Lessons from Outer Space and a Near-Death Experience | Astronaut, Steve Smith

Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais

Dr. Michael Gervais

Sport Psychology, Finding Mastery, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Business, Self Help, Michael Gervais, Health & Fitness, Mindset, Psychology, Self-improvement, Education

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2021

⏱️ 103 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week’s conversation is with Steve Smith, one of America’s most experienced astronauts and spacewalkers, with 4 spaceflights and 7 spacewalks to repair the Hubble Space Telescope and build the Space Station.

Steve dreamed of being an astronaut at age 7. Then he made his dream come true through sheer determination and intelligent risk taking.

During the 3-decade pursuit of his dream he became a Stanford electrical engineer and MBA, General Motors Fellow, pilot, elite collegiate athlete, and IBM Product Manager.

At NASA, Steve held multiple senior leadership positions and served as a Diplomat.

He now uses this one-of-a-kind experience base as a board director, venture capital advisor, and keynote speaker.

I was so excited to have this conversation - for all the years we’ve been at it with Finding Mastery, we’ve never had an astronaut as a guest so this was such a treat.

We discuss his experience going to space, how it changed his perspective of life on earth, the risks associated with his job, and strategies for living and working in isolation -- something that we all can relate to over these past 18 months.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	One of the things I did before my flights is I wrote every member of my family a handwritten letter.
0:05.3	And some of them were 10, 12 pages long. I was crying while I was writing
0:09.8	and my voice cracked even when I mentioned it now. But you know, it's pretty hard to write a two-year-old
0:14.2	sign how you feel. And they would get these letters, of course, if I didn't come back. You know,
0:18.4	I'm sorry that things didn't work out. I'm sorry I'm having to read this, but this is why I did it.
0:22.6	And this is how I feel about you and what I wish for you for the future. So they've never seen
0:25.9	those letters. Those are all thankfully still tucked away.
0:38.4	All right, Kanichiwa. I am currently in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic Games and I can not wait to share
0:47.6	the insights and the lessons and the very applied practices that are unfolding around me every day
0:54.8	from the world's best. And so I just want to say welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.
0:59.6	This is a special episode and we're going to talk with one of the great minds Steve Smith,
1:04.4	who's an astronaut. And if you're new to this podcast, we take a deep dive into how people
1:13.2	understand mastery of craft. And really what that means is we want to understand how they work
1:19.6	from the inside out mastery of self-first and then mastery of craft. And by trading,
1:25.4	training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist. That's what I'm doing out in the Olympic Games,
1:28.6	supporting one of the United States of America teams. And we want to be able to dig to understand
1:35.9	how the extraordinary work. And that's what this podcast is about. And our minds are our greatest
1:42.7	asset. And if you want to learn more about how you can train and condition your mind,
1:46.9	just like the extraordinary athletes that I'm with now. And all of the professional athletes
1:52.4	I've worked in the past, if you want to invest in the same way that they do, this is just a quick
1:56.8	hit here and a reminder for some of you that we built an online training course with the head coach
2:02.6	at the Seattle Seahawks Peak Carol. And you can find all of that training. And I think it's a
	...

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