The Challenge of Space

When President John F. Kennedy would sit in meetings, he’d often doodle pictures of sailboats as he listened to presentations. Kennedy loved anything that involved the water, so drawing sailboats while dreaming of his favorite pastime was natural. When Kennedy decided to commemorate the space program, some were surprised because they all knew he wasn’t a space enthusiast. What many did not understand about Kennedy, though, was that he was an enthusiast of striving toward something that was seemingly unreachable. He loved challenges.

On Sept. 12, 1963, 71 days before his assassination in Dallas, Kennedy gave a speech on the campus of Rice University. He started by saying he “was meeting everyone on a campus noted for knowledge, in a city (Houston) noted for progress, in a state noted for strength. We stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge in a decade of hope and fear in an age of both knowledge and ignorance.” Later he added, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

Today we should all observe history in the making. If the weather in Florida cooperates, SpaceX's Crew Dragon will lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center's historic Launch Complex 39A. It will be the first time the private sector working with the government sends someone to space and the first time since 2011 that American astronauts will launch from American soil. And today more than ever, we need everything that Kennedy mentioned some 20,713 days ago. We need knowledge, progress, and, most of all, strength. We also need to embrace doing something hard, something to measure the best of our energies and skills.

We choose to lead and teach not because it's easy, but because we want to make an impact. We choose to lead, challenging ourselves, to measure our skills, to continually work to improve. We must educate our team so we drive them to become the best. No one involved in the Space Program tomorrow or 50 years ago wanted to be average — they all want to reach for something slightly outside their reach. They wanted hard work. They want to be challenged.

We need to remind our players/staff that knowledge promotes progress which then promotes strength. Today will be hard because we choose hard work, not the easy path. We need to challenge our minds and bodies each day. If we don’t meet new challenges, we fail to understand what we can accomplish.

Or, as Kennedy said: “But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?”

Because we all love the challenge.

📺 Watch this historic launch LIVE on NASA TV 🚀

P.S. If you are in search of a book recommendation, our team at The Daily Coach highly recommends The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen. By identifying the winning behaviors of the world's best innovators — from leaders at Amazon and Apple to those at Google, Tesla, and Salesforce — Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen outline five discovery skills that distinguish innovative entrepreneurs and executives. More than ever this book is an essential resource for individuals, managers, and teams who want to strengthen their innovative prowess.

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