because, you know, things happen and you have to have some perseverance and grit and be willing to take a chance and keep going. And I think that's what worked for me. I had this lofty goal of being an astronaut. And really, I wouldn't be the person you would think that could go and do that if you met me at any point in my life, really.

But I had the dream and I really wanted to do it. And I think if I can do it, anybody can. It wasn't anything special about me, that's for sure. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort.

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Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal for two full months for free, terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike.

I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving

the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. Okay. So I read that you grew up with a fear of heights. Okay. That's interesting to me. And you were rejected from universities. Okay.

And you were rejected three times before becoming an astronaut. So this is as much about like, how did you work with rejection? How did you work with the vulnerability of putting yourself in a situation again and again and again? I don't want to preload an answer in any way. Like just with those conditions, if I just did a blanket question, like how did you do that? Well, one of the things I write about is that I came to the realization that one in a million is not zero. It's just a small number. So if your chances are one in a million, which they are in just about anything you might try, that means you stand the chance. And I felt like what I was trying to do was somewhat impossible. There was a moment when I was in grad school and I was taking a study break

and I turned on the TV and the Academy Awards were on and they were doing a downlink with the space shuttle. So the astronauts were kind of goofing around, floating around with an Oscar statuette with Billy Crystal down on the ground, you know, talking to him. And it was kind of funny, but what got me was I was just looking at those astronauts and they're floating there on my TV set. And I knew with clarity that's what I wanted to do. There's no doubt in my mind. If I could do anything, not that I would, you know,

if I could choose anything to do with my life, that's the one thing I wanted to do was be one of those people. So I had a hunch that you were going to go to like purpose or like this clarity of a goal. Okay. In that moment, let's go back to that, just that moment when there was a knowing, was your response to that knowing whatever it takes, or was your response more like, man, that'd be awesome. I think maybe, I mean, I think I'm going to work for that. Like, was it a ridiculous amount of commitment or was it a bit softer? Like, how did you work with that kind of lightning bolt knowing or that moment of realization like, oh, this is a direction?

At that point, I had already applied to NASA twice and had been rejected once and was about to get rejected. I knew that and was about to get rejected. I knew that I was going to get rejected the second time because I didn't make the interview list. So I was already trying at that point. But the thought that went into my mind right after that was, after I said, that's what I want to do, the second thought was, but how are you ever going to get to do that? That's impossible. Real people don't do that. That's such a ridiculous dream.

Wait, wait, this is worth pausing on. Your first response was, so you had this moment, you had this lightning bolt awareness like that. And then the first response is, yeah, but that's for people that are different. Yeah. I mean, I never thought that I was going to, I mean, I never, like I hear people say they're going to do things and I'm, and I'm like, okay, but you really can't, you really can't control what the outcome of your effort is going to be. You can only can control your effort. So what I knew was that becoming an astronaut was near impossible.

If you, you know, if you look at like you were reading my back, my back, even without the Nobel prize, you know, you know, they're, they're strong backgrounds. In fact, I don't, we've haven't had people who win Nobel Prizes are too smart to become astronauts maybe. You don't see any M-blasting off into space. You know, they're staying on the ground helping the planet on the ground. But, you know, I knew that it was near impossible. And so I never thought of I'm definitely going to do this.

You know, I'm doing that. And, like, some people tell me that. You know, oh i'm gonna be an astronaut someday i'm like uh you know it depends you know maybe if you buy a ticket they'll let you go but if you want to go through the nasa program you're gonna have to get selected and you're gonna have to show some humility and you're gonna have to be a team player and you're gonna have to do all these other things so you can't really just sign up to do something like that. Right. So, um, I, so I always tried, I always had a respect for the job and for the process and that I knew that it was a really tough thing to, to get the opportunity to do. I felt like I could do the job if I was given the opportunity, but that didn't, there was so much, there was a thousand other people that, that, that could do that as well. So it was more like my realization was, you know, how are you going to – that's impossible.

And what kept me going was that as long as I try, there's a chance. That one out of a million is not a zero outcome. It's a decimal point with a lot of zeros and a one at the end. And that's what I thought of is that the only thing I can control is if I try. Because once I give up that one at the end of that row of zeros, what happens, Mike? It's a zero. It's a zero. And the probability of success is zero.

Zero. And I think about that all the time. This might be unlikely, but it's not impossible. And you need to give yourself a chance to try. And the way I felt about it, Mike, wasn't that I had to become an astronaut because the reality of that was like, I don't know if that approach is going to work. But I knew that I would do everything I could to try. And that, you know, not every, I mean, I wouldn't do anything that would put me in harm's way or jail or anything like that, you know, do something stupid. But I was going to at least try.

And they could keep telling me, no, I could not control what the outcome was going to be, but I could control my effort. And that's what I concentrated on. And so what kept me going was just the realization that as long as I try it as a chance, and if I never get selected, but as long as I'm trying, I'm okay. You know, I will accept that, that they wouldn't select me.

Did you really believe that? Like that's, that's, you're saying, what you're saying is like the, the, the number of like gold nuggets per like 30 seconds that you've just gemmed is, or that shared is like pretty unreal. And so like, these are, oh yeah. Really? Yeah.

So there's so much, there's so much in here. Like we actually have like a real nugget here. Not just these little flakes. Run with it. Yeah. This is, yeah. Run with run with it tell me again all right so um so you but you believed the things that you were saying these were not just like easy phrases to say now no believe them like you really if i'm working towards it and the effort towards it is honest and real. And it's going to keep that 0.00 whatever 1% available. Like, okay.

Right. There you go. And the other thing, Mike, is that what I also felt like is that I felt like I shouldn't do anything just to become an astronaut. I just had one of my students come in yesterday and ask me that he really wanted to be an astronaut. He's thinking of doing this or that. And I'm like, you really shouldn't do this just to be an astronaut because then you start making choices that might not make sense. And if you don't become an astronaut, then that's not a good path.

But I would say even further that by doing things that you're passionate about and interested in will lead you. You have to have like that leap of faith in some ways that if I do what is right for me and my family and what I'm interested in and always keep an eye on the goal though always keep working toward that goal but don't do anything like don't necessarily like if I thought I needed to be a fighter pilot to be to be an astronaut that probably wouldn't be a good reason to become a fighter pilot because there's other way to be the other ways to become an astronaut and you have to pick the path that makes sense to you I think to try knowing that it might not work out.

So I think I thought of it like I want to do the things that I think will help me be a better candidate for them, but also be the things that I want to do that will lead me to a better life. And I remember, Mike, after I was rejected, I was rejected twice outright. Then I got medically disqualified when I got an interview my third try. And my fourth try, I got over the medical issue and was able to reapply. And I got another interview, and I was waiting to hear back. So I waited about six months to get the answer when they were going to announce the class. And in that time period, I remember being on a trip, like a spring break trip with my family.

My kids were small, like six months old and two years old. They were little. I was at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, so we went to, I think it was at San Simon's Island there. I'm probably messing up the name. But we were off one of the islands off the coast of Georgia on a little beach vacation. And I remember thinking clearly that, you know what, I've tried, I've done the best I can. And if I end up right, if they tell me no, again, I'm not in a bad spot, you know, I'll keep trying. But I ended up as a professor at Georgia Tech and family was doing well. And,

you know, I was in a good spot. So approaching that, you know, you mentioned some of the other things I did do, like get my PhD at MIT. That didn't go well. I failed my qualifying exam the first time that I tried to do that to get my doctorate. That was a struggle for me, but I hung in there. I used the space program, the idea of trying to become an astronaut, as motivation to help me do things that I thought were good for me anyway. I tried to get my PhD. I failed, but I tried a second know, I tried to get my PhD, I failed, but I tried a second time and was able to get past it. And then, you know, I was able to get there and then I wanted to work in the space program. I went down to the Johnson Space Center.

So, I mean, you do things to achieve that goal. And even if you don't get the goal, I think it can lead you to a good place. Yeah, I love what you're saying because I'll tell you something, it's like a piece of guidance that I got early on that was really remarkable for me. But like the idea that you're parallel pathing, you know, it's like, it's not even parallel pathing. It's that you're designing your life that if you don't, what's that cheesy phrase?

If you don't, you know, go for the stars and maybe whatever that is. It's too cheesy. But the idea that like it's all working inside of a path. And this gentleman said to me, he's like, Mike, you could do a lot now. He goes, you need a hub. And he says, you could do this, that and the other. He goes, but what are they all going to revolve around? I said, oh, right.

There you go. So the hub for me was kind of this parallel path that we're talking about for you. The hub was like, maybe one of the spokes that I'm really investing in doesn't totally work. But the hub, which was like helping using the psychology of excellence, the psychology of helping people be their very best, was at the center of it. And whether it was going to go into rehab

or it was going to go into the frontier of space or where, it didn't matter. It was like I had a hub. So I could play on the spokes, but the hub was going to keep this thing rolling no matter if the spokes started to break off or fray or not be useful or whatever. So I really like that there's a crosswalk between these two analogies that we're talking about, but I see how you worked. And right underneath of it, when you were rejected,

can you go into one of the moments you rejected, maybe use the MIT moment, not rejected, but where you were faced with difficult information. Failure, if you, well, before we go for that, how do you define failure? You failed if you've given up and you're defeated. But I think that, but I also think failure is, there are failures. I mean, things fail, things don't go well. You fail an exam, I think, and maybe it's in a different sense, maybe. And I think that, you know, failure is okay, I think, as long as it doesn't prevent you from moving on.

I think that all the successful people that I've met, whether it's in astronauts or people in whatever field they're in or people very successful in business or athletes or musicians or whoever, they're not people who never fail. They're people who never let failure stop them. Because everyone's going to meet a bad day. And I've had, I did meet one candidate when I was at Georgia Tech. I was, I just had arrived. And I had been rejected from the astronaut program that third time, medically disqualified. And then I took this job at Georgia Tech and moved from Houston there.

And I was applying again. And one of the faculty members knocked on my door and knew I was a new guy and said, Hey, I heard you applied to be an astronaut. You were like a finalist for being an astronaut. I said, Yeah, I was. He goes, There's a guy over in electrical engineering who also was a finalist. I'm like, No kidding. We interview in groups of 20.

And NASA has like six groups throughout this, however many months. And so there's 120 people that they choose from who are going to be in the class. Right. So I, we both were one of these last 120 people were in the same interview group. I didn't know him, but, uh, but I was like, we got this in common, you know, we're right here. So I rang him up. I was a new guy at the school and he invited, uh, my wife and I, and, school, and he invited my wife and I and my two little kids to go over there, and he had a family. We went to his house for a barbecue, and I was thinking, Mike, this guy, he had it all together.

This guy was really smart. Like, you know, when you were talking about the special thing or seeing people that are special or whatever, this guy was really smart. He was on his way to tenure. Just a really smart dude. So inevitably really smart he was on his way to tenure um just a really smart dude and uh so inevitably i and he was able to multitask he was like flipping burgers and supervising his kids at the same time this guy could do it all you know he's a smart guy so i'm like i so inevitably i said to myself uh if they didn't pick this guy they're never picking me

you know he got rejected there's no way i'm getting in. And, uh, and I asked him, uh, you know, you're going to, you think you're going to apply to the astronaut program again? And, uh, and he puts down his burger flipper, Mike, and he looks at me and he says, no, I've decided I'm not going to apply again. And I said, why wouldn't you try again? Why not? Why not? And he said, uh, well, they rejected me once. I figured they're just going to reject me again. And Mike, I really feel embarrassed to tell you, I did not offer one bit of encouragement for this guy. I just shut up. I said, okay, boy, all right.

I didn't want to say, yeah, oh, that's a smart thing. I didn't say a damn thing. And usually I would say, oh, why not? But I said, just shut up. Just shut up. Keep it cool. Play it cool. Play it cool. I didn't didn't want to be like oh that's a good idea yeah don't apply i didn't say oh yeah you could do it i just i just that burger's burning you know i just i just stayed away from it but but that dude right there you know his his probability of

success went to zero and maybe mine went up a tick i don't know you know yeah right sure but uh what were we talking about mike yeah i think i know on a tangent you well you yeah i love the tangent oh failure we're talking about failure yeah we're talking well that so to your point that's failure yeah that's given i mean hopefully hopefully he made that for the right choice you know he decided it was time we don't know how he was we don't know what happened right but i'm sure i'm sure he made it for the right reasons but for me, he decided it was time. We don't know how he was running. We don't know what happened. Right. But I'm sure he, I'm sure he made it for the right reasons. But for me at that point in my life to make that decision would have been, no, the game's not over yet. So the way I operationalize failure is the unwillingness or inability to go for it. And I'm talking about going for something that matters to you,

like really matters. You know, I call it a failure if you haven't put in the work, you know, because you're not able now or you're unwilling because you haven't squared up with the fear to get to the messy edge and like to take that vulnerable risk to put it on the line, you know, like, and so maybe that was what was happening for him or maybe someone in his family was struggling with a bigger fight, you know, cancer, this, that, whatever. Right. So we don't really know, but I, but I like how we're framing this is that you are not going to have that be part of your narrative. At least that's right. No. Yeah. I was going to go down until the end. I'd still be applying this day. I'm, I'm convinced of that. I was going to continue to try. And the medical disqualification was, was, was disheartening

because I couldn't, they wouldn't read my application any longer. That had to be overcome somehow. So at least they could tell me, no, that, hey, we've got other people we like better. Is it Long Island you're from? Yeah, just outside of Queens, New York, just outside of New York City. Okay. So talk to me about like that neighborhood vibe and how that early community has infused your approach in life. So some of my friends from that, I still have like my friends from when I was five years old in kindergarten.

We're still very good friends and see them quite, now I'm back in New York, I see them quite often, relatively speaking, I see them every once in a while at least. So I think it was a place to form friendships. And the schools we went to weren't probably necessarily rated super great,

but I thought they were great. I think the teachers, there were a lot of good teachers there. But I think about what formed me, my father worked for the New York City Fire Department. So he was a fire inspector. My neighbor was a New York City Fire Department. So he was a fire inspector. You know, my neighbor was a New York City police officer. The guy across the street was a Nassau County policeman as well. And so there was a lot of working class people who were doing things,

I guess, sort of in service of others. You know, there wasn't most of – a couple of my friends had parents that went to college. That was unusual. Most were working hard, doing good jobs and taking care of their families. And that was the most important thing. And I think that that rubbed off on me, I think, especially from my dad, who never had a chance to go to college, but he was a smart guy, but didn't have a chance to go.

And my mom as well was a very good student in high school, but just didn't have a chance to go. And my mom as well was a very good student in high school but just didn't have the chance to go. It wasn't an option for them back then with their families. So they always encouraged me to do that and to do whatever I would know, any activities, and was very supportive of all that stuff. But I think it gave me, as I think of it now, and I think I've only been thinking about this maybe the last few years about it, is it gave me this sense of the importance of service, of doing something that you do in service in others

or for the bigger picture, for the good of the country or the world. And not that that's because you're supposed to do that, but because that's what's fulfilling in life, that you can get gratitude out of that, your self-gratitude. You feel good about yourself. And I felt that with my folks, the way they did things around the community, being involved with different groups around the community and the church and so on, but also from what my dad did for a living

as a fire inspector and as a little kid going to visit the firehouses and meeting the firemen and seeing what they were doing, something that I thought was good. And I felt like getting older that that's what I wanted to do, to do something that was useful. And I think being an astronaut is to me, my interpretation of that was that it wasn't just flying to space. It was doing something in the service of something bigger than you. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple of sponsors that are making this

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You didn't drink the poison of like, I'm better than. And the elite. And you didn't drink it. You've carried those core roots from the neighborhood. And if I were to just ask a more open question, which is like, what have you carried from the neighborhood? What do you hope the neighborhood knows that you've carried with and for them? What would that be? What have you carried? I think it was that,

that doing the right thing, working hard, not doing anything really bad, you know, not screwing other bad, you know, not screwing other people, you know, not being a jerk off or, uh, that, that those things matter, you know, being a good person, working hard, uh, can pay off. And, um, I think that, you know, my, my, my neighborhood friends, and I know there's a lot, there's a few I'm really close with, but there's a lot of them. I know

they've just been great. They raised a petition. My friend Anthony Bruno started this and a bunch of other guys, Billy Sonner and these other guys that I can start naming names here. But, you know, Pat Adamo, Joey Milano, all these other guys got together and they got the street I grew up on, which some of them grew up on as well, with my name on it now. You won't get your mail delivered to my name, but it's Mike Massimino Street. It's still Commonwealth Street.

But what was cool about that, though, Mike, and I think maybe what you're talking about is that these guys were like, the street should be named after Mass. That's my nickname. And that's what I've been called since I was a little kid. I'm still called that. That's always been my name, short for Massimino. To me, that was very meaningful because that was the people I grew up with,

and a lot of them still live in Franklin Square on that street. They're still there. They got married and stayed nearby. It's a very nice community, great community. To me, that was really meaningful. And we had this ceremony and we had a party at one of the guys' houses and on the block and to celebrate. And it was just everybody getting together. And I remember my friend's wife, Billy Saunders' wife, Maria, says, Mass, look at everybody around here. They were so happy today.

I've never seen them. They were so proud of you, what you did. It was like felt that uh they were part of the achievement and they were because they were part of me and they took pride in it so that statement right there is i don't want to run over that statement like that statement that you provided a sense of people hooking in and being part of like you've taken them on the ride and and you've honored the early relationships and insights and knuckleheadedness and support and the way they they've really challenged you and what you've carried forward from that you like that that's a big deal now and that that's something that gets i've i've squared with this um so many times with elite athletes and like, man, I feel like a sellout, you know, or like, I can't do that. I'd be a sellout or, and maybe that is like something that seems very normal for somebody else. And so how do you feel part of something

that's big? Mike, you're, you're, you're educating me. You're absolutely right. This is great, man. No, yeah, I agree. You're right. You're onto something there. That's where it came from. It's more than just a fire department. It's the neighborhood. It was my friend. That's right. Absolutely, because that's what we were like. I'm wondering how that when you got rejected from this, that, or the other, you didn't get in or you failed the test. How much of that, do you consider yourself a fighter or somebody that just figures things out? Or are you more like water off a duck? You're more like a duck where it's like, no, I just keep rolling. Like, no, you know, like how do you, because I want to get the, like the weight and

the spirit of how you, you pull the neighborhood in, um, with you. And there's a concept I want to talk about, which is Maori in concept. And it's called Whakapapa. It looks like Waka Papa. And yeah. And so, but it's this idea that like, I don't know, we're all under the sun together. There's a heritage and a lineage.

And how much time we spend under the sun together is like, it could be seconds. It could be days. It could be years. Like, but we're spend under the sun together is like, it could be seconds, it could be days, it could be years. Like, but we're all under the sun together and you come from a lineage. And that lineage is like meant to give you strength and to know your place in the history of all of the men and women and people that have come well before you. Like there's a place in this lineage. And so I feel like you're living the power of that. And Owen, a dear friend of mine,

he shared this stuff with me and I was like, holy moly, that's rad. And so, where am I going with this? Is how did you bring the neighborhood forward when you were in the throes of hard information, like you didn't get the pass or you didn't get the nod? What you said was, I want to try to get back to that. Let me see if I can get this, because I think it all goes together. The idea of rolling this on this planet together and so on but i i think as far as the the neighborhood went was that um it was this

this sense of uh i you know i wanted to i wanted to be a part of of a group of people that would take care of each other that would always be there for each other no matter what and That's what I wanted as much as to fly in space because the flying in space, it's kind of cool. Now, people pay a lot of money and go up for a few minutes and everything and that's all right. But that's cool. That's great. I think it's a good thing for many reasons, both for science and for experience and all

