Astronaut Kathy Sullivan Explores… Podcasting

In 1984, Kathy Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space. By 1986, she took her first deep-sea dive to the Bermuda Seamount flanks, making her the first person in history to walk in space and go to the deepest point of the ocean.

 

Kathy holds a Doctorate in Marine Geology and Geophysics from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and has worked as a ranking commissioned Navy Reserve Oceanographer. She served as the appointed NOAA Chief Scientist and Deputy Administrator, the President and CEO of COSI, and the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation & Prediction. Most recently, in 2020, Kathy was awarded the Greatest Vertical Extent Travelled by an Individual (within Earth’s exosphere) award. In September 2021, she was appointed as a member of President Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She is also the host of the Kathy Sullivan Explores Podcast, where she explores the human condition through the life journeys of her guests.

 

Kathy joins me today to explore her first year in podcasting. We discuss how having routines and habits have helped her have deeper conversations with her podcast guests. We discuss what went wrong with the Hubble Space Telescope, how it was fixed, and Kathy’s thoughts on processing errors and failures. We explain what it's like to become a podcast host and interviewer and the importance of keeping your listeners in mind when recording new episodes. We also discuss some of her previous podcast episodes about leadership styles and how maintaining the mindset for learning keeps us alive and human.

 

“Stay in the awareness that you’re always learning—always growing.” - Kathy Sullivan

 

This week on Moving Conversations:

 

●     The real value of routines and habits

●     The listeners Kathy keeps in mind when she records episodes

●     How setbacks and hurdles in life are part of the human experience

●     Launching shuttles, airplanes, and podcasts and why Kathy wrote Handprints on Hubble

●     The power of creativity and invention and their roles in human life

●     How Kathy’s curiosity and childhood upbringing helped her manage fear and risk

●     Crisis management and dealing with surprises

●     Processing different versions of tragedy and failure

●     The Hubble Space Telescope’s mirror flaw and how it was fixed

●     The debriefing and unwinding period that follows a podcast episode or a large project

●     Conversations about compassionate and competitive styles of leadership

●     Kathy’s solo episodes and their improvement over time

 

Resources Mentioned:

 

●     Podcast Episode: The Life of a Visionary with Charlie Bolden Part 1

●     Podcast Episode: The Birth of the New Space Age with Charlie Bolden Part 2

●     Podcast Episode: Getting Gold in Sports, Career, and Life with Katie Smith

●     Podcast Episode: The Cooperative Model of Business with Omega CEO Raynald Aeschlimann (Part 1)

●     Podcast Episode: The Honor of Measuring Time with Omega CEO Raynald Aeschlimann (Part 2)

●     Podcast Episode: