C: Welcome to Slingshot25’s Shotcast… a series of bite-sized podcasts that’ll feel like an espresso shot to your brain. I’m Courtney.
J: And I’m Jackie.
C: And something we’ve been thinking and reading about is Artemis II.
It’s really fun when, um, the news sort of collides with our work. And as you- We’re not astronauts. We’re not. No, we’re not. I just wanted to… I do like Tang. Yeah, I’m like… Because I do really like Tang. No one born since- Why am I saying Bible school? This is weird … 1990 would know what that means.
And cocoa stuff. Okay. So, um, a lot of the article, the news articles, it’s, it’s fascinating to hear the maybe technical details of the space mission and how they splash in the ocean and all those things. But the pieces of the news that caught our eye were how many stories highlighted the effectiveness of this team- Mm-hmm
and why it was effective and what made it different. And, um, great leaders, great leadership principles, great team dynamics, and all of those things, um, that’s what we teach, that’s what we are about, that’s what we believe the world needs. And so, um, what are some of the things… Like, like I think we’re just going to spend a little bit of time kind of picking apart different things that line up to our mission.
Ah. We aren’t astronauts, but we have a mission. Love that so- So what is, what is one, Jac, that you are like- Space talk … I think that’s kind of cool?
J: This is space talk today. Um, I love that you’ve already, uh, y- you know, referenced in there, Courtney, that we often say, “Your world needs better leaders.” Mm-hmm. We want.
And, and we mean that. We don’t… it’s kind of sounds a bit slogany, and it is indeed a slogan that we use, but we mean it. The world needs better leaders. And we recognize that, um, we don’t expect all of our, you know, participants in our classrooms and the people that we coach to serve the world, like the big, blue, giant, um, world, but we mean your world.
And, and, you know, although y- you know, the, the crew members of Artemis II were, um, you know, they were something that the whole world looked up to- Mm-hmm … for sure. Certainly, you know, in the United States, cause this, of course, was a mission that, you know, came from this country. Uh, but, but they are something that the entire world looks up to.
When we, when we talk to, you know, the people that we work with, they’re not typically, you know- … in, in positions that they are, that they are known by the entire world. But we still mean your world. Your world needs better leaders, and we saw a lot of, um… We read a lot about the crew, uh, in this particular mission that represents a lot of things that we talk about, as, as you’ve said, Courtney.
Things like humility, emotional intelligence, um, psychological safety, you know, lowering your ego. Like, not letting… Can you imagine being in a tiny space capsule with, with giant egos? Like, it just… It couldn’t play. Mm-hmm. It wouldn’t play. It would destroy the mission. And, um, we’d like our listeners and the people that we work with to, to think similarly.
Yeah. I mean, you might not be jammed into a tiny space capsule with your colleagues, but in, you know, metaphorically, you probably are.
C: Mm-hmm. And when you list those attributes, I think one of the things that, that stands out to me is humility, curiosity, empathy, the, the believing each other, believe in your team.
Those are… At Slingshot, those are skills.
J: Right.
C: They are not attributes. You… It’s not Maybelline. You weren’t born with it. Like, y- if you work on it… We define a skill as anything that if you work on it and practice it, you can get better at it. And so, the people that they picked for this team, they, they were skilled in being great human beings.
J: That’s right.
C: And that’s what we teach, and, and, and we want everyone to go, “You know what? If I, if I’m not that leader, if I’m not that person, if I’m not that teammate, I can become it if I want to learn. I can become it if I’m willing to practice. I can become it if I’m willing to be uncomfortable and awkward and, and grow a little bit,” because they’re available to a lot more people than are using them.
J: That’s right, and it does take some, a real commitment and dedication to being that kind of person. And on- once you have that, and then you work on those skills- It’s available to you. Mm-hmm. Like, you can be, you really can be that good, that great. Um, and, and, and I’d also like to point out here, one of the things that we know is you can’t just demand this of people, though.
You know, one of the things that we see is, like, you know, all the values posters and stuff- … hanging around in, in the corporate workplace, even, like, leadership models, stuff like this, that just has all of these words that we’re kind of, we’re kind of known for calling them corporate weasel words, meaning that people stare at these words so often they get drained of meaning because they’re not…
There’s no efficacy in, in, you know, associated with these words in their workplace. They see them hanging on the walls, but they don’t really live them in their day-to-day lives. Um, but so w- we… It’s not about these things can just be imposed. It’s this team, and I think that’s why this crew, the, the crew members of Artemis II are a great example of this, is you know that each of those people, you know, had to show up there, all of, all four crew members had to show up and say, “I’m, I’m choosing to show up this way.
I know it’s important to the mission, and I own this,” and then it emerges on the team. Mm-hmm. It can’t be imposed into the team. It has to emerge from the team themselves making that kind of commitment. Um, so, you know, I, I think that’s also really important because we bring this into our classroom all the time.
We say to people, “Take one thing away,” but you’ve got… When we’re going to, we’re going to send you back out into the wild from whence you came, and nothing has changed there. Mm-hmm. Like, so you have to take that energy with you in order to make that emerge in your workplaces. It’s not something that can simply be imposed by edict.
Yeah. It doesn’t happen that way.
C: Yeah, and then kind of related to that and the, the last thing that really comes to mind is that this is not… I think we say this all the, all the time on the Shot Cast, that these skills are not optional right now. Mm-hmm. Like, one of the biggest fears that everyone’s talking about is what AI is doing to our work, what is AI doing to our jobs.
It’s a real threat, and somehow this EQ, emotional intelligence, being a human being, caring more, valuing people more, it is the only kind of thing you’ve got against AI. Yeah. If you want to be in the world in a way that is that you’re valued, that you’re valuable, you got to be a better human.
J: Right.
C: Because everything that you do that’s not human- Maybe AI can figure out and do. Probably AI will figure out and do. Yeah. But AI can’t be a better human than you- Right … if you want to work on it. And
J: Those same human skills, even if you want to work with AI, um, which that’s, you know, a lot of people do, um, it, it, it’s, those human skills are what will allow humanity to get real value out of AI- Mm-hmm
for humanity. Um, so all, you know, there’s, there’s no, there’s no end to this. Um, the, the last thing that I think of when I think of Artemis II and these astronauts is the, the saying that we use here a lot here at Slingshot25, which is, “Your legacy is not what happens when you leave the planet, it’s what happens when you leave the room.”
And we mean that for all of our listeners, unless you’re an astronaut, because, you know, you actually do get to build your legacy by leaving the planet, but, you know, you get to come back and claim it.
C: I feel like that’s a better outro than our typical outro- … but we’re ready for the outro. I’m going to end on that.
J: Right, do it.
C: All right. That really is all for this episode of our Shotcast, but we always have much more to say. If you want more, drop us a line at Slingshot25.com. Until next time.
