Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Back on Earth: Insights from 6 Months in Outer Space — NASA Astronaut Woody Hoburg | Finding Mastery Goes to Space, Part 3

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Human exploration of space is driven by a deep curiosity and a desire to understand our place in the universe.The individuals - and teams - on the forefront of this exploration are modern-day pioneers, pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and capability.I’m excited to share the final installment of our 3-part series following one of these individuals, NASA Astronaut Dr. Woody Hoburg, on his journey into outer space.In Part 1, we learned about Woody’s rigorous mental and physical preparations before launch.In Part 2, we took an unprecedented look at life aboard the International Space Station and witnessed Woody's adaptability and resilience in zero gravity.And here, in Part 3, we dive deep into the insights Woody gained from his transformative experience of living 186 days—that’s 6 months—in outer space.I have always had a huge respect for astronauts – and Woody took that to a whole new level. I’ve said it before, but I think Woody represents 'the best of us,' – the way he commits to exploring his edges and living in alignment with his values embodies the pinnacle of human potential.In this conversation, you’ll learn about the importance of meticulous preparation, what it means to be a high performing teammate, how to reframe failure, and a rare glimpse into a “ridiculous” and “fun” six months aboard the International Space Station.I can’t wait for you to discover more about how Woody navigates the unknown!_________________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.

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And it happened. It happened. And I just remember that moment of seeing it on our thermal camera. And like we are arriving at the International Space Station. You hear this fan noise like... And that's it. That's the only noise you hear. And you're looking down as you fly five miles per second across the surface of the Earth.

That sent chills down my spine. Welcome back to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. By trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. I am really excited for this one. This episode is the final installment of our three-part series following NASA astronaut Dr. Woody Hoberg on his journey into outer space. Part one, we learned about Woody's rigorous mental and physical preparation before the launch. It was awesome. Part two, we took an unprecedented look at life aboard the International Space Station.

We got to witness Woody's adaptability and his resilience in zero gravity in real time. It was incredible. And then in part three, we dive deep into Woody's insights that he gained from this transformative experience of living 186 days, that's six months, in outer space. Now, I have always had a huge respect for astronauts, who they are, how they prepare, what they do. And Woody took that to a whole new level. I've said it before, but I think Woody represents the best of us. The way that he commits to exploring his edges, the way that he lives in alignment with his

values, and he embodies literally, in my mind, the pin that he lives in alignment with his values. And he embodies literally in my mind, the pinnacle of human potential. Okay. So by the way, if you enjoy these conversations here with Woody, you should also check out our recent conversations with two other astronauts, Chris Hadfield and Mike Massimino. They will not disappoint. They are full of fire and insight. They are great. They are incredible explorers of the human frontier. And I really want to encourage you to check those out. Now, in this conversation, you will learn about how Woody's meticulous preparation prepared him for an environment of consequence. You'll learn how the perspective from outer space changed his view of life on earth.

Astronauts talk about that, but we get to hear it firsthand from Woody and the challenges that come from life's transitions, which is something we can all relate to. So with that, let's dive right into the third and final segment of our journey to space with Dr. Woody Hoburg. Woody, welcome back to planet earth. Thank you. I'm not sure. I'm not sure I'm the one to be welcoming you, but I'm so stoked that you're here at the mastery lab and this is awesome to reconnect. It's so good to be back. We were just saying I was here just under a year ago, literally months before my, well, almost one month before my launch. And now I've been back for a few months. I feel like I've been running at full pace through all of it, through the mission, getting back. And it's, I'm excited today because we'll get a chance to

probably deep dive. I'm sure you'll make me uncomfortable as you always do. So out of love, my friend, out of love. Okay, so let's just start kind of at the top. Like, how are you? Wide open question, but like, how are you today? I'm great. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do a mission up to the space station. It was a unique life experience, the very best kind. I had a great time. I had three goals when I embarked on my mission. My goals were to be safe, to have fun, and to come back as friends with my crew. And I think I accomplished all three. I couldn't be happier. I didn't know that last one, or I had forgotten it if we talked about it. And it's so plainly said that the weight underneath of that, I was wanting to ask you about the team and the relationships and what happened up there.

Specifically, what makes a great team in a high-pressured, high-stress environment? And so we're going to drill into that a little bit. But the simplicity is like, I wanted to be friends with these people that I had a life-changing, maybe, I'm adding. I don't know if it's life-changing or not for you. I do not want to add that. But this very unique experience that I had. Okay, awesome. So the other things I want to talk about is your reentry. I want to understand some insights that maybe you've had and, you know,

just in general, any ways that you might be different. Okay. So those are kind of the three main buckets that I want to talk about. Okay. Let's go re-entry first. And so re-entry, when we talk about re-entry, we mean that dynamic phase of flight from being in orbit to literally re-entering Earth's atmosphere, slowing down from 17,500 miles an hour to zero and splashing down in the ocean. That's re-entry for us. And is that what you mean? Or you mean a broader?

I mean, I think I mean both here. And so I'm, I'm interested in what you just said. I'm more interested in the re-entry back into civilian type life. And I don't even know if that's the right phrasing, but back the re-entry back into living on earth. And that's a more of an of an emotional a social a relational and a physical I think that I'm interested in and I'll tell you why I'm interested in that and we're kind of starting in reverse order from from re-entry and then we're gonna go back to like some of the takeoff stuff like what happened

before takeoff so we're gonna go in reverse order in the conversation. And there's a reason for that. But when I travel a bunch and I learned from some scar tissue and some hard times that if I'm gone for two weekends in a row, so let's call it seven days would be a full week and then add a couple more days. So it's like a 10 day trip. Of course, my relationship is fine, right? Like no, no issues. We're good. We have a really strong base. And I'm talking about my relationship with my wife and best friends since we were 16 years old, really great depth there. And then, but if I do a 10 day, two weekends, basically, and I do one or two or three of those that are kind of stacked back to back. We, we lose some connection. It's not that it's like even noticeable, but it's because we're, again, the base is so rich and good. But when I reenter back into the home, she's got some hopes

of how maybe I'll show up or what I'll do. And, you know, there's a bunch of things that maybe need to get done that have slipped on the household front. And there's some hopes and things that I have for her and like of how maybe she'll engage. So we actually did a bunch of work on reentry. And to be able to just take the air out of it and not have a hope even of how somebody else is going to show up, but just to be kind of present in the way that we're reentering and then to check in with each other was our process. And it's been very important for us. And so I'm setting this up because personally, I want to learn how you reentered and if it was painful, if it was good, if it was good, if it was hard, if it was wonderful, like let me just open up reentry on that part before

we go to the, to the technical parts of it. Great. Uh, well, I feel very fortunate. I have friends and loved ones in my life who I think, I think of them as just there for me no matter what. And that for me feels very true, independent of the duration of time that I've not been in touch with them or whatever it is. So very concretely, like my mom and brother were actually there at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. When I landed, we take a after we splash down in the ocean, which we'll talk about later. We fly on a helicopter to Florida. We do a couple of tests and then we fly on an airplane to Houston, Texas. And that is, so this is hours after splashdown,

hours after I got back to Earth. And before I even got off the airplane, my mom and brother got on board and got to come just to have a small personal moment and say hi. And that meant so much to me to have them there. It just brought me so much joy knowing that. I just felt it when you said it. Did you feel it too?

Not as I was talking, but. I don't believe you. I just saw, I just felt and saw what, you know, so that's like, you didn't feel like the little gulp in your. We were talking earlier about chills on your spine. I assume that's what you're referring to here. Okay. So, so I don't want to distract it.

So, so she was there. Your brother was there. And I think this mission, it's a six-month mission. It's kind of a series of launching into the unknown in many different ways. And the very last segment of launching into the unknown is actually coming home. I've been on the space station for six months. I know what that is like, but that last day where we return home is a, is a yet another step of just somewhat unknown. We've done a lot of training,

but what the experience will really be like is still a bit of a mystery until you actually do it. And I think knowing that at the end of all that, no matter how I knew I might feel sick or I might feel just out of it or worked physically. From the impact of, not the impact, but from the conditions of re-entry. Yeah. Like the technical part. The technical part. We can talk about it, but neurovestibular stuff, people get sick and it's hard. It's physically pretty hard coming back. But I knew at the end of all of that that my mom was going to come onto the airplane and say hi. And so that for me was just like a – Even if you were a disaster. Yep.

It didn't matter. Yeah, right. Of course. And so that for me was just this comforting knowledge that at the end of this process I was embarking on, there would be someone I really cared about about two people, my mom and brother would be there, be there for me. And then, you know, also my, my good guy friends were kind of there for me throughout my mission. I did some video chats with them. And, um, that's another aspect where people that are important to me in my life were part of my mission in that way. We couldn't

meet up in person, but we just made the most of the situation. And so I felt very happy with all those relationships. And there's also, it's just such a unique situation that I didn't, it's kind of fun. You're coming back from this ridiculous situation and yeah, you might be a little out of touch, but that's kind of fun. That's part of the whole thing. Okay. Quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. 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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David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And now back to the conversation. Well, that's your framing of it it so other people could have a very different framing you know but that's uniquely yours which is like it's ridiculous and it's fun you know and what you're doing is you're framing and shaping the unknown and so i don't it's almost worth repeating how you what what you just did. So the framing of embarking on the unknown is one framing. And then the ridiculousness of what I did or got to do. And like, those are two framings that are materially important in your own psychology.

So the first is embarking on the unknown. This moment is unknown. I don't know what I'm about to say, really, what you're about to say. I have no idea. You and I have never been here. So in my mind, I'm framing each moment as the unknown. So there's an emblem that we can kind of hook around that you're the emblem for exploring the unknown, but it's always available right now. Here. That's fine. And that is a mystery of how this next moment

is going to interlock. And so that piece that you're just highlighting that is really important because you're talking about the ridiculousness of life. To me, you're using it framing for being outer space. Why do I say ridiculousness? I'm living in this body. I don't know how that happened. You're living in your body. I'm not sure really how this thing really happens. We're using language that we've made up. This is all made up. Okay. We think we're in this reality, but it's probably not

actually how it's really happening. We know that there's more colors in the spectrum than we can actually see. There's more sounds, certainly with my hearing. There's more experiences that are in reality taking place than we can understand and even embrace. So it's ridiculous. This whole thing is, is ridiculous. And you framing it as, isn't that fun? Woody, I've said repeatedly, I think you're the best of us. And I mean that in every sense. And so to hear you frame it as ridiculous and fun, I just fall in love with the way that you work. And so I'm inspired by that. And I'm not saying that lightly.

But ridiculousness, yes, this too is ridiculous, right? Like made up language. What do you really want? What do you really, really, really, really really want you've gone to outer space you've had a spacewalk you've lived this radical life carving your unique path even when the world said don't go this way the experts said i don't think you're going to get to where you want to go by going in in the rescue adventure rescue what's it's it called? Search and rescue. Search and rescue way. You know, like, what do you really, really, really, really, really want from your time here?

I feel very lucky in many senses. I'm lucky, like you said, to inhabit this body. I'm lucky to have been born into a loving, caring family. I'm lucky to have grown up in an amazing public school system, to have been surrounded by mentors that believed in me. So I've been lucky throughout much of life. I was lucky even over the last year with the opportunities that were presented with me, for example, getting to do a spacewalk. Part of it is, were you trained and prepared for example, getting to do a spacewalk. You know, that's part of it is, were you trained and prepared and capable?

But we have a lot of people that are trained and prepared and capable that don't have that opportunity just because of things that come up. We down the suits for a little while because there's technical issues. While you're up there? That could happen.

That has happened in the past. So it is not a done deal. Meaning you are ready and prepared and you are tapped to be the one, somebody, not you. Right. And the suit was having a weird thing. So you didn't get the opportunity. So I feel so lucky to have had the opportunities that I've had. You feel lucky in this, in your life?

Yes. I don't see you that way. That's so interesting. I feel, well, and I'll get to your questions because maybe this ties in. So I feel very fortunate to have had these opportunities. Well, fortune and lucky are different. Okay. Why do you use lucky? Maybe fortunate is a better word. Okay. I feel, I feel that there were aspects of my success. Did I just shape your thought? I don't want to do that. I just wanted to understand more what, like I, I see you as highly prepared, skilled, thoughtful, organized, intentional,

putting yourself in places that you want to be. And yes, we don't know why the ball bounces this way or that way, but it feels like you're so skilled and agile psychologically, physically, technically that when the ball does bounce or break the way that it's, we don't think it is that you're able to be agile enough to pick it up and work with it. And I see that as like radical commitment to mastery. That's great. Cause that's, uh, that's exactly where I wanted to take it. So you asked like, what do I want? I said really like eight times. What do you really, really, really want?

Really, really, really want. I think what I really want is when I'm so fortunate to have whatever opportunities I have to do my very best with those opportunities. That, I think think brings great fulfillment. When I look back and think, what are the times when I was not happy with myself? It's when the ball dribbled my way and I either didn't pick it up or I picked it up and did something silly with it,

or it's to take those opportunities and run with them. What do you really, really, really, really want is to do my very best. Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's open that up. It's a phrase that gets thrown around like easily, like I'm doing my best or I just want to do my best or I'm trying my best or I did my best. And you're taking that as a bit of a life philosophy, not as a metric of success, but like a philosophy, like I'm working to be my very best. That's how I

want to do my life, right? To do my very best. So how do you, let's like, if we open the aperture of that and we, I was able to somehow understand the material that's inside how you work. What does that mean to you? How do you know if you're doing your very best and what does that feel like when you're doing your very best? And then I'm going to go one step further. What are the thoughts that give you that feeling? And then the evaluation is like, how do you know? So let's start with the thoughts. What are the thoughts that help you that feeling? And then the evaluation is like, how do you know?

So let's start with the thoughts. What are the thoughts that help you be your very best? I'm actually glad to start there because I'm not sure that I have the tools to completely frame what I mean by that, but I think thoughts is one that makes sense to me. So I think what doing my best looks like is I have some thought like there's two options I have here and one seems easy and one seems hard and I kind of know series of doing the next thing, taking the next moment. Like you said, we don't know literally what's going to happen one minute from now. But, um, I think doing my best means when there are two options and I know that one is better than the other, but is uncomfortable or hard, or, um, I just don't feel like it or whatever it is saying, nope, that's the right thing to do right now. I don't know if you remember this, but a year ago I asked you that question. I don't remember.

I love that. I love that. And I usually, I'm actually quite impressed with myself right now that I remember this, but it's because I've repeated it to myself and many other people often. I've cited you, which is that idea of how do you do your best? And you very reflexively said, I'm not sure I know the answer. Similar position, posture as you just took. And you said, I just, and I should play back the tape to get the accuracy of it as if we're using tape. I just dated myself I should play back the tape to get the accuracy of it as if we're using tape.

I just dated myself like 1980, right? But play that back, which is, I don't know. It's, I just, I make the decisions at a moment's time that are leaning me towards, you know, what I think is the best for me. I think you use the word micro choices or it's just little choices that I continually make. It's that type of framing. That sounds consistent, right? Yeah.

And if we're concrete for a minute, it's like apple pie or apple. Apple. Okay. And there's time to eat apple pie. Absolutely. Okay. And I don't think there's anyone in our community that doesn't know that an apple is healthy and an apple pie is suspect. It doesn't mean don't eat an apple pie.

It just means know what you're doing. Okay, good. I like apple pie by the way. And so now waking up early and going to the gym, if you want to be a morning workout person versus getting an eighth hour of sleep, both are good. So how do you do that? Yeah. I like that. I don't, uh, I don't know that I stress about that too much. I'm going to make up that you listen in some way to yourself to make that decision. I think that's right. Cause you're an active, you're an active person in life. Yeah. I don't mean physically, I mean, but active, like in your awareness and you're not just like, ah, whatever the universe has for me. Um, you know, I don't know. It's like, you're, I think you're, you're making an active choice in that moment. Yes. Okay. I like being in situations

in like life and work where I have to choose between getting enough sleep or working out. That means that I'm probably doing something interesting to me that's taking up my time that I find relevant and fulfilling. And so I think I'm happy when I get forced to make that hard decision. And that doesn't quite feel to me like, well, one of these is good and one is bad. And I think it's just in the moment, okay, I haven't worked out for a couple of days, so I'm going to get up and work out. Or I haven't slept for a few days and I really need to sleep. And I know that's what's going to be better for me. Got it. So you're taking an inventory. So you make decisions based on

like an inventory about history and state. Yep. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Relative to who you want to be and become, whether that's a small mission or life mission. Like, does that make sense? History, inventory, math against what I'm trying to do. Yep. Trade-off. Maybe you're pinched on something. You can't have everything. Can't have all that. You've only got 24 hours in the day. So trade off what's most important right now. Okay. And then now let's go one more framing to keep it concrete. The micro choices is what we're talking about.

And if you stacked a bunch of micro choices together that created a sense about yourself. Okay. So I'm purposely leaving that blank. Actually, I'll just say it is that at the end of the day, if you've got some buoyancy and you've got like a fullness about you, you've probably made a bunch of micro choices that have led to a feeling of being animated and alive. And like, I was my best today. I was really on it, you know? So now let's be very concrete about the way that you speak to yourself, because you've got a micro-choice there as well. And there's thousands of micro-choices a day about, do I say, what the fuck is wrong with me? Or do I say, that's really curious. I'm really curious, like, why did I respond that way? Or do I say, oh, that's a good piece of information.

Like, I'm going to learn from that. So that's a micro choice of three things I could say if something didn't go well, what is wrong with me? Self-critical and judgmental, um, uh, to kind of agnostic as learner, uh, the other two, but there's just different tones learner versus critical. How do you, how do you work there at that level? Specifically when things go wrong? Yeah, when things aren't going according to the way we hoped. I have always been, I think, quite self-critical. And that may be a bit of a crutch. I think it's done good things for me.

But I've always been quite self-critical. What does that sound like? What it sounds like for me is probably, I don't think it's negative. I do think I have a positive framing on it, but I think it's fairly practical. It's that didn't go the way I wanted it to. I need to do better next time. Does that sound judgmental or critical? I'm not sure I know the difference. Okay. I actually didn't hear, I heard neither positive or negative. I heard more tactical. Like you're not creating a micro tear and you're not trying to fluff up something favorable, positive. Like, oh, you're good.

You'll get it next time. I don't hear that. And I don't hear, man, what is wrong? You're never going to get this. Yeah. So there's a more tactical approach to it. I don't hear that in you. And I don't hear, man, what is wrong? You're never going to get this. Right. Yeah. So there's a more tactical approach to it. Okay.

I like playing games where I'm not as good as my opponent. Oh, what does that mean? For me, that's addictive. So I'm like, eventually I'm going to, eventually I'll get my skills together. Eventually I'll figure this out. Okay. So you're competitive. A bit. Was that a joke?

Like, yeah, I'm really obnoxiously competitive or like, no, I'm just kind of competitive. I think only in things that I care about. Okay. But I think I'm mostly competitive with myself i was gonna go competitive against others competitive with others i see it as competing with myself yeah so that's the way i did the with like we're together in this and and i love that we're kind of both in a competitive spirit and i'm bringing my best dude right like that and so like I'm not trying to be better than you and step like the I love Muhammad Ali for so much of what he did and I know he's

really polarizing um in some communities and revered and others and which I love just that that radicalness that some people boo and some people applaud like I love that but that picture of him standing over celebrating his opponent being knocked out or knocked down, I see myself in that type of aggressiveness and I don't like it. I don't want it. I don't want that in my life now.

And so I don't feel like that's the spirit that you have in it. Nope. Did you ever? Nope. No, that's not kind of the way that you're made up so when you think about being competitive with yourself what does that mean it just means that i see that i could do better and and then how do you speak to yourself in that micro choice i just say

i hope i have another chance to try that again okay so. So you and I are playing chess. Yeah. And it's an off day for me. And I got really, your, your big brain made some. So, okay. So we're playing chess and I got you on this one. And then you say,

ah, you don't, you don't cut yourself like, oh man, I got, I got beat by the little mind of Mike. You say like, okay, I'm gonna get you next time though. Yeah. I might beat myself up over the specific move that I made. And when you beat

yourself up, like let's stay here. Like when you beat yourself up, how does that sound? I just think of if I hadn't done that, it would have gone differently. But then you don't have a second hit, which is like, I don't know. I'm so stupid. Like, damn it. And I'll never, I'll never be able to get that right. Yeah. No, I think back to that moment. And I think in that moment, I wish I had done something different. And then it stops there. Yeah. Okay. But so, and that train of thought doesn't lead to, um, like a depressed state or a hopeless state or such an agitated state that you don't like being inside yourself? No, I think if anything, it leads to, if I could have one thing,

it would be a chance to redo that because I know I would act differently. 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 Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

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And I remember you said something like, this is a Super Bowl type of moment. This is something that you were really hopeful for. Not everyone gets a chance. And if it all kind of comes together in a way, you just might be tapped to be able to go. And it happened. It happened. Yep. I was really lucky. I got to do two spacewalks. They happened in short succession. We call them, we call it kind of like a spacewalk season or a spacewalk series where I'm on board the space station. We get in the mode, we being both the crew and mission control, we get in the mode where most of what we're doing is preparing for and executing spacewalks. And so I got to do

two, installing two ISS rollout solar arrays. These are big, big objects. They roll out, I don't know the size that they roll out to offhand, but it's tens of feet, like really, really large object in my hands. Uh, the ISS rollout solar array before it rolls out is, um, I mean, it's this box like this wide, this tall, and I think five or 10, five, three feet by 10 to 12 feet. Uh, it weighs 800 pounds. Like a big coffin. Yes. Like a big coffin. That's a great, yeah. It's like a big coffin. It's a funny analogy, but okay. It weighs 800 pounds. Now, obviously it's weightless up there, but you feel the inertia of it. Anyway, I got to install two of those. It was amazing. When you got notification

that you were going to have the chance, do you remember that moment? It kind of played out over time. I knew that those two spacewalks were slated for the timeframe of my mission. But there were also some changes with cargo vehicles where for a little while there was a chance that they might come out of my mission. And then, yeah, so it's, I kind of knew that if everything went to plan, they would be happening. And eventually I heard that I would be one of the crew members doing those spacewalks. I think, so there's just, there's always this element of yes, but things could go wrong and you never know. It might not actually play out to plan. Is there a guiding philosophy that helps you appreciate particular moments, but not be overly,

you know, banking or betting where you fall apart if it doesn't happen? Do you have a model that when you get some exciting information, because you really wanted to go, it was clear, that you work from so that you can not get your hopes too high and also not be disappointed? I don't know. Is there a model that you work from there? I don't know of a specific model, but I do think that i naturally take that approach i set expectations very low you do uh yes and this

helped me the best example i have is actually the selection process back when i was that's right trying to get you thought you had a zero zero zero percent chance i truly believed deep down inside that my chances of getting selected were zero. To become an astronaut. To become an astronaut. That was so liberating because it made the interview process... I wasn't faking it to myself. Yeah, but why even... If you think you have a 0% chance, why waste the energy to apply? Right. Because it was so fun. So this is the cool thing. I went down to Houston. I spent a week meeting all these amazing people, going through all these tests, seeing NASA. It was really fun. And I believed so strongly at my core that my chances of getting selected were zero that I remember telling myself that was so fun. In four years when they have the next application, you're definitely applying. So you can do that interview process again because that was so fun. In four years, when they have the next application, you're definitely applying.

So you can do that interview process again, because that was so fun. I'm having a hard time thinking about the utility in this, other than the self-esteem saving mechanism. But it feels like if you thought, I have zero chance of success later, the model usually is like, don't put in the effort now. But you're saying, right, I'm actually living, the experience in and of itself

is the win. Yep. Yeah. And meeting all those people that I can't overstate enough. And this is where it is actually a little humbling to get selected. When you go down to interview,

especially in the final round, the people I met down there in the interview process, many of them did not get selected, were some of the most amazing people I've ever met. They all had incredible life stories. They all were just the best of the best in such unique ways, different ways, really diverse set of backgrounds, amazing group of people, like the type of people you would want to be surrounded by. So that interview week

was just the most amazing life experience. And it made me want to do that again, meet people like that again. And it also made it really humbling to get selected because that group for me was, it was indistinguishable looking out to say so-and-so is better than another person. That type of judgment, I don't envy the selection board because I wasn't able to really discern those differences. And it made me feel like, huh, I don't know how I got picked within this group.

There's a refreshing aspect to that, which is like choose things that are pointing towards places you'd like to go and do. And the experience in itself needs to also have the same value, right? Like the interview process had high value. Yep. Yep. And it was in the right direction of things that you enjoyed. Yep. Okay. I totally respect and, and see myself in that type of thinking as well. Okay. So I said, I'm having a hard time with just one aspect. Like I, I, if I don't think I have any chance at, I don't know, hitting a home run in a ballpark, I'm probably not going to go to training on it. But if I really love training and what it feels like to hit a ball, then okay, like that sounds fun to me. Yeah.

I got it. And I mean, of course I knew my chances were not zero, but they felt vanishingly small to me. That was my experience. Which is not deflating to you. It's just it's okay. It was okay. I see. And I think so you were asking, I forget the specific question, but you were.

Spacewalk? Well, and the details of whether I get my heart set on. The model you use. The model. When you get the information. Right. And so I do think it was very liberating for me also to not assume I was going to get selected

because it meant that I assumed I was going to keep doing, at that time I was a professor at MIT leading a research group, and I just assumed that was what I was going to keep working on which is a good path it was great path and i got a lot of value out of it and i i remained invested in that okay and by not getting my expectations up and if i hadn't gotten the job it would have been fun maybe it's a bit of a crutch again but i think similar with the spacewalk i didn't want to get my hopes set on that because i knew there was a chance that i would not get to do one and i wanted that to be okay i feel i did not want all of my ambition to be anchored to this thing that i

didn't have control over whether i got to do i love To drill a point home, let's go back to the 90s or early 2000s when mail was a thing, snail mail. And I can imagine one scenario like eagerly running out to your front door to the mailbox every day like, okay, the letter from NASA is coming this week. Monday, you go out. No, it didn't come. Okay, okay. That's one way to go through it. Another way is like, it's coming this week and if it lands on the kitchen That's one way to go through it. Another way is like, it's coming this week. And if it lands on the kitchen table, it's going to be fun to open that. But whenever it happens, it happens. So one would be like this, like eagerness to get the news. And the other one is like more casual, which I think is more aligned to your approach.

So are you more aligned with that second one? Like when it lands on the kitchen table, I'm going to open it and that'll be fun. Or are you like privately, oh man, is it coming on Wednesday? Or is it, okay, it didn't come yet. Maybe it's going to, maybe it's going to be next week. I don't know, like that anticipation. I think it is completely natural human emotion to have anticipation for events like that. Natural. I certainly feel it. I don't know how I could not. If I know that I'm going to get some news on a certain day, of course I feel anticipation. I wonder what the news is going to be. So that seems normal and natural. And I certainly experienced that. I also think logically,

we can only control the events that we can control. And logically to me, it's probably valuable to spend my time worrying about and working on things that I have control over. So any time and energy that I spend stressed out about this upcoming news that I have no control over at this point, to me is time wasted, even though it's natural to feel that. So I think I'm intentionally or subconsciously finding ways to push those feelings out and spend less time stressing about things that I can't control and spend more time on other things so i remember the day that i knew the day that i got the call saying i had been selected i knew we were going to get phone calls that day one way or another we're going to get a yes or a no right and honestly i just i was so busy with my work i just buried myself in work. And I remember having some, every once in a while, some anticipation would creep in and I would kind of feel the heart rate increase and think,

oh, I guess we're going to find out. But then I just was busy and I was so busy running my lab. That's cool. I didn't have time to worry about that. That is the activation of your philosophy, which is, and you did something very clever. You said, don't focus on what you can't control. Worry about the things. No, work on the things I can control. Did you see that gymnastics you did? I didn't even notice.

Yeah, which was really cool. And then you just did it again where you didn't use the word worry, but you're like, focus on those things. And so that type of investment in the task at hand has probably been something you've practiced for a long period of time. Yep. Okay. All right. So let's go back in. There's a high pressured moment.

You're being suited up. What is that like for you in that moment when you know you're about to go outside? All the attachments have been done. Now you're going to step out into outer space. Yeah. So there's a bit of anticipation. It's actually pretty boring, the suit up, many parts of it. There's a few key elements where we're all watching, kind of making sure it gets done right. Why wouldn't you? Then there's other portions of time where you're just, uh, spending time waiting for the nitrogen to get out of your blood.

And so we do these, we, it's called in suit light exercise, but we, uh, we do like really light leg kicks. We're just trying to get a little bit of motion, get the blood going. Um, and that's all we're doing. We're just sitting there. So there's a little bit of anticipation in that time. There's not much you can do. What's that like for you? For me, that was just, it's kind of like maybe being at the starting line of a race. That's

the best analogy I have. Okay. So activation. Yeah. Knowing that there's something coming that's going to be testing. Yeah. It's going to challenge you. Exciting. And it's going to, you want to perform well. You're going to be in it soon, but you're not in it yet. So it's just an anticipation of soon I'll be in it. Has anyone died on a spacewalk? On a spacewalk? Ooh, that's good trivia. Not to my knowledge. Certainly on the US side, no.

Yeah. Not to my knowledge on a spacewalk. It's a really remarkable, I would have guessed no, because I feel like we would have known about it. But, you know. Right. So it's a remarkable thought because it's the most dangerous, hostile, external conditions on the planet, and no one's died. It speaks to the readiness and preparation

to the skill, to the care, to the attention, to detail, to the commitment to excellence. It speaks to that. Um, so what is the pressure then that you're going to, you could be the first. Oh, what's the pressure? What anticipation are we feeling? Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I do think that spacewalking is legitimately, uh, dangerous and, uh, we have a huge amount of amazing preparation, a huge team making sure that we do it safely. So I don't want to, it's not that we're taking on a bunch of risks that we shouldn't be, but when we, when we talk about, you know, we often talk about the dynamic phases of flight. And these are the places where maybe the risk is dialed up or the hazards at least are dialed up a little bit.

And so those are launch, re-entry, and we typically include spacewalking as one of those times when there's just a lot of hazards. And we lost the Challenger crew during launch. That's correct. We lost the Columbia crew during reentry. I'm thankful that we haven't lost any crews during EVA. Nice. But it is not nothing. There are hazards. Now you asked what, what's the sort of activation. What's, um, I'm not, I have 100% trust in my equipment and my

team and what we're doing. I'm not actively scared that I'm going to get hurt going outside. I, I didn't feel that at all. Actually. Um, I knew logically that, that there's risks, but I wasn't feeling scared about that. So for me, all of the anticipation, it's similar to a race. When you start a race, when you're going to compete, uh, it doesn't feel like I'm going to get hurt or injured, but it does feel, I do feel that anticipation. There's a readiness. I'm ready to go perform. And so I just feel that anticipation of wanting to have a good performance that day. Very cool. Okay.

Well said. All right. How do you think about pressure? Not the actual physical pressure, but how do you think about pressure, psychological pressure? I love it. You do like it. Yeah. And what does pressure feel like to you?

I've asked that question, a feeling question to you like 10 times, but what are the conditions that create pressure and what does pressure feel like? Two part question. Maybe it's back to what we talked about earlier, anticipation. I feel it so much less when I'm performing the actual task. Isn't that cool? Yeah. That's a good performer's response.

Yeah. Yeah. But so what sets performer's response. Yeah. Yeah. So what sets the conditions? Something important is about to happen. Something scary is about to happen. There's some sort of framing that something is about to happen. And oftentimes the way I think about, the way I feel pressure is it's, I have to think or do something faster than I think I'm capable of.

So that's for me what pressure feels like. There's a boxing in and there's a tightening up. And it's because I've overestimated the challenge and underestimated my skills, or if I've accurately estimated the challenge and accurately estimated my skills, that I'm not sure. So there's a pressure there. And the secondary pressure is like the pressure of managing my sense of self and my identity, which is if I blow it,

how will I be perceived? I think I've done a really good job of my life of mitigating that to something that is marginal, not that important. But that calculus between what is the external challenge and what is my internal skillset is a dynamic flux. And I always want it to be in that challenge zone as opposed to that threat zone, which is like, uh-oh, you know, like, I don't know. I don't have these tools. I can't do a spacewalk.

So that would be like this radical threat zone. Maybe, maybe if there's extraordinary set of circumstances and they're like, you're the only one that's gonna fit in this fucking suit. Then I go, okay, I'm gonna trust you, I'm gonna trust the equipment, I'm gonna have to trust myself to navigate a challenge in an environment I haven't been.

And I would look and defer, like, you gotta tell me what to do and how to navigate this and I'm gonna trust you in that. Maybe we get that done. So my point is really about the calculus. So what are the conditions that create that calculus for you that it's off? Were the challenges perceived higher than the skill? And part two, what does it feel like when you're in a moment of pressure? Maybe I can answer it by flipping it a bit. Yeah, cool. To when it's on.

So I think for the, to continue the spacewalking example, um, I felt so prepared and that gave me confidence. So the training for EVA, uh, we in something called the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. It's this pool down in Houston. I spent a bunch of time underwater in the suit getting used to it, practicing spacewalking. And that training was so important and valuable. There's lots of training that we do. If we started trying to eliminate training and say, yeah, you can probably to, you can probably fly to space and do this experiment, even though you've never seen that hardware, follow the procedure, you'll figure it out.

You'll figure it out. We said that jinx. Yeah. You know, can you, so there's, there's maybe some things you can start. Okay. Maybe we could get away. It'd be nice to have this training, but maybe we could get away without that training and without that training. The last thing on that list, the very last one, maybe aside from

like emergency procedures, would be neutral buoyancy lab, training in the suit, getting used to spacewalking. When people show up as astronaut candidates, nobody's been in a space walk or in a space suit before. Nobody has that life experience. It's weird. 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 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.

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matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Let's jump right back into the conversation. If you were to list three to five psychological skills that are important for people to operate in high pressured environments like you were to list three to five psychological skills that are important for people to operate in high-pressured environments like you were in, or consequential environments, or however you describe working in the space station, what would you point to? And the part two of that question is, did you do specific training on those psychological skills? Psychological skills that allow a person to be successful in a high pressure environment.

Would you call this a high pressure environment? Well, that's such an interesting question because, I mean, you have to realize, as you know, my mission was six months. Yeah, that's why I even, that's why I asked the question. Like, how do you describe the environment? There are phases. The best analogy we have is aviation. And I think there's a, people quip in aviation about like, it's mostly sheer boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

And nothing on my mission was sheer terror. That would be an exaggeration. We had failures. We had things that didn't go right. We had challenges to overcome. I think it's six months. So, and you know, a lot of stuff feels mundane. You sleep. I mean, I spent eight hours every night asleep. So I think it's maybe easy to think you're in space. Wow. It must be just the most high paced, frantic, just kind of high pressure situation at all

times. No, you're like asleep for a lot of it. Yeah. Right. Vertical. Yeah. But, but you're also needing to be ready for when things do go wrong and you really feel up there, the, the, the consequence.

So is it a consequential environment? It's a consequential environment. When things go wrong, they can start going wrong quickly. Like Chris Hadfield, are you familiar with? He had soap in his, he talked about it on an earlier episode that he had soap on the inner lining of his visor. Oh, it's probably the antifog. Yeah.

And so he went, okay, yeah. So it's a the antifog. Yeah. And so he went, okay, yeah. So it's a chemical irritation. Yeah. Yeah. And he couldn't see. And so they had to, he was awesome about how he talked about working the problem. Yep. Right.

You don't freak out. You just work the problem. That makes sense too. Oh, absolutely. Is that a NASA phrase? Or is that something that's part of training or is that something that he uniquely coined? Or not coined, but understood. I think that's just standard operational environment stuff.

You work the problem. Yeah, you work the problem. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, I think our mission control team is really, really good about this. Our mission, you know, you were talking earlier about that feeling of, I don't know, I screwed up or something went wrong. Something didn't go the way I want it to. Yeah. We're not in the place we wanted to be. Right, right, right.

And maybe how it's easy. You could spend time worrying about that. is something that flight controllers in mission control get trained on and do sims on which is if something has gone not correctly your job in that moment is not to apologize or spend time worrying about what could have been different your job in that moment is to deal with what you have now and work the problem and you know fess fess up, say where we're at and figure out a solution. So provide information and ask questions and look for solutions. Perfect. Is that it? That's how you work a problem? For communication and mission control, the framework that's taught to mission controllers is failure impact workaround. And that's actually,

that's not how you're supposed to address the problem. That's how you're supposed to communicate. But if you want to failure impact workaround. So I've had a failure in the system. The impact to the team is the following. And my workaround is that I propose we, you know, start this contingency procedure. Interesting that it's not solution.

Workaround is just a different, it's a little bit more colloquial. It's a little bit more casual, but it's obviously not a casual experience. Yeah, and that environment, that's what we call real-time ops. So that's dealing with the problem right now for the next few minutes or hours.

So, and I don't know if this is relevant, but when I think of solution, I think maybe a little bit longer term, you know, how are we actually going to solve this? So work around a little bit like a patch. This is a patch. We're going to work around this problem. We're going to figure out how to keep our crew and vehicle safe right now. And then we'll figure out the solution. Yeah, that's a really nice

distinguishing feature. Okay. What do you know now that you didn't know before? I think it's easy to think that maybe there will be some epiphany or something that occurs in this amazing, unique life experience. I'll just, right off the bat, I have no epiphanies to share. I had an amazing experience. I learned a lot. I grew a great deal as a human. It was life-changing for me. It's hard for me to articulate succinctly how.

That was six months of my life, of me growing and experiencing failures and experiencing failures and experiencing successes and spending time with my amazing team. So think of anything that's kind of life-changing that plays out over a long period. It's kind of like that. I don't have lightning bolt moments really. And I don't recognize them at the moment until I think I look back like, I don't know, a couple of years from it or 10 years or whatever. And I go, oh, that moment somehow registered.

