What We can Learn from Astronauts and Cosmonauts

My son, Dylan, is 10 years-old and space obsessed. I hear, on a more or less constant?basis, about his plans for a privatized space business. He frequently laments the fact that America has to rely on another country to get our astronauts into space—though he is impressed with Russia's?Soyuz spacecraft.

I had no idea the Soyuz was the safest and most reliable spacecraft in existence, but I learned when Dylan shared that piece of information while we were playing “housketball” together.

?(Housketball: a mixture of NERF basketball , jungle rules streetball, and rugby.)

In fact, one of Dylan’s recent highlights was the chance to meet a friend I made on LinkedIn: Gregory Mattes , former space shuttle flight controller and engineer.

All of this meant Dylan really wanted to watch the NASA Channel he found the other morning in the hotel we were staying at, and I was pretty excited to watch it with him.

Two of the segments on the NASA Channel that morning featured?astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, who had just returned after spending a year together in space. Those interviews contained a few pieces of wisdom we should all listen to.

Wisdom like:

1. “When we do things that are really hard, we can achieve great things.”

Scott Kelly shared this insight when asked to give career advice to future generations of astronauts in the?interview filmed just after he returned . In the interview Kelly discusses?accepting missions that he we would rather not take, and in general doing things he didn’t want to do in service?of a greater good.?

It’s excellent career advice. Anything worth achieving is hard to do, and succeeding isn’t like climbing a ladder—it’s more like clawing your way up the side of a mountain.

Multiple times.

After you’ve fallen, multiple times.

Kelly’s didn’t just give good career advice. Every one of the individuals running for president, and the media that gives these individuals their platform, should also heed Kelly’s words.

We can fix what is broken in our world and create opportunity for people who feel forgotten, unseen, or left behind, but the answers to our problems won’t be found in solutions that can be described in 10 words or less.

To quote Judy Hopps, main character of (the awesome) new Disney film Zootopia:

“Real life is more complicated than a slogan on a bumper sticker.”

2. “Mikhail is my brother from another mother.”

The affection Scott Kelly has for cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko was also?obvious in the same interview. Kelly called Kornienko his “brother from another mother”, and said the two would be friends for life, even if he is never able to return to Russia.

Two individuals with different backgrounds, representing two rival factions, spend nearly a year together on the same endeavor where there is mixture of high-stakes drama (watch how a Soyuz lands ) and the mundane tediousness of everyday life, and come out with a genuine respect for each other.

Compare that to our presidential primaries, where individuals who also represent rival factions and endure high-stakes drama (though – hopefully - no one runs the risk of dying) and (a lot) of tediousness not only come out with no respect for each other, they also manage to erode much of the respect the public once had for them.

Recall life with a roommate, and multiply the challenges and potential for tension by an infinite number, and you have the environment Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko lived in.

The managed to acquit themselves with decency and dignity.

Our politicians and the media should try and follow their lead.

?3.?“A really smart person once told me ‘Teamwork makes the dream work’."

During their year in space Kelly and Kornienko spent time with 13 American, European, Japanese, and Russian inhabitants aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Without the cooperation of every one of those individuals their mission may have failed – or worse.

Contrast that spirit?of cooperation with the way?the media has treated this presidential election like a non-staged, lethal version of professional wrestling’s Royal Rumble, except rather than “The Rock” or John Cena our names are “older rural southern whites”, “young Hispanic families”, “inner-city youth”, “college educated”, “non-college educated”, “blue-collar”, “white collar”, millennials”, “baby boomers”, “liberals”, “conservatives”, “ultra-liberals”, “ultra-conservatives”, “neo-conservatives”, “paleo-conservatives” “centrist democrats”, “socialists”—and on and on.

We are labeled, divided, and pitted against one another until our disagreements transcend policy preference and become visceral hatred that occasionally erupts into actual violence.

We can do better, and we have to do better.

It will not be easy , but we can begin by turning away from the campaign spokespeople and the media that asks them insipid questions designed to start arguments, and instead listen to people like Scott Kelly, who said this:

“It’s incredibly important that we all work together to make what is seemingly impossible, possible.”

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Jack McKissen is the founder of?McKissen + Company ,?and was recently named one of LinkedIn's "Top Voices on Management and Corporate Culture".