What's Your Moonshot?

In the spring of 1961, President John F. Kennedy had to make a monumental decision. The Soviet Union had just launched the first human into space, beating the United States to an enormous accomplishment with massive ramifications in the Cold War era.

The young president needed to decide “What now?” He could risk significant political, human and monetary capital to compete with a geopolitical aggressor or face defeat in what he called the battle “between freedom and tyranny.”

The “moonshot” choice now seems like an obvious one. But we need to keep in mind that NASA was still months away at that point from even orbiting an astronaut.

What would ensue is a pivotal lesson for us all. It’s one thing to set your sights on a goal years away without the existing technology to make it happen. It’s another to overcome significant short-term failures but still chase your long-term ambitions, knowing full well that they could change the world. Numerous disappointments and mistakes took place before mankind’s greatest achievement. None was more consequential than the fire that killed three brave astronauts in 1967 (a full two years before the Moon landing). When you consider that in the Cold War context, the pressure to succeed was truly never higher.

The decision and related events are some of the most significant in human history, but their lessons are just as applicable to our everyday lives and the achievement of our personal goals. Whatever it is that we need to decide on, we, like President Kennedy, need to evaluate the risk, take action, and most importantly, persist in the face of repeated failure.

Let’s think about our own moonshot and strategize about how we can best achieve it.