Boldly Go Like Yuri Gagarin
The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 14.8K Ratings
🗓️ 30 August 2021
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Space crews, athletes and pop stars all indulge in strange rituals before moments of high stress. It's easy to mock these behaviours - indeed even the people who practise them often admit they're a bit weird - but they can act like performance enhancing drugs.
Dr Laurie Santos looks at the research to show why creating a good luck ritual can make us perform better and feel calmer, happier and more confident when faced with life's big moments.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Pushkin |
| 0:12.0 | We have a saying here when you're nervous about something that you have butterflies in the tummy |
| 0:16.0 | Can you really honestly say that you did not have any butterflies in the tummy before you started? |
| 0:21.0 | Butterflies in the tummy, the most British question ever |
| 0:25.0 | I stumbled across this BBC interview on YouTube and became a bit obsessed |
| 0:30.0 | It's 1961 and famed journalist Richard Dimblebee is asking Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin |
| 0:36.0 | The first man ever to travel to space if he was nervous in the moments before blast-on |
| 0:41.0 | What was it? |
| 0:43.0 | Yes, I can assure you there were no butterflies, moths or anything else |
| 0:46.0 | I'm stuck |
| 0:48.0 | Yuri was strapped into a tiny capsule on top of a rocket filled with an explosive mix of kerosene and liquid oil |
| 0:54.0 | Kerosene and liquid oxygen |
| 0:56.0 | He was sitting there all alone waiting to venture where no other human had ever ventured before |
| 1:01.0 | What can our scientists confirm by the fact that they are able to do it? |
| 1:07.0 | The brief period of time I did spend in the spaceship before the actual takeoff |
| 1:13.0 | I think I spent quite normal condition and I think these scientists will confirm this by producing the records of my pulse count and so on |
| 1:23.0 | Did you give so much of your school for loop? |
| 1:25.0 | And I don't think there were any grounds for me to be seriously anxious either at that period or at any time throughout the flight |
| 1:32.0 | So full disclosure, one of the reasons I love listening to this interview is because I've always found Yuri to be |
| 1:39.0 | Well, kind of soon worthy |
| 1:41.0 | He has an absolutely amazing smile |
| 1:44.0 | And this sort of young Luke Skywalker Jedi sort of chill |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.