that. But what I really wanted as much as the opportunity to work in space was to be a part of that team. And so I think what you're making me realize, Mike, is that it did come from a very early age, seeing my dad and seeing the friends that I had of having that team around you. And now you're starting to freak me out right now because what I'm remembering is the feeling when I was a kid you talked about athletes so I was I

was an athlete in high school and there was that certain feeling in the locker room before a game uh you know that you're going to go in this together and you guys have been we've been working we don't know what the outcome is but we're going to stick together I love that feeling and you know I played intramurals and did stuff when i was in in college but i never was i never was part of you know an intercollegiate team or anything like that right so i remember distinctly of going into the locker room at nasa getting ready to go into the pool putting on my fancy long underwear my cooling garment and we were about to get into spacesuits and go down on the water and practice a spacewalk it resurrected that feeling that i was been and i hadn't had since i was in high school and uh i didn't i think that was something i was looking for as well

but i never until this moment might do you charge for this by the way until this moment and i think maybe this is something for the listeners to you know where you and I are having a conversation but yeah but maybe there's something there because that's where it came from it came from where I grew up and uh that's I I you know I wasn't I really didn't feel that I mean it makes it makes perfect sense to me and because I remember that feeling I remember saying and I've said that many times actually that what what what being an astronaut did was got me back that team feeling, that purpose. So going in, we're going to go and we're going to practice the spacewalk together today. It's going to last a whole day.

We're going to go on a flight together. We're going to fly a T-38 across the country. And this is what we're going to do. Let's go get them. That sort of feeling before, in the locker room, before a mission, before going out to play a game or whatever it is in sports, you have that certain feeling of camaraderie and we're together on this. And that's the way it was at NASA. And the other thing you mentioned that I thought was cool and I write about this in the book, there's a chapter called Be Amazed and it talks about my reflections on the planet.

So I'd say how beautiful it is and so on. But the thing that I realized, and what you were talking about earlier, when I was on my second flight, this was toward the end of my second flight after going around the planet a bunch, I realized that my perception of home changed. So when I was a little kid, it was Franklin Square was my home. We didn't really go anyplace. We'd go to visit, you know, the Bronx or relatives in Brooklyn or something like that. But we mainly hung around the town.

So that was my whole world, all my friends, my school, playground, all that was there, right? And then when I went to college and maybe after college and I would travel more, I was a New Yorker. You know, I'm from New York. I'm a New Yorker. And then as an astronaut, I went to work with the American flag on my arm and I identified my home as America. I'm overseas or I'm somewhere else. I'm an American. That's who I was. I'm an American. But what hit me, similar to what you were saying and what I write about is that something happened to me

seeing the planet in the distance and going around it so often I realize everybody I've ever known is is down there they live there or they're there now or who's going to be born that I'm going to meet whoever has lived as far as we know in the whole universe now maybe there's someplace else but right now all we know about is our place they're all here everybody that's ever lived anybody anybody i've ever known that's where i let's everybody has this planet to share and i think of that as home when i think of where i'm from now i think of i think of planet earth and it's a place that all of us share, no matter where we're from. We're all from the same place. It doesn't matter where you're from. This is where we're from.

It's like, if you're not careful, it sounds trite. And if you're not careful, and if you're also not careful, you miss the brilliance in it, right? You miss the tenderness and the strength of the global community. And man, how cool. So I've been fortunate to represent USA across three games. Been able to wear the team jersey, quote unquote, the coach's uniform. And the last one was in Tokyo. And I didn't get the moment where you're in a stadium and you hear the booing when the american uh the usa uh stuff comes up like but when so down in brazil when the usa um

what's our national anthem is played and the whole stadium is like get out of here you know it's like yeah and you just look at you look at your partners and you're like let's go you know let's go yeah yeah and so yeah And I think you were responding like, oh, that's terrible. But that, that, that, that kind of inner team, inner country, high spirit, not a, this is not a bad spirit. You know, this is like a high spirit about the best of the countries competing with each other. It just, it's like, there's a magical feeling, but I haven't had the, that perspective shifter that you've had, which is like intellectually, I am so down with, we are all connected intellectually at a molecular level.

I can get down with the spiritual meets, you know, the nano. And at the same time, like I haven't had that shift to, to feel what you're talking about. So I want to say thank you know, the nano. And at the same time, like I haven't had that shift to feel what you're talking about. So I want to say thank you for kind of holding the standard a bit higher than nationalism for sure, or the national, you know, things for sure. Yeah. Well, I appreciate it, Mike. Thank you. Thanks for getting it out of me. It was good. Yeah, that was really good. Okay. So,, the subtitle of your book is really important, right? So the title, obviously, it's awesome and it's perfect for you. Moonshot, it's perfect. And NASA Astronaut's Guide to Achieving the Impossible. So when you start throwing around

the word impossible, my antenna are tuned and I go, right. So I think everything we've been talking about here is really about some of the substrate or the raw material that has allowed you to explore the impossible. And so can you open this up a little bit about how you think about the impossible, some of the ways that you've been talking about it? And I want to drill down into the psychology or psychological skills that you found to be, you know, necessary or required to operate well in extraordinary environments or complicated consequential environments. I guess when I think of the impossible, it's like some challenge when you first think of it

or whatever it might be. It could be something around the house or it can be trying to do something even with your family or maybe it's trying to make a huge change in your phase of life to do something different or go to school or whatever. Do something that seems impossible, I think that that's when it gets interesting. And that's where you realize it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be worthwhile.