Yeah. And then it's like that when I piece it together, I think that that was a really important thing that led me down this path or to pursue that or think about things this way. So maybe there's a little bit more time. I think one aspect that I spent some time reflecting on was actually making mistakes. And I guess to get it right off the bat, everybody that goes to the space station for six months

makes mistakes. I mean, have you made any mistakes in the last six months? No. What do you mean? You mean in this months? No. What do you mean? You mean in this conversation? No. So, you know, it's really attractive to think maybe you're going to go up there

and like follow every procedure perfectly and do really well and there will be no mistakes, but that's like not possible, period. So the good news is I didn't make any really big mistakes. I made some maybe like medium mistakes that I beat myself up over, but in the grand scheme of things, none of them were a big deal.

And so I think what I reflected on was just like my process of handling when I make a mistake. And what I mean by mistake, mistake is almost too strong a word. I really mean like when I do something and then I think back and think I could have done that better or I could have, I wish I had done it this other way or that wasn't, it's just not sitting with me right the way I handled that situation. Or I could have, I wish I had done it this other way, or that wasn't, it's just not sitting with me right. The way I handled that situation. I kind of wish I had handled it a little bit differently. That's an uncomfortable feeling for me, but I reflected a lot, you know, that happened a lot. Um, you're we're, we have hundreds of people watching us when we're on the

ISS, there's video cameras all over the place. You're constantly, you know, we have, and that's a very positive thing. We have a huge team supporting us, but we're also kind of under, it could feel like a bit of scrutiny. And I just got so used to that environment and being comfortable with, oh, okay, I didn't do that perfectly. That's okay. I'll just tell the team and we'll move on. And I guess kind of flipping how I think about things a little, thinking about things a little bit less in the past and thinking more in the future. And so every time a little experience like that occurred for me where I thought I could have done that better or I wish I had done that differently, by the end of the mission, I was like instantly thinking, I'm so happy that I get to do that again tomorrow because I'm going to do it better. I spent no time worrying about how I did it today.

I was just like, oh, it's awesome that I get to try again today. I love this insight. So let's say a mistake happens. You can perseverate on what happened and be critical and catch yourself and have a little bit of hesitation for making the same mistake based on the way that you speak to yourself about it. That makes sense to a lot of people, I think. Or you can frame it. Got it. What I need to learn.

So there's a tactical nature to the mistake that took place for a learning environment. And it's been more time forward facing. And even using your imagination to imagine when I'm in this conversation tomorrow, I want to make sure that I make eye contact. Okay. Or when I'm holding this tool and doing this, that I'm actually not going to strip the bolt again. I'm actually going to be thoughtful about how, right. So it requires a reflective nature to think about the learning that needs to happen, but then quickly get forward leaning. Yeah. Right. Like that's a really cool way to go through life. And if we're not careful,

we spend so much time on the history of the event and then the critical nature of it that we spend very little time planning and using our beautiful imagination for setting a scene that we'd like to, how we'd like to do it in the future. I love it. Yeah. Spot on. That's great, dude. And when it's subtle, you know, oh, I didn't realize

that this, um, I didn't realize some subtlety of like how this procedure is written or how these parts are marked or whatever it is, but I didn't realize this subtlety. I didn't know that it was tricky. My framing was like, oh, now I've got, but now I've got that knowledge. I screwed up. I made something, a mistake. Again, I think that might be too strong a word, but I didn't get it quite right in the way I wanted to last time. But kind of flipping that to next time I see this, I'm going to crush it. Cause I had that experience. I love that. That's my vibe too. And I hope that when people are listening that they're like, oh, I get it. Like there's a phrase that somebody taught me, which is like,

no, no, no. We always make things better. We make everything better. That idea is so powerful for me. It gives me such, you've used the word liberation, so much space so that when something happens, we're going to use that too. When it doesn't go according to plan or I make a mistake or something like I'm going to catalog, I'm going to learn. And of course, that's how I lean in life. We're going to make it better. You know, so I love that framing as just a way to go through experience. It frees me up to be in this moment because I don't, I'm going to make mistakes. And by the way, athletes who are paying attention, like every game you make mistakes. Absolutely. Humans that are listening every day, you're making mistakes, you know, and the Dr. Woody Holberg says that he has made mistakes on the ISS. Like, absolutely. Let's free ourselves up a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Woody said there's, we're talking about the way that we're speaking to ourselves, like our feedback loop within ourselves relative to our experience mistake, something goes well, there's a feedback

loop that's taking place all the time, by the way. And then in high-performing organizations, there's feedback loops between people as well. So a high-performing organization tends to have high-performing feedback loops. And those feedback loops, in my mind, have some criteria or some characteristics that tend to show up. And I'd love to hear your take. I don't know how much you've thought about it or trained for high performance feedback loops. But when I just say that phrase and you think of an experience at ISS and your teammates, whether they're on the ground in Houston and other places or teammates that are in the ISS with you? How does high performing feedback take place? Yeah. I saw that in many different contexts. We have, I think, a great culture of debriefing. So everyone I worked with in the context of human spaceflight, whether it's the

crew on board or teams in mission control or engineering teams that want to make their hardware better, I think I've always seen a culture of debriefing. Let's write down some feedback and let's use it to make ourselves better in the future. That's across the board. Pause. When something happens, there's a little activity, whether it's a conversation, a meeting, an activity that takes place. How does the debrief, is there a process for debrief that you have found to be useful or NASA has informed?

Yeah, so I saw this in several different like contexts and modalities. So within the crew, that's one place we can start. We just had kind of a maybe every week or two, usually on Friday, we would come together. I would call out Frank Rubio was my, we call it the USOS lead, but it's on our side of the station. It's kind of the, our leader for our crew. And he, he did such a good job with this. It was fairly informal, actually. We just circled up and we basically said we literally said, does anyone have anything? And that was kind of the, that just means like, bring up whatever you want. It could be little interpersonal things. It could be little things

about how we're interacting with the ground, just within the crew. You know, what does, what do people see about how we could be better? And it could be really small stuff. And by doing this fairly often, we just kind of bring it up and handle it. How long is this session? This could be really, I'll give you a concrete example. Like we have water bags. So, um, it's a bag of water and you almost always have one with you cause you just need to be drinking as you're going about your day. You're moving through the space station and it's like Velcro to your leg, your bag of water, uh, or, or a drink might be a coffee. It's got Velcro on it. So you can put it wherever

you want. Um, and a lot of times you'll be working and you'll stick the water bag next to your work site. Um, well, it's really easy, particularly when you first get on board to accidentally leave those all over the place. It's like leaving an empty coffee cup sitting on a table. Happens all the time. Kind of makes a mess. And so that's an example where that was, I know a couple people brought that up a couple of times, like, hey, I'm noticing that we're leaving these out more often. Dr. Horvath, please put your water away. Not even an individual, just in general. I'm noticing we're doing that. Let's be conscientious.

Let's just try to remember. If you notice your drink out, let's grab it. So that's an example. Super minor doesn't really, in the grand scheme of things, matter at all, but is also one of those things where you wouldn't want to get to a point where it's like, Mike's always leaving his water around. What a jerk. And now we're starting to have a team dynamic. That's not great. Well, so let's say, does anyone have anything? And you say, you know, it's a general, I think it'd be great. Like let's be conscientious about our water bottles to your point. And then I registered and I go yeah oh yeah I think that

might be me okay I'm gonna be better and then uh next Friday comes around anyone have anything hey uh you know like water bottles or water bags are still kind of like and I haven't I've done it I've done a bad job okay I have not taken action properly and my stuff is everywhere. I'm a mess. How would you recommend, or how did you guys address the Gervais? That's a slob like that's happening now. It's becoming, we're not at the team dynamic thing. That's problematic, but you're a little frustrated because action hasn't taken place. Sure. Yeah. I think I feel really lucky. First of all, our crew was amazing. Everybody got along really well, which I just feel very fortunate for. We had a great group and we kind of meshed well together. And I think all of us just personality wise,

we're pretty direct communicators and had maybe somewhat thick ish skin. Um, and what I mean by that is in that situation, we would just say it, you know, we would just address it like, Hey, I don't know. And, and take ownership for it. You know, if you realize we're talking about you. Yeah. And laugh about it a little, maybe. Yeah. But, but then, you know, if, if it gets to that point, you just say, Oh, yep, that's me. Okay. I really do need to get this better. Okay. And it just doesn't become a thing. It's just address it. And how do you set the conditions ahead of time for that feedback to be received well when it's direct? I think that's a cultural thing where we just have to be intentional. We have to say we are going to debrief. We are going to have these, you know, we're living together for months without some intentionality around debriefing and communicating and dealing

with little tensions when they come up or whatever they are. Without that, things aren't going to go well. So we are going to do that and make it go well. Do you think this is a good strategy for date night? No, I'm being serious. Like when I go out on date night with my wife once or twice a week now. It's really cool. So would you – I'm not asking. I am now asking relationship-wise. I'm probably not the right one. Okay.

But like what was the question? Does anyone have anything going on? I can imagine me saying to my wife like, okay, what do we got going on another cool structure is uh one up one down yeah it's a military yeah what's your uh to give me one up and one down what's a good thing and what's a bad thing yep what we use at finding mastery that i've learned from special ops is it's two things what went well what do you want to work on yeah yeah so that's a framing that we like and then we're trying to get as applied on? So that's a framing that we like. And then we're trying to get as applied in nature as we can

so that they can be actionable. Sometimes they're insights, and sometimes it's reinforcing. So the question that you guys used often was, strike that, the question that your team used often was, what do we have going on? Does anyone have something going on? Does anyone have something going on? Does anyone have something? And we would, and you try to, if nobody does, that's not good because there's kind of this natural, it's a debrief or it's a, it's a chance to sync up as

a team. And if, if you meet and say, does anyone have anything and nobody has anything and then you leave, that's not a good debrief. So, so uh one thing i think you can do to be a good teammate is to say something anything just get the conversation going that's cool and then it's it's amazing the little things that will come up when i mean i personally experienced many times showing up to these quick team these are five or ten minute quick hot wash uh showing up showing up to them and thinking, I don't know, I don't have anything for tonight. I don't know. Everything's going well. I don't have anything. And then we start talking a little and everybody's got something to, this is how, this is how like therapy in my, like when I'm in, I'm in the client seat, that's how it works all the time.

I'm driving into therapy and with my wife or by myself. And I'm like, I'm pretty good. Like, yeah. And all of a sudden like a question, like everything going on, what do you want to talk about today? I don't know. And then like another question, well, like, how was that conversation you had with such and such that you wanted to have? Oh God, thank God you brought that up. That's so good. So just creating the conditions and yes. Right. Like holding that space. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then, so that was

the more intimate, you know, and would you say that that's more of a hot wash, like the framing that I was talking about? Yeah. And that's, I mean, we know each other really well. So that's really, um, you know, we've been experiencing all the things up there. That's just a chance to verbalize things. If you've been thinking things, um, before. Yeah. Just a chance to share with the team what's going on. Would anyone bring up something more intimate? Like I'm struggling with my relationships. Yeah. You know, like, like this is not just tactics of like water bag. Sure. Hey guys, I am, I'm having a kind of rough week. So if you'll just watch me, you know, and maybe give me a hand once in a while, that'd be great. You know, some other things that I,

you know, as somebody who likes to do a good job, be self-sufficient, like I've got it, you know, a couple other little subtleties that I feel like I've learned partially before the mission and also during the mission. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth.

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L E E S a.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. You know, asking for help. I don't like asking for help, but we had a culture that, or we just had a kind of agreement on board as a crew that if somebody's day is running long, we all help them out. Try to, we all, we're not all done till like everybody's done with their tasks for the day. Sometimes you run long. It's not because you're slow or bad at what you're doing.

It's just, you've got some activity that was not planned well or whatever it is. So my, here's my point. The hardest thing to do is, and the best thing you can do for your team is actually to ask for help because they all want to help. They don't want to get turned away. You're actually kind of being a jerk. If you say, Hey, I got it. I'm good. No problem. And then you sit there working while everybody else wants to eat dinner and they have to watch you work. So you do have to think about how to ask for help to delegate to creatively. So sometimes it takes longer to explain something to do it. I hear that often amongst our team. Like it's just easier if I do it. And so,

yeah. But some of this, I mean, we could all do this. It's not, it's not a hard task. It's just taking a while and it feel, you feel that natural emotion of, I got it. I got it. No problem. Don't worry guys. I got it. I'm fine. But the best thing to do there is to say, it would be awesome if you guys would go like stow that item for me. That would be a big help. Thank you. It doesn't have to be a big thing, but just. Did somebody go clean up my water bags? That's a great example. I don't want to let this slip, but you, you said like, I have a reluctance to ask for help. What is that? I think that's just, I do think I have sort of a self-sufficiency as a core value. I've always had that. I've always felt like I can do it. I'll figure it out. I've got it. So yeah, just self-sufficiency as a core value.

And so that bonds up against it when somebody says, can I help you? Or when you would like help, it pushes up against, I ought to be or I am self-reliant. Yes. Yeah, to both of those statements. And then how do you work through that core value and the actual need in a particular moment to, to relieve yourself from the self-reliance and ask for, or include people in what you're doing? I think we, and this was where I kind of grew on this a bit on board. You know, we talked about this in some of the debriefs very concretely. About you? No, not about me. Just self-reliant.

No, I, and I don't, we know I couldn't, it's not that anybody up there like needed more help than anybody else. It's not that like that at all. We literally talked about, Hey, if somebody is running long at the end of the day, um, it, we talked about this. Uh, it feels like you want to say, guys, I got it, but it's actually the most helpful thing to the team. If you give everybody a way to, to contribute, because as a team, we all just feel it's like you go to a dinner party and one person gets up and starts watching the dishes and everybody watches them watch the dishes. It's kind of uncomfortable. There's one person doing work and starts watching the dishes and everybody watches them watch the dishes. It's kind of uncomfortable. There's one person doing work and everybody else is sitting

around. Nobody likes that. And so it's actually helpful if people can have tasks to pitch in. There's a little bit of planning in that too. A little bit of planning in that. Yeah. And some thoughtfulness about the other person's experience. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's i mean anybody can do the dishes it's not hard and it's not that you need the help but it's just the overall group experience of at the end of the day how can this be just best and smooth smoothest for the team will you do a debrief a hot wash with me and the team after this about this experience?

Would you be open to that? Sure. Cameras come off and we'll actually do it. I'd love it. That'd be fun. Yeah. Okay. And then we also, you know, your question.

So we covered within the crew. We also have intentional debriefs with the NASA teams for kind of the big deal dynamic events. So for EVA, for robotic ops, like when we capture a visiting vehicle with the robotic arm, for launch and docking, when we did our port relocation. So we actually undocked and flew around to a different port. For all of these events, we have a scheduled time to, it's like an hour with the teams on the ground. They may have some specific questions, technical issues they were working. They want to get the crew's input on them.

And it's also just a chance to talk about, hey, how did that go? You know, while it's still fresh in our mind. And then finally- And what is the duration of time between the event and the debrief? Day or two. That's actually seems sloppy. Like I know and the debrief day or two that's actually seems sloppy

like like i know that you it was reflective day or two like i what i found for high performance feedback is that um after the 48 after the 24 hour glow i said 48 after the 24 hour glow this is it's a radical drop off on accuracy yeah so so it's 24, sometimes it's 48. Well, yeah, that sounds about right. I will also say like for my spacewalk, I remember getting on a private loop with our flight director the night after, like right after we got out of the suit for a very quick, there were a couple of like hot topics. That's a real hot wash. Yeah. And it was, they were thinking about a couple of little things and we did it right away.

And then it was like, okay, we'll cover the rest of everything in the scheduled debrief in a couple of days. That's it. There you go. Yeah. So accuracy is really important during feedback and then timeliness of it. Yeah. And so, right. And so there's an accuracy piece, there's a kindness piece, which we didn't talk about. Um, but when you're a jerk in feedback, it's, it's problematic, you know, so accuracy, kindness, and timeliness

are the three variables that I think go into high performance feedback. The timeliness is another good one. We, we have a formal debrief process right after we land. And so I actually spent literally weeks after I landed, the first few weeks after I was back on Earth, a major portion of that was technical debriefs with various technical groups that support space station ops. I literally spent hours and hours in debriefs, which is really valuable.

These groups had really detailed questions, things they're working on, considerations that they're weighing different factors, and they want our input, having just been aboard the space station. So it's a valuable process. And actually, NASA right now is working on getting some elements of that pulled earlier to do it real time on board. Crew time is really

valuable. So it's really hard to weigh against, you know, time spent operating experiments or working on things on board versus time spent debriefing. But I think there's an acknowledgement of what you're pointing out, that timeliness is important. And the earlier we can do it, the more accurate we'll be, the more valuable it'll be. There you go. Yeah. Very cool.

Can you paint the picture for what life was like on the ISS, the International Space Station? And maybe just start with the moment that you entered the ISS. That's a, so at that moment I had spent about 24 hours in space. So we launch and then we spent about a day phasing up to align our orbit exactly with the space station and dock. And well, actually, let me back it up. Orbital insertion. I just remember these distinct moments.

So right after orbital insertion, you're weightless all of a sudden. And Sultan on our crew was the first to get up. He has to plug in the cabin mic and do a comm check. And so he did that. And I remember him saying, guys, I'm floating. This is amazing. It's just that moment of sheer kind of life experience. This is wild.

And a few minutes later, I got up out of my seat and floated over to the window and look outside and you see the curvature of Earth. I mean, in your face, just that's Earth. Boom, right there. And then I had actually Bob Hines, pilot for SpaceX Crew-4, who flew a little bit me had, had kind of given me a heads up to look for this. So I, I went to the window and I looked down at earth and you're going five miles a second. So earth is sliding by under you. You're, you're going so fast and earth is just moving by and right out the window, right below us is our second stage of our Falcon 9 rocket flying in perfect formation with us. So we had just separated from this thing.

It's a second stage of a rocket. It's way bigger than the spacecraft I'm in. And it's down there. It's going the same speed as us. And we're over top of it. And we're just flying in formation over Earth. And that was really cool to see. We spend 24 hours trying to kind of get used to what it's like to be floating, what it's like to handle food.

We eat. We go to the bathroom on the Dragon spacecraft. But we're in pretty tight quarters, four people in a small little capsule. And then I remember seeing the International Space Station on our thermal camera. Now, we had done this in training many times, but there's something about flying in for docking and seeing the thermal camera view of the International Space Station. It's this place that we've been training for, for years. I know every module. I know where everything is. I know how the place is laid out.

I know so much about this thing, but it's still, for me, always been often space, like inaccessible. It's just this idea, but it's not a physical thing. It's an idea. And I just remember that moment of seeing it on our thermal camera. And like, we are arriving at the international space station. It was that sent chills down my spine. We docked and then coming in, it's actually an interesting experience coming into the space station because the volume opens up so much. You've been in this small volume on Dragon and suddenly the spaces are just so much bigger. And we actually docked to the Node 2 Zenith docking port. And so that means we are, our spacecraft is upside down. We're on the top of the space station.

So as you pull yourself, we basically pull ourselves up through the ceiling of our spacecraft. And you go through a little tube called the IDA, the International Docking Adapter, kind of going through like a little tunnel and you're floating through it. And then you pop out into the space station.

But you're, and again, we went up through the ceiling of our spacecraft and then you pop out and you're coming down into the ceiling of the space station. It's quite disorienting. It sounds like it. Yeah. Yeah.

What does your brain do in that? It sets up a local reference frame. Okay. So it's like real time, right away, it adjusts. It was fascinating. It's seconds. That you are familiar with what vertical, even though you're upside down.

Yeah, so I guess I should say the way the space station is laid out, we have, it tends to fly in a particular orientation. So there's one side of the space station that's almost always facing earth and we call that deck and then overhead is opposite that. And we have a port and a starboard. And so there is this reference frame of the space station. There is up and down in that sense, but your brain, if you crawl off into a tunnel or something, you have no idea which way is up or down. All you have is local. Um, and your brain makes that switch in a matter of seconds. So a good example is our treadmill. Our treadmill is mounted on the wall. It's like on the wall, the track is running on the wall. The front of the treadmill where the buttons are that you program things in

would be at the bottom on the floor. So you run on the wall facing the floor, headed straight to the floor. And I mean, you can be on, you can be watching somebody doing that. And you say, that's kind of funny. You're running on the wall. I'm watching you run on the wall. Yeah. When you're doing it, it feels like you're on a treadmill. You don't, your brain just says, yep, down is my feet up is my head local reference. Right. So when you come through that, the IDEA, IDEA, when you come to the IDEA and you're now in this larger space, your brain is referencing quickly what's up, what's down, whatever. On that first day, I had a moment of confusion where I was like, I don't know which way is up. But you quickly get it.

And then I just remember seeing, in those very first moments, I just remember seeing people floating and, you know, just that in these big volumes and it feels it's your brain. Just it's just something you could stare at for a while. Like, huh. So that's a person floating through that room. And then what is the day in the life like? So day in the life, it's busy up there. And we're working on lots of different things. Every day is different.

We have a timeline that's planned by the ground. And it's sometimes in as small as five-minute chunks, the activities we're working on. Big picture, we are there to do scientific research. That's the purpose of the space station is doing all these science experiments. So we spend a fair amount of our time, hands in a glove box, working on science or whatever it is. That's maybe one chunk. Second chunk would be maintaining the space station,

keeping that beautiful orbiting outpost flying. So this is routine maintenance, like scheduled stuff, when things break unexpectedly, fixing it, monitoring our systems. Cleaning. Yep, changing out tanks. Yeah. I worked on our toilet a bunch.

We fixed the treadmill. We had to work on our CO2 scrubbing system. There was a hatch that was stuck and we had to figure out how to unstick the. Does the toilet smell? It smells a little bit it's not bad like you know when you go in an rv sometimes the shower toilet kind of has that yeah it's not like i'm sure we build up a little bit of a um like pungent appreciation we we build up a resistance to yeah right we get used to the smell but um the toilet itself is not particularly bad.

The waste, where we store it, if you go back into the location where we actually store some of the solid waste and like the actual bag and you suck your nose up close to that, it smells real bad. Yeah, right. But as long as you're pretty far away from it, it's fine. Yeah, okay. So, yeah, sorry. And then so big, we have science, we have maintaining the space station that includes things like the space walks where we're doing upgrades and all the activities to prep for that, maintaining the suits. Um, and then finally

taking care of ourselves. So eating and work, sleeping and working out, we are, we exercise like two hours a day. When we spoke when you were up there, you were like, Jack, you were fit. You're like, I'm ready. Yeah, that is awesome. It's an hour of cardio and an hour of resistance exercise every single day. I actually got a-

Two hours, two hours. Two hours total. Cardio and strength. Yeah, and is that to maintain basic health or is that to be fit for optimal thinking, optimal movement? That's to maintain muscle mass and bone density primarily for our return. Okay. You are profoundly unloaded.

Your whole skeletal structure has no force on it. Yeah. The whole day, except when you're doing exercise. Because you're literally floating. You're tethered down. You're just floating. But no, when you're exercising. Oh, when we're exercising.

So there was, yeah, for the bike bike you're clipped in and just biking for the treadmill we wear a harness it's like a backpack right um and we bungee ourselves to the treadmill with a fair amount of force and then the resistance exercise it's like a um it's this configurable machine that uses vacuum cylinders and we can do the all the big, squats, deadlifts, bench press, rows. Notably, it doesn't do pull-ups. So I came back pretty darn weak on pull-ups. I could do like half what I was able to do before launch, but I came back stronger on bench than when I launched. So it really shows you.

You actually gained. I gained. Where you worked. Yep. Which is really important for the whole tendon bone, muscular skeletal system. Yeah. Cardiovascular.

How'd you come back? I think about the same. About the same. Yeah. I know really early. We do a VO two max. We actually do VO two max before flight. We do a couple of them on board.

They're terrible. I hate them. They've hurt folks that don't know, like you you're masked up and you've just basically a couple of them on board. They're terrible. I hate them. They hurt. For folks who don't know, you're masked up and you've just basically got to run to the until you can't anymore. And we actually do it on the bike. Oh. And it's on it's

25 watt increments. So you just, I think we start at like 150 and then every minute it's another 25 watts. Yeah. And you just keep pedaling till you to your brain or sorry your mind or your body say i'm done correct yeah right yeah yeah and so my vo2 max was was dramatically lowered in the like week or so after i got back and but i think it dramatically lowered on the order of 20 percent um 20 to 25 and then um but then you build it back

so by a two months poster post landing i was really tired yeah because you have yeah it's really physical you have all these fluid shifts going on um gives you a sense of what it might feel like to be in a poorly run oxygenated system, right? Like you're struggling to oxygenate your body when you came back. Yeah, I was just tired a lot. Yeah, man. Yeah. And then the other moment I remember is going to the – because you were asking about that experience of being up there.

And I remember it was actually maybe a week or two after I had arrived and I was starting to get used to things. I had been over to the cupola many times at that point. The cupola is this amazing panoramic module where we have windows looking down at Earth. And you just have this amazing picturesque view. I should say we're actually pretty close to Earth. So we're at 240, 250 miles above Earth. Earth's diameter is about 8,000 miles. So if earth is 8,000 miles around, we are like less than a few percent of earth's diameter away from earth. We're really close. That's right. You can see earth's curvature out there,

but you can't see all of earth. You're too close to see all of Earth. It's this giant blue marble right in your face. However, you see, let's say, India how many times in 24 hours? So 16 orbits every 24 hours. So you see India if you happen to pass through India. About twice a day. Or Africa is probably easier because it's so big. You'll do several passes over Africa in the day and then several passes over Africa at night. Yeah. How much bigger is like really Africa versus like all the other continents relative to

the other? Can you tell from there? Because I see it on paper. You actually get really used to what the different continents look like, which is really interesting. Yeah. You can, not always, but most of the time, if you go up to the window after you've been up there for a few months, you can, you know, where you are. And so can you see the entirety of the U S? Nope. No. So you see, um, you'll see

like, you'll see LA and then you'll literally like a minute later, you'll be flying over Vegas. And then like a couple minutes later, you'll be flying over vegas and then like a couple minutes later you'll be flying over chicago and then not long after that you're over nova scotia so that's a typical pass and so yeah several minutes to pass over the u.s but so did you ever do tip to tail africa um yeah we i mean we lots of tail yeah so then what how long does it take? If the US was a couple of minutes, I would be, it's yeah. Similar. I'm enamored by the size of it. Like, yeah, it's big. The moment I realized, or the moment I just distinctly remember, it's funny how you have these little distinct memories. I remember being floating up to the cupola and in there, there's, there's fans all over the space station.

There's fans running. There's just always this kind of background, like fans whirring, just a little low background fan noise. And I remember coming into the cupola and just spending like a short moment there. And you hear this fan noise, like, and that's it. That's the only noise you hear this fan noise like,

and that's it. That's the only noise you hear. And you're looking down as you fly five miles per second across the surface of the earth. So it was so profoundly quiet. You're in this machine that is going so fast, absurdly fast. It's like just if it were an airplane, I mean, it'd be all the engines running to go that speed, you know, just it's, well, it's 17,500 miles an hour. It's faster than any airplane flies, right? By a lot. And yet it was

pure peace and quiet, just a little fan running in the background. And I remember just thinking to myself, like all the engineering that went into this vehicle, all the blood, sweat, and tears that it took to make this, uh, like achievement for humanity possible. And that I could be there skimming across the surface of the earth at these ludicrous speeds, listening to a little fan running and that's it. Totally quiet, peaceful, floating. If people wanted to track the research that you did, is that available? Absolutely. Yeah. And what were those? You did like five experiments? Oh, I did hundreds. Oh, I thought there was five main categories that were taking place. Like one was, I can't remember right now, but.

I literally worked on hundreds of different experiments. Some of them are on myself, so I'm the test subject. Yeah. I got pretty good at drawing my own blood. I was gonna say, yeah. Did a lot of phlebotomy. Pushkin. Yeah, a lot of like just samples.

And then a lot of it is in a glove box working on an experiment that got flown up there where I'm not the test subject. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so there's, I believe it's called the Space Station Research Explorer. There's actually an app you can download that has details about all sorts of the, about all the research projects going on right now. Um, there's, there's so much cool stuff. We printed a meniscus up there. We printed a 3d printer of a

knee section of human meniscus. Yeah. We printed it. It's the first meniscus printed in space. That's pretty cool. That's crazy. Okay. Yeah. Last question. Yeah. And a statement. Thank you one for including me in the way that you did, not only in this series and the eloquence in which you've brought me and us into your experience and the insights and best practices, like thank you for it. And then also thank you for creating something that my son and I got to experience. You invited us to launch and even though it was scrubbed with like two minutes ago, it is a great story for my son and I. We get to laugh about, you know, the whole thing, but more importantly, we were there to support

you. I felt honored to do that. And you created a memory for my son and I that will forever or will last our lifetime. And so thank you for creating that very special experience with my son and I. And thank you for including me in the way that you have. Excited about your future and honored to have a glimpse into how you operate. And I feel better about humanity with you in it. So I mean that. So like, do you have any grand messages or any thoughts that you wish that people could maybe better understand or a message that you'd like to give to us? You know what I've been bit a bit about lately as i look back on just i don't know arc of life and i've been thinking that it's really useful to shorten your time horizon

i just have spent i think it's it's a natural to feel like you should have a plan one of the most common questions i get when I go out and talk about like life as an astronaut, most common question probably is, did you always want to be an astronaut? And I think a lot about that question. Um, cause in the easy answer is yes, I did. I thought it would be really cool. But also I think implicit in that question is, did you have a plan? Like what was the, how did you do that? Or what was, you must have had a plan for how to do that. I had no such thing. Absolutely not. Far from it. In that, I feel like it's really tempting to think that we need to have a long-term plan. Where am I going?

What is my long-term vision? And then deconstruct that down into the steps to get there. But more and more, I just feel like that's actually a false narrative. More and more, I feel like all I've got is the next little bit and that I actually can stop worrying about the long-term. And if I just focus on the next little bit, shorten the time horizon, that has actually been liberating. And I think it helped me early in life. And then I think it helped me even on my mission.

Just focusing on the day or the task I'm doing and nothing else and not worrying about the long term. had a subset of 50 masters of craft on the podcast that we selected with some selection criteria randomly in the sense that we didn't know what they were going to say in total, but we had some site criteria of who we're going to select to study. And we ran them through a natural language processor, which now seems like we're like really early and it costs a lot of money to do it now. I can flip it over to GPT and I'll tell you exactly what it says. So we did this about five years ago. And what we came to, what we've found,

one of the findings was that the 50 masters of crass that went through this mini experiment from our transcripts and conversations is that they don't set goals oddly enough. Yep. So they were more interested in experiences and they're not like fun, dah, dah, dah,

but they're more interested in like adjusting their daily activities to meet this thing that they wanted to understand better. And it wasn't like I had a long-term 10 year of this and I had a 25 year vision or a goal of this. I'm not saying that they didn't have goals for a day relative to a task, but so that idea of shorten the time horizon was something that didn't show up. But the idea about goal setting was a really interesting finding. Yeah. I think maybe it doesn't work for an organization, but I think at the individual level,

shortening your personal time horizon for your planning, just worrying about the immediate next thing and not worrying about what's way off in the future. It's super valuable. Maybe for an, it's good for organizations to set big goals. And this is a good chance as we finish up here. I should certainly plug, I'm super excited because we are going to the moon. How about it? So that's an example of a bold, audacious goal. I'm so glad our country has committed with Artemis. We're going to send, uh, crews back to the moon. We haven't been for over 50 years since Apollo, and we're going to go set up a permanent presence on the moon. So that's some, I'm glad we have that goal. Uh, and we're, we're doing it. The Artemis two crew has been named. They're in training right now. Um, their date just got adjusted, but there'll be flying in September of 2025.

And about a year after that, we're planning on that first moon landing since Apollo. So. I'm super excited. Do you have hopes to get back, to go to the moon? I would. Well, I talked about setting expectations low earlier. Yeah, right.

So I have to live that, but I'm excited for anyone to go to the moon. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. But you would be in the mix maybe. Yeah. I think everyone in the astronaut office is in the mix. Yeah. So, so you're confirming this is not shot in a Hollywood studio. I am confirming that I went to space. It was amazing. And you're confirming that the Arbus project is also not in a Hollywood studio that we're,

we're actually going to actually going to the moon. We're actually going to the moon. It's really hard. You probably heard, but there's a little company out of Pittsburgh that built a lunar lander through something called the Eclipse program. I'm sad to say that they're not going to be able to land on the moon. They had some setbacks. Oh, this was the one that just happened. Yeah, the Peregrine landing, the lander.

They had a fuel leak, and they don't have the fuel to land on the moon. And my point there is just, you know, we're rooting them on. There's going to be failures along the way. And these are, these CLPS missions are meant to be fairly, you know, on the lower cost side, but sending some precursor robotic missions out to the moon before the people. And we're doing it with commercial partners. And I think it's an innovative approach that NASA is taking there. And we're going to see failures because it's hard.

Putting stuff on the moon is not easy. It is low Earth orbit is 240 miles away. The moon is 225,000 miles away. Whoa. Do that again. So it's a thousand times further away than, than I was thousand times from earth. Yeah. Last question. Last, last, last question. Um, uh, how many aliens did you see? Zero. Oh, okay. Are you sure? It was actually pretty quick. Yeah. You know, like, I don't know, okay. Are you sure? It was actually pretty quick. Yeah. You know,

like, I don't know. Like it's a lot of buzz about aliens right now. It would, it would make my life so much more complicated if I had seen something I would be so good. Yeah. But, uh,

no. As a applied scientist, as an astronaut, are there aliens? Oh, I think. Are there UFOs? Are there UAPs? Yeah. So, Oh, I think... Are there UFOs?

Are there UAPs? Yeah, so, I mean, you're probably familiar with the Drake equation, but I think it's an interesting... Oh, the Drake equation, meaning that, of course, there must be? Of course, there must be, in some sense, yes. So it's useful to spend some time with the Drake equation and at least just understanding the philosophical argument that it's making. And it's essentially just a product of a bunch of probabilities. And all that the Drake equation is saying is essentially it's saying there's a lot out there. And so we don't know what the probability of forming life on another planet is given certain conditions.

I mean, all we have is Earth and maybe some near-Earth neighboring solar systems to study. But the vast majority of the solar system we're unable to view at the scale of like planets. So we just don't know what's out there. But we can kind of look at the numbers and realize that there's certainly lots of places where it's possible that the conditions to support life could exist. So it is, of course, reasonable to conclude that there might

be other life out there. And it's probably the greatest question in human existence, or the greatest question for humanity, I think, is are there other civilizations out there? Are there other forms of intelligent life out there? It's fascinating. It is fascinating. And if you're going to bet on it, you fall on the idea that, yeah, probably the Drake equation would lead you to believe or lead you to think i think it's uh yeah it's it's really hard for me to put a number on it but yeah i think it it says that there's a substantial chance that there could be other intelligent life

out there it is but i it doesn't say that it's definitely. And it also, I mean, the other thing to realize about the universe is that the distances are vast. And as far as we know, we can't travel faster than the speed of light. So that sets a fundamental limit on. For us, maybe not them. Yeah. I can't answer that question, but as far as we know, we can't move information, let alone ourselves faster than this fundamental speed limit. And the distances are vast. The closest star to earth is four light years away. So if you somehow could go at the speed of light, you could go to that closest star in four years. And so, you know, the idea of going to visit travel, the speed, not even close to that. We can't travel a 10th of the speed of light,

not even close. Yeah. So really it would be a human lifetime. Yeah. I was going to say like 75 years. Right. So you, so not, I don't, I hope that's not depressing, but that says that even if there's stuff out there, it may be that we are so far away that we just can't establish contact. I had a thought when I was probably nine years old, maybe eight, and I was certain that at some point I'm going to be able to walk through walls. And oddly enough, I asked my wife that question, like, you ever have that thought, like married like 10 years and you know, like I had that thought and she goes, Oh, I did too. Like what? She goes, yeah, I figured that like I'm madder. That's madder. If I could time it up just the right way.

Like, you know, there's like, I think i could finally figure that thing out sometime like this is the magical mind of an eight or nine year old i'm still kind of betting one day if we got the math just right the timing because there's more non-space than space or there's more what would matter non-matter than matter right yeah atoms atoms are. Yeah, right. And so, I don't know, it's a little magical thinking, but you start to play with those quantum experiments. It's like pretty radical. So anyways, listen. Yeah. Oh, please. If you look at the vast arc of human history, right? It was only what, two or three, a couple hundred, it was a few hundred years ago that we, that human beings figured out that the earth revolves around the sun.

Is that Copernicus? This is like, we have, I think you're right. It was Galileo was involved too, right? I think they were also persecuted. Correct. Right. I think they had also persecuted. Correct. Correct. I think they had to go into exile or persecuted or like- This was a minority view. They were killed by the Catholic or Christian church by saying, what are you talking about? Like you're going against our principles.

Right. This was a minority view. So I mean, I think you can learn from that. It's important to allow minority views to be expressed. Oh, that's a cool way to frame that. Yep. Yeah. And also we probably don't know everything.

Yeah, right. It wasn't long ago that we were still figuring some pretty basic stuff out. And in psychology, it was not that, I don't know the exact date. I'll say a hundred. I'm going to hysteria. When a woman was hysterical, it was because her womb was wandering in her body i mean yeah how far off was thinking call it 100 years ago right right like radically wrong right yeah and so um that's why we call it a hysterectomy because the the hysteria that would take place

from the wandering womb wow what, what did I just say? Like that is, you know, that was the best we could do early days, you know, to, so anyways, not to get down that rabbit hole, but like, look, I really appreciate you. This is awesome. I can't wait to know what you're going to be up to next. And you have a home here at the Mastery Lab. I'll give you the key. Absolutely.

Thanks so much for having me. It's always such an honor and a pleasure to get to talk with you. You always bring out the most insightful and interesting questions. And so just thanks. Thanks for the wonderful experience. I appreciate you.

You want to put a dinner on aliens? What does that mean? Bet a dinner. Oh, within our lifetime. Are we going to find out? This is a lifetime. Which side of this bet do you want? That we are not going to know in our lifetime, but that maybe our kids might know. I agree with you. On the second part? I don't think we'll know. The kids? I don't think we'll know in our lifetimes. But our kids? I don't know. Cool. Yeah.

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