Think Positive: Space Lessons for Modern Life

On the station the most dangerous thing is an emergency that nobody has considered in advance: there is no ready-made solution. That is why the psychologists who selected us as cosmonauts and then followed our training looked not only at how we solved problems but also at how we reacted to failure. Today there are plenty of situations without a ready-made solution on Earth as well, and a team that copes with them is a crew too.

Is our reaction to failure a character trait we are born with, or a skill we can develop? The longer I live, the more often I ask myself this question. Our baseline mood and the way it shifts are roughly one-third determined by our genes—it depends on how lucky you are. But training in the cosmonaut corps convinced me that we can consciously develop certain qualities in ourselves, including our reaction to failure, rather than simply relying on what nature gave us.

For me, positive thinking is the skill of stopping, looking at the situation from the outside and asking myself how I can influence it. If I find a solution—great! If the situation is beyond my control, I change my attitude to it. Changing my attitude does not mean resigning myself: I try to move toward situations where more depends on me. And all the while I look after my own well-being. That does not require reshaping the world around me: little by little I change the way I live and work so that it is more comfortable for me.

In aviation there is the notion of the optimum speed: at that speed an aircraft has the least drag and needs the least thrust. For me, negativity is that same drag: it takes away the energy the job needs. I choose difficult and demanding tasks for myself, but I try to carry as little negativity with me as possible—that is what going through life at the optimum speed means to me. I am glad to share this experience and my observations.

The lecture is built as storytelling: from a problem, through a story from my own practice or that of my colleagues, to analysis and a conclusion. A presentation with photos and video, dialogue with the audience, and at the end I answer questions.

The lecture “Think Positive: Space Lessons for Modern Life” will be of interest to:

1. leaders who want to build stress resilience and emotional stability;
2. specialists who work under high pressure and uncertainty;
3. professionals focused on personal growth and self-improvement;
4. managers responsible for motivating and developing teams;
5. entrepreneurs looking for inner resources to meet challenges;
6. anyone who wants to learn to turn obstacles into opportunities for growth.

1. Positive thinking is a skill: notice your reaction, look at yourself from the outside and ask “how?” and “what was missing?” instead of “is it worth it?” or “why me?”.
2. If you can influence the situation, the solution begins with a correctly framed task.
3. If the situation cannot be changed, you can change your attitude to it and gradually take on tasks where more depends on you. Your attitude determines how much energy goes into worrying and how much into the job—and the mood of the whole team.
4. Well-being rests on small things, and your level of positivity can be managed.
5. Hardiness is three attitudes (control, commitment, challenge) that help preserve health and performance in a period of major change.

INTRODUCTION:

Instead of answering the hardest question for a cosmonaut—“so what’s it like up there?”—a short film about the flights with live commentary. Then the question the story starts from: where does a cosmonaut’s “luck” come from (the view of Earth from the Cupola, the ISS observation module, on my first flight).

AWARENESS:

Positive thinking starts with the ability to stop, notice your reaction and ask yourself the right question.

1. a goal stays alive as long as you ask yourself “how?” rather than “is it worth it?”—the path that looks like luck from the outside began with the question “how?” (at 14 I decided to become a cosmonaut and immediately asked myself how to do it; it was 21 years to my first launch);
2. the way the question sounds sets the way the search goes: “how can this be done?” opens it, while “are you serious?” and “why me?” close it (an idea of the entrepreneur Oskar Hartmann and a joke sign in a minibus).

FINDING A SOLUTION:

Look for a solution if you can influence the situation.

1. stress makes it hard to keep the right question in focus: the task “build the shelter faster at any cost” overshadowed the question “why do we need to be faster?” (my survival training in the desert near Baikonur);
2. a correctly framed task makes a solution possible: not “how do you weigh yourself in weightlessness?” but “how do you find out your mass?” (measuring body mass on the ISS).

CHOOSING AN ATTITUDE:

For situations that cannot be changed.

1. reaction to failure is part of the profession: the cosmonaut corps assesses more than exam results (the words of a psychologist who selected cosmonauts);
2. where to find the strength for an assignment you did not choose and that does not inspire you (my second flight: the meaning came with my appointment as commander);
3. the first reaction comes before the thought, but it can be caught and reframed by asking yourself a question (my first training sessions in the Orlan spacesuit; a night on the station and a thought about the film “Gravity”);
4. without words you tell your team a great deal—and not always the same thing you say; one person’s mood spreads to the others, so by managing your own mood you influence the team as well (my training in the caves of Sardinia);
5. humor that unites and humor that divides: the mood of the whole team depends on it (three clips: a greeting from friends, a joke by a fellow astronaut and a clip that gets its laughs by mocking others—we discuss the differences with the audience);
6. a negative reaction could have remained a grudge against a colleague, but after a rethink it became a lesson for a future station commander on how to unite a crew (swapping films with American colleagues on my second flight).

LOOKING AFTER YOUR WELL-BEING:

This usually goes hand in hand with the first two approaches: concrete small things that restore your energy and keep you from wasting it.

1. how to live for six months on the station without wearing out yourself and those around you (food and everyday life on a long flight);
2. a positive attitude is not only a personal matter: all else being equal, people would rather have the more positive ones on their team—they are more comfortable to be with (a conversation with the Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, a participant in my third flight);
3. what in our mood is set by nature and what we can influence: sleep, movement, surroundings, health (a mood scale from zero to ten and research data on sleep, movement and surroundings).

HARDINESS AS THE FOUNDATION:

All three approaches are part of one scheme: an event, a first reaction, awareness, and then finding a solution, choosing an attitude and looking after your well-being. Underlying the scheme are our baseline settings: our average level of positivity and the three hardiness attitudes, which are different for every person. They determine the questions we ask ourselves and how we relate to the situation.

1. the three hardiness attitudes—control, commitment, challenge—and how they help preserve health and performance in a period of major change (the psychologist Salvatore Maddi’s study of a company’s managers during its breakup, and a conversation with Maezawa about control and commitment);
2. hardiness grows when you find what you truly want: motivation gives you the strength to go where it is frightening—so do not settle for the level of hardiness you have today, but look for your own motivation (back to the path into the cosmonaut corps—now with the question of what gave me strength; the special parachute training of cosmonauts).

CONCLUSION:

Is our reaction to failure character or skill? Both. Character is our baseline settings: each of us has an average level of positivity and a level on each of the three hardiness attitudes—control, commitment, challenge. They determine the questions we ask ourselves when we fail and how we relate to failure. Skill is knowing your settings and managing them. Knowing means understanding where you stand on each attitude (for example, whether you believe the outcome depends on you by 50 percent or by 99) and what that affects. Managing means finding what you truly want: motivation gives you the strength to train little by little, as in the stories about the spacesuit, the parachute and everyday life on the station.

1. become familiar with a scheme for acting in a difficult situation that took shape for me over years of training and flights: notice your reaction, ask the right question, then look for a solution or change your attitude—and look after your well-being all the while;
2. hear which questions, in my experience, open up the search for a solution and which close it down;
3. see, through examples from crew life, how one person’s mood spreads to the others and how humor unites or divides;
4. learn how people coped with anxiety, monotony and disagreements on a long flight;
5. understand what hardiness is made of and where you stand on each of its three attitudes.

60–80 minutes, including Q&A.