And is this worth putting in the effort and the time into something that we might not succeed at? We might not end up at the end of the time into something that we might not succeed at. We might not end up at the end of the day winning or the outcome that we want, but the pursuit of it is important enough that we're going to give it a go. And then I think there's certain things that I've learned in my pursuit of becoming an astronaut, which is kind of covered a little bit in the book about the persistence part with the one in a million that we talked about is not one of them is not zero, but also the things that I learned along the way to be successful once you get

the job, because I think, you know, a lot of times we get that position that we want, you know, Hey, I've made it to this school or to this firm or this job that I've wanted, or I'm now going to whatever that opportunity is. And you've gotten it. You've worked really hard to get there. This is no time to relax. It's only the real challenge is only beginning.

Once you're given that opportunity, you know, what are you going to do with it? And I think that the lessons that I, that I learned at NASA were so valuable to me in being able to succeed and get through the missions and the spacewalks and the training and complete the missions that were some of the things we thought were impossible to do, we were able to accomplish them. And it wasn't that there was anything special about me or any of my teammates or the people we worked with. It's just that we had these certain principles, these certain things that we followed. We had a certain culture that I think was very helpful. And things, in addition to that, things that I learned that helped me get through those

tough times and overcome the obstacles. So that's what I'm trying to accomplish here is trying to help people with the stuff that I stumbled across, learned in different ways over a few decades. Trying now to share that and hopefully it'll be helpful to others who are pursuing something that they find to be difficult or a dream or impossible or whatever. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft.

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the extraordinary performers and saying whether their genetics are different or they've just, you know, they're different or have had different experiences or whatever. And like, and then we celebrate them, you know, like that's amazing. And, but we don't think that we could. And so that's one thing I want to highlight that you're deconstructing that in your approach being like, listen, I committed to the path and I've got some really cool stuff that have happened. I've committed to a path. And then once I had the position of being up in space, like I'm still committing to a path

of pursuing something with purpose. And it's shifted from being up there and running experiments on myself. Like that's what good astronauts really are. Right. Yeah. Many little like pinprickers or something, but like,

well, I was a repair man with fancy clothes out there. Spacewalking is what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In my case, we were doing a lot of that.

That's it. We didn't do a lot of the, some of that stuff, but yeah, you're being a lab rat. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I get you. Yep. And then, and then the other part is on the sports side is that we can be very intentional that the vulnerability required to be in public athletics is that you don't know how it's going to go and you're out there doing your thing.

You're going to make mistakes publicly and you don't know. You don't know if a win's going to happen. You don't know if you're going there doing your thing. You're going to make mistakes publicly. And you don't know. You don't know if a win's going to happen. You don't know if you're going to get trucked, is a word in football in front of everybody. You're going to get run over, smashed, or drop the ball, or let people down, and da, da, da. So what you're doing, though, what sport doesn't do. So I love this vulnerability bit you're talking about to really be in pursuit of something

that matters is that what sport doesn't do properly is sport is the practice to do something that is purposeful. Winning a championship doesn't hold a whole lot of purpose. All right. So like what, but, but once you're in a position to have a microphone that has like a ton of, of, uh, your eyes and ears connected to it, like now you've got a platform that can potentially do purpose. You're, you're rewarded with great wealth sometimes, you know, like, what are you going to do with that? So it falls short of a larger purpose, but it's practice about being part of something that you can't do alone. It's practice about being part of something that you can't do alone. It's practice about being part of something that has a smaller purpose, but it doesn't

have maybe necessarily that transformative purpose for the world or for large communities, unless you're intentional about doing it while you're in it and or using the platform post retirement. and or using the platform post-retirement. But how do you square for folks that are not part of NASA or an elite exploratory unit in any vein and maybe are not part of an elite sport, but they're listening right now and they're a solid manager, director inside a corporation. And you say, look, you've got, you've got the impossible for you too. And let's

let that be really inspiring. Like, where do you take that narrative? Someone's like, man, I'm stuck. Like, I'm tired. What are these two talking about? Like, I'm barely getting the kids to bed and, you know, money's okay, but like, I'm, I'm exhausted. Like, how do you talk to them about a moonshot? I do speak to, to various audiences, uh, who are out there working hard, whether they're a pharmaceutical company or a, you know, a tire company or some organization, whatever it might be, whatever they're doing. And I think within that organization, there are moonshots they're trying to accomplish as a team, whether that mean a new product or to do better than last year or to overturn bad news or to come back from a bad year, Or how do you keep the momentum going after a good year?

