Commander Chris Hadfield witnessed the moon landing when he was nine years old. The impossible becoming the possible. He instantly knew he wanted to become an astronaut:
“It was no longer a distant, unknowable orb but a place where people walked and talked, worked, and even slept. Just the day before, it had been impossible to walk on the Moon. Neil Armstrong hadn't let that stop him. Maybe someday it would be possible for me to go too. And if that day ever came, I wanted to be ready.”
There was just one problem: Canadians couldn’t become astronauts. Canada didn’t even have a space agency. There was no program to enroll in. No manual to read. No one to even ask. There was only one option: “Imagine what an astronaut would do if they were 9 years old, and then do that”.
Hadfield recognized even at age 9 that he had a lot of choices, and that his decisions mattered. Would an astronaut eat his vegetables or have potato chips instead? Sleep in late or get up early to read a book? He realized that what he did each day would determine the type of person he would become.
Hadfield decided on a two-prong plan of attack:
Do things that keep you moving in the right direction, just in case.
Be sure that those things interest you, so that no matter what happens, you can be happy.
Becoming an astronaut takes years of serious, sustained effort: “You need to build a new knowledge base, develop your physical capabilities, and dramatically expand your technical skill set. You need to learn to think like an astronaut”.
Hadfield’s book is the inspiring blueprint for building a resilient growth mindset, from one of the most highly trained people off earth.
Thinking Like An Astronaut
An astronaut:
Someone who reliably makes good decisions, quickly, with incomplete information, when the consequences really matter.
Over the course of the book, Hadfield details the methods of astronaut training, and what it means to "think like an astronaut". It means thinking ahead to figure out "what is the next thing that could kill me?". Then creating a plan to deal with it. It means caring about small details to make sure everything is correct. "An astronaut that doesn't sweat the small stuff is a dead astronaut". And it means embracing mistakes and deeply investigating them, to discover what you can learn, how you can improve, and sharing those improvements back to help others.
Hadfield discusses many aspects of wisdom and mental resilience, relating them to the journey he travels to and from space. Below are my favourite, impactful highlights of astronaut advice.
Have An Attitude
In space flight, “attitude” refers to orientation - which direction your vehicle is pointing relative to the Earth, sun, and other spacecraft. If you lose control of your attitude, the vehicle starts to tumble and spin, and stray from course. Which could mean the difference between life and death. Maintaining attitude is fundamental to success. You never want to lose attitude.
In my experience, something similar is true on Earth. I don’t determine whether I arrive at the correct destination. There’s just one thing I can control: my attitude. That’s what keeps me headed in the right direction. So I monitor and correct. Because losing attitude would be far worse than not achieving my goal.
Hadfield reveals that most of an astronaut’s life is training, training, and more training. They practice for years at tricky, repetitive, and challenging tasks. And there is never any guarantee of getting to travel to space - any career or mission might be cut short by health problems, changes in funding, an accident, or many other reasons. Thus the most important step is to enjoy the learning and practice. Keep a good attitude.
Aim To Be A Zero
When entering any new situation you'll be viewed in one of three ways:
A Minus One: actively harmful, someone who creates problems
A Zero: Your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance
A Plus One: someone who actively adds value
We all want to be a plus one, of course. But when you don't fully understand your environment, there is no way you can be a plus one. Proclaiming your plus-one-ness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus. You don't yet know what you don't know, and there will definitely be something you don't know.
You have to be competent, and prove to others that you are, before you can be extraordinary. There are no shortcuts. So when entering any new environment or situation: conduct yourself as though no task is beneath you. None should be.
Try to contribute in small ways without creating disruptions. The best way to contribute is by trying to have a neutral impact, to observe and learn from those who are already there, to pitch in with the grunt work wherever possible.If you're confident in your abilities and your sense of self, it's not important whether you're steering the ship or pulling an oar.
A Refreshing View On Leadership: Empowering Others
Hadfield returns several times to his acts of leadership, which mainly focus on “working the problem”, empowering his team, and looking to see how he can help everyone around him succeed.
Ultimately leadership is not about glorious, crowning acts.
It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal, and motivated to do their best to achieve it.
Especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter.
Lay the groundwork for others’ success. Then stand back and let them shine.
It’s inspiring to hear this from such an accomplished human, but also to see it in action. Hadfield’s career demonstrates that he practices what he preaches; it’s not all talk.
“Be Ready. Work Hard. Enjoy It.”
Hadfield distills a lifetime of practice, education, and experience into one slogan: “Be ready. Work hard. Enjoy it!”. He says it fits any situation.
If you've got the time, use it to get ready. Learn[ing] something you'll never need is much better than needing something and having no clue where to start.
Picture the most demanding challenge.
Visualize what you need to know to meet it.
Then practise until you reach a comfortable level of competence.
Hadfield’s example: He was invited to an air show that overlapped with a tour by Elton John. What if - by some coincidence - Elton John invited Hadfield up on stage to play “Rocket Man”? Hadfield practiced and learned the song on guitar, just in case.
It never happened. “But I don’t regret being ready”.
Hadfield discusses the attitude of learning being worthwhile, even if it doesn’t immediately help your career, your current long-term goals, or other aspects of your life. “You’re always getting ahead if you learn”.
The Tough Parts
Of course, the life of an astronaut is not all glory and fun. Hadfield discusses the difficult times and heavy demand on the astronaut's family. Astronauts can spend 70% or more of their time away from home, and don’t determine much of their own schedule.
Hadfield discusses the strain this placed on his relationships with family, and how he had to learn to be proactive and thoughtful to contribute where he could. He learned to proactively plan out birthdays, gifts, and holidays he would miss in advance. To make the most of his time at home and practice gratitude and humility. To respect the hard work his family was putting in to their own lives when he was not around.
This was a powerful admission that showed there are downsides and costs to becoming a highly-trained astronaut.
The Cupola: Your Own Personal Planetarium
The Cupola is a ‘wart’ of windows on the side of the ISS with a 360 degree view. It can be used to guide operations on the station, and control robotic arms. But mainly, “it’s the closest thing you can get to a spacewalk. [You sit] surrounded by the grandeur of the universe”.
Hadfield visited the Cupola many times to take pictures and share them with earth. It was a big part of his outreach to get people interested in space exploration, and show the benefits and human aspect of investing in space. “The Canadian Space Agency's budget is less than the amount Canadians spend on Halloween candy every year”.
Working with his son and a team at NASA, Hadfield began recording videos of what life was like living in space: how astronauts brushed their teeth or how they slept. Hadfield used the Cupola to record part of his music video cover of “Space Oddity”.
The Best Parts Of Outer Space
I will leave you with three ‘bests’, chosen by Hadfield.
1) What is best part of being in space?
Zero gravity. No contest. It’s like the best ride on the fair, only it never stops. It’s not uncommon to round the corner on the ISS and discover a colleague who was 10 minutes ahead of schedule simply taking time to just spin, flip, or pirouette.
2) What was your favourite thing you witnessed in space?
The Space Station was soaring over the Indian Ocean on a very stormy night. I was floating in the Cupola window. Far below me I could see a vast expanse of thunderstorms flashing on the horizon. The closer we got, the brighter the lightning bolts became, until the white explosions were directly beneath us.
I hadn’t realized what lightning truly does until that day. Each explosion of electricity not only sends a bolt to the ground, but lights up the entire thundercloud like a giant flashbulb. And lightning is contagious. A flash would start at one end of the clouds and travel the length of them .. emphasizing the storm, end-to-end.
Just then my crewmate Tom Marshburn floated into the Cupola too, a rare chance for two astronauts to steal time together to look at the world. The storm was gigantic, and it took us minutes to fly its length. The combination of the visual spectacle and sharing it with Tom made it the favourite thing I witnessed in my 2,597 orbits of our planet.
3) How did your time as commander of the ISS change your perspective on our planet?
Many of us are raised with a sense of “us and them”. Once in orbit, with time to gaze at the world over a period of months, I found myself unthinkingly referring to everyone as “us”. This came from witnessing the repeated pattern of human existence and how we live across the planet. I would see a city that I knew well, and then just 30 minutes later see the exact same pattern of settlement in a city I had never heard of. It forced me to face the commonality of the human experience, and our shared hopes and desires.
We are all “us”: crewmates on the same big ship, working and hoping for a little joy, some grace, and better opportunities for our children. All of us.