A lot of coverage about Artemis II and the lunar flyby. This is my NASA badge from the Dan Goldin era.
I was 22 years old and had absolutely no business being in that building.
But those years planted something I’ve never been able to shake.
When you work in a place devoted to exploring and understanding our universe — the scale of it, the silence of it, the fragility of the small blue dot we all share — your professional wins and losses start to look different. Not unimportant. Just smaller.
Yesterday, four astronauts flew farther from Earth than any human in history.
Victor Glover said it simply: seeing Earth from that distance is a reminder of humanity’s shared identity.
No borders. Just one planet.
Christina Koch, asked to describe the mission in a single word, said: “Humility.”
Commander Reid Wiseman described the view from behind the Moon: “No matter how long we look at this, our brains are not processing the image in front of us. It is absolutely spectacular. Surreal. There are no adjectives. I’m going to need to invent some new ones.”
This is the perspective I try to carry into everything.
Your deal falling apart isn’t the end. Your company struggling isn’t the end. The judgment you fear from people who don’t matter — definitely not the end.
Humanity and just living — loving the people around you, showing up, doing something that matters — those things outrank every professional win or loss.
I wrote about this in my chapter Keep Things in Perspective. It all started at NASA. Artemis II and this incredible team just reinforced it.
What record are you trying to break that really matters?