Or how do you work this merger that's going on that no one is really crazy about? How do we work together as a team? So I think in your professional life, there's a lot of, I think, a lot of the team aspects of what I've discovered to help us make it successful that I write about or talk about. But then there's also that individual of having your own personal moonshot of where you want to be, what you want to do. And, yeah, it does seem like maybe that life is hard. Life on Earth is much harder than life in space.

Life in space is a lot more straightforward. You don't have to deal with all this crazy stuff happening all the time. It's just, it's much easier and things are taken care of and it's, it's more linear. It's not as nutty. So life on earth is, is hard. Um, but I, I, I do think though that even though you're not maybe exploring space or playing in a Superbowl or whatever, whatever, you know, those things are. I still think the basic principles apply no matter what you're trying to do. If you're trying to do something at work, if you're given a challenge at work that you're nervous about, if you're trying to accomplish some goal with your family or do something,

whatever it is that's challenging, that makes it worthwhile, and it's not going to be easy. And what I found, if it's something at home or if it's something at work, whatever it is and it doesn't have to be a space shot but I think the reason we can look towards sports and maybe the space program in my case is that

it forces you into doing these things because you cannot be successful and kind of wallow around without encountering difficulties and overcoming them, of not giving up, of working together where the team success is your success, of sharing help when you can and asking for help when you need it because it's not just you, it's also the team will suffer if you're not prepared or you're hurt or whatever it is.

You got to fess up and get that help. And so I think that those things, and I think that's why we love sports, Spike, I think, is that we can see the humanity in it and take inspiration from it. We see an athlete that doesn't give up. We love that underdog story. The quarterback that was undrafted and now is going to the Super Bowl. We love those stories because we can see us in that story. We all, I think, have things we're trying to accomplish.

Maybe some things, maybe the world thinks they're big things, like the Super Bowl, the world, or at least the United States, or now maybe other countries too think that's a big deal. But that doesn't matter. If it's important to you, that's what matters. You know, space program is not. You know, it matters. that's a big deal but that doesn't matter if it's important to you that's what matters you know space program is not you know it's it matters to this you know i i like sports and everything but but i you know i just wasn't gonna i'm not that good of an athlete but right um right you know but but

to me the most important thing was the space program and i think it's trying to find that that passion and then pursuing it expect to be knocked down. Expect to have to come back and don't take no for an answer and not give up. Expect to need help. I mean, you're not going to be able to do it alone. And you want to be a part of a team that's going to help you and that you can help them. And that was the thing I missed most about being an astronaut is being a part of that team because we really cared for each other and took care of each other. So I think no matter what it is you're trying to do in life, I think those basic principles of persistence, of teamwork, of speaking up when you see something, of taking time out to be amazed by the beauty of our planet and what's around us. I think these things apply. And that's been my experience. For example, when I speak to

different audiences, they think it's cool that I got to go really fast in space and they want to know if I threw up or not or whatever. But I think what's most useful to them is some of these principles that will help them in their everyday life. One of the principles you just mentioned that you kind of slid in there is that, like, no one does it alone. It's one of my first principles in life. It's one of our first principles here at Finding Mastery

is nobody can do the extraordinary alone. It's too big and bold and multifaceted and complicated. Like, you're not gonna get it done alone. So figure out how to be a great teammate, you know, and figure out how to like be in service to others as well. And like, if you're all hubbing in the same direction and there's clarity of what that direction is, like you got something.

And so, yeah, right. Okay. And so speaking of sports here, assuming you're a Yankee fan. It's a long story. Joe Torre. Wait a minute, you can't, I know that's where I was going. Like you can't have one of the greatest Yankee fan? It's a long story. Joe Torre. Wait a minute. You can't. I know that's where I was going.

Like you can't have one of the greatest Yankee coaches. He also managed the Mets, Mike. He managed the Mets first. Oh my God. You went to the Mets and with Joe Torre. That's unbelievable. I was raised by my family, particularly my uncle Romeo,

who's now over 100 years old, was an old New York Giants fan and hated the Yankees. Then the New York Giants moved and he couldn't root for the Yankees. So when the Mets came around, he became this Met fan. And I was raised not to hate the Yankees. But I met Joe Torre when he was managing the Dodgers. And I asked him, I said, when you grew up, were you a Yankee? He goes, no, I hated the

Yankees. He hated the Yankees when he was a kid. He was a Giants fan living in Brooklyn. So he didn't like the Dodgers or the Brooklyn Dodgers. But he ended up managing the Yankees, of course. And he managed the Dodgers as well, the two teams he didn't like when he was a kid. But what I was going to say, it's a long story that what's happened to me is since meeting joe and uh some of the people he's affiliated with and a lot of people with that organization they're a class act they had me um throw out a pitch on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and i couldn't pass that up to throw a pitch out of yankee stadium it's not something they do all the time they only do it on special occasions and they had the guy who caught my pitch was the guy who was on the mound guy named jack acre was the pitcher when they landed on the moon on the mound at yankee stadium that

moment when that happened and uh they just treated us really well and i've gotten to know a lot of the people behind the scenes there through through mr tory and i have a lot of respect for the way they do things so i i root for them now believe it or not mike i want to see them win yeah i'm a mets fan but i'm i no longer i no longer root against the yankees i want to see them win. I'm a Mets fan, but I no longer root against the Yankees. I'd like to see them do well. I hate to admit it. Call me a cop out. I don't care.

What is the neighborhood? Yeah, no. A lot of them wouldn't agree with it. And my Uncle Romeo, I hope he doesn't listen to this, but he would be upset with me. Yeah, but when Joe Torre, I wanted to read it out loud because it matters. Yes, sure. He's one of the best coaches at the Yankees of all time,

historical great managers. And he says, Mike illustrates that through determination, sacrifices, and teamwork, no dream is too bold. Like, man, we could deconstruct that because you live you live with sacrifices determination and i think you're a great teammate i would want to be on a team with you i feel like you would be like you would understand what matters to me and you would support and challenge me to be my best, knowing that that's what you want as well, for me to understand you and what you're about,

what your purpose is and where you come from and who you're doing what for and to support and challenge you. It feels like you like that challenge as well. Like, come on, this isn't the A game here now. Let's go. I feel like you'd be a great teammate, dude. Thanks, Mike.

I feel the same we should go to space together and i think the value of what you're saying and hopefully what we're talking about together is that it doesn't have to be just sports and flying the space and that's what i try to tell people when i'm trying to you know when i speak or through the book is that you can have what i can what i cherished most most as an astronaut i mean the view of the planet was awesome, but it was fleeting. You know, even if you're up there for longer, some of my friends have been up there a long time, over almost a year at one point.

You're going to have to come home. And so, at least nowadays, you need to. But what I cherished most was the relationships I had and the culture we had. And as you described, the way we took care of each other. And there's no reason why everyone in the world can't have that. Treating your family like your team, your family is your most important team. And that's the way it should be with your family. I'm not saying I'm a good example of that. I try, but your family is

your most important team. The people you work with, they're your team as well. And you can have that. You can have that same just joy in your life by building a team like that and having people that care about each other and admire each other and take care of each other. That's what I really miss the most about being an astronaut. I luckily have some of that in my life now, but not at that level. And I think that that's what we should be striving for is to maybe we're not going to the moon together, you and I, but if we're going to do something

together, why not treat it like that and do our best to make it successful and take care of each other and enjoy the ride and tell stories later about it when we're done. And that's, that's what makes life worthwhile. I think. And any, anybody can have that. Mike,

you came strong in this conversation. Now you, you represented the neighborhood. Well, you took care of family. You took care of the future, the purpose for us, you know,

like this is great. Like I'm so stoked to get to, say it again. It's all you, buddy. I'm telling you. Yeah, right. We started this interview. I was actually, I was actually, you know, a little, a little bit on the grumpy side and you got it out of me, man. You're awesome. You were great. You really, you really are. You're good. I don't know if you know that or not, but you're, you're, you're good at this, buddy. Keep it up. I want to figure out, like, next time, are you back on Long Island? Right now I'm in Manhattan, but, you know, where are you?

Yeah. No, I'm in L.A., but next time I'm in your neighborhood. Cool, man. Yeah. Let's grab something and hang. That'd be fun. Yeah, that'd be awesome. So, listen, I appreciate you um the book that you've got is um dynamo and so like i want to encourage where do you want to send people to

to get it moonshot and nasa astronauts guide to achieving the impossible wherever they buy books uh i mean hopefully it's it's helpful to them i hope this conversation it was it was helpful to me mike i hope it was helpful to you to your listeners or viewers or whatever's going on here. But hopefully it will be helpful to them. And if they're interested in picking it up, they can go wherever they buy books. It could be Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop. That's always a good place to go. You can support your local bookshop.

But wherever is easiest, it's sold everywhere. My website is MikeM massimino.com if you want to get a hold of me you can contact me through that website i'm also i was the first guy to tweet from space take that neil armstrong so i'm active on uh i try to be active on twitter or x or whatever it is and it's great instagram linkedin all over the place so facebook that neil that, Neil Armstrong. Yeah. All right, good. And I'm going to send, I'm going to follow up and send you the episode with Owen Eastwood

that I mentioned earlier. Okay, cool. I'm going to send that. And for folks that are listening on, it's like in the 200s, the mid 200s, it was December 2020, we released it. And I think you're going to love that. December 2020, somewhere in the mid 200s.

And listen, this is awesome. I'm going to take you up on finding you next time I'm in Manhattan or if you're going to love that. December 2020, somewhere in the mid 200s. And listen, this is awesome. I'm going to take you up on finding you next time I'm in Manhattan or if you're in LA. Yeah, thank you. I'd love to host you as well. So, all right, man, I appreciate you. And thanks for leading the way from the front. No, you're a good man. Thanks for taking care of me and thanks for having me on.

I really enjoyed it. All right. Appreciate you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe

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