Find your Highest Potential with Dr. Bernard A. Harris Jr

0:00I remember standing there just looking around and there was nobody around for five miles. for a reason. This is a bomb that I'm about to get on.

0:14What would happen if we just told the truth? Welcome to TruthWorks, where we dig into the nitty gritty of leadership and work. And what needs to change? I'm Jessica Neal. And I'm Patti McCord. Our journey together started in HR, but trust us, it's evolved into something wild, honest, and, well, a bit rebellious. So throw out the handbook. We're here to redefine rules to work for us, not against us. Let's dive into another episode.

0:49Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the TruthWorks podcast. I have lots of exciting news to share today. First, I'm going to get into, I have a guest co-host today because my partner in crime, Patty McCord, is on a trip with her kids. And so I asked my wonderful, great friend, Nellie Prashkoff, to come join me today. And she is the CHRO of Reddit, but how Nellie and I know each other is we work together at Netflix. And so welcome, Nellie. Thank you for having me, Jessica. So excited, especially for this interview. I know. I didn't want to do this interview by myself because, I don't know, I'm a little nervous and starstruck.

1:37We have Dr. Bernard Harris, who was the first African-American astronaut to walk in space, which I don't even know what walking in space must feel like. I mean, we're going to get into it. But Dr. Harris is a doctor, a physician, went to medical school, but has become an astronaut. He's written this amazing book called Embracing Infinite Possibilities, Letting Go of Fear to Find Your Highest Potential. And we talk a lot about letting go of fear on the show and reaching your potential. So I'm so excited to talk to you about your book. And then, Dr. Harris, you have exciting news. What is going to happen in May?

2:22Tell us. I am going to be inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at the end of May. Congratulations. Congratulations. I don't know. I'm getting goosebumps. We're talking to an astronaut, Nellie. Yes. And not just any astronaut. The first African-American to walk in space, being conducted in the Hall of Fame. I mean, so many achievements. But haven't you achieved, Dr. Harris? Yes. What haven't you done? Tell us the astronaut story. So I was one of those kids that was fascinated with science and science fiction. I used to read science fiction books. I was, I like to tell people, one of the original Star Trekers.

3:07So Star Trek came out during the time in which I was growing up. And so that was all the fantasy side. But at the same time, the U.S. and Russia were locked in a battle to see who was going to get to the moon first. And so I watched that on my little black and white television. And in 1969, I was 13 years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. And I said, you know what? I think I want to be an astronaut. Yeah, that's how it started. And what did you do from that point forward once you sort of had that aha or epiphany? Well, I was lucky enough to have a mother who was an educator who would always ask us, what do you want to do when you grow up?

3:58You know, always pushing that for us, you know, getting us to think into the future. And in my household, it wasn't, you know, when you were going to finish high school. is when you're going to finish college or what college, you know, it was just given. So we had no choice from that standpoint. