The Right Stuff
Dear Lord, please don't let me f*** up.
This is a semi-whenever list of interesting articles, podcasts and videos that I come across during the week. Hope you enjoy it, have something new to think about, and share it with your friends.
Writing this weeks post while I await for SpaceX to launch the historic “Demo-2” mission to the International Space Station this morning. While I often wonder what Elon Musk is thinking when he posts something off the wall, I absolutely loved his interview with CBS earlier this week and his own take of “Extreme Ownership”.
“I’m Chief Engineer of the thing. If it goes right, it’s credit to the SpaceX/NASA team. Goes wrong, it’s my fault”.
Which brings me to Philip Kaufman’s vision of Tom Wolfe’s classic book “The Right Stuff”. While the story of test pilots and the beginning of the US’s manned space program, it is much more a story about the human pursuit of courage, pushing limits and the cost of what comes with that. Having recently rewatched it, it feels somewhat dated, but Bill Conti’s score with coupled with the “walking mercury astronauts” scene still stirs an emotional reaction; it iconifies space travel and the human spirit for me, despite everything going on in 2020 in the world today.
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This weeks "Deep Links"
Did you know that if you have the right information on something (apparently anything), it can be used as a check? Yes, you can also use a giant fish as one too - More
Given the discussions of the past week on social networks, you probably want to familiarize yourself with “Mainway” - the NSA’s tool for mapping your social network - More
Anne-Laure Le Cuniff is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors over at Nesslabs. Her life lessons post (which, IMHO are way beyond where I was at 30) are fantastic and worth the time going through and evaluating how they impact your own life - More
Empowerment and empathy are 2 themes that any good leader/manager try to grow in their teams. While this is a quick checklist, it’s still valuable to constantly check yourself on what sets good leaders apart from great ones - More
Grasping the various sides of risk that can only be learned through experience - More
Pandemic or not; these mental models for yourself, society and the future are different ways to help open your mind to new ways of understanding the crazy around us - More
Interesting post this week from Mark Schwartz over at Amazon on “Guts” and leading through uncertainty - More
Using certain words (and I’ll add body language) is an important part of changing people’s mindset. Here’s a good list of which words to use and what to avoid - More
Lots of great classics in this list of “30 Movies That Are Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before”; always on the hunt for new ones that are a bit off the beaten path. Great to see “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” in there - More
Mapping - hieroglyphs, mind mapping, Wardley maps, and general cartography is a different thinking model than “thinking in sentences” - More
As a fan of Bruce Lee’s philosophy of “Be Like Water”, I can’t explain how excited I am for this new '30 for 30' film from ESPN - More
Did you know that Wite-Out is still one of the top sellers these days? Why is that? - More
I’ve been really looking forward to Christopher Nolan’s Tenet - apparently they crashed a real 747 instead of using computer graphics because it was “more efficient” - More
“Writing is Thinking” an important read; and one that I hope gets you started in writing more - More
End Thoughts
Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he's sittin' on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I'll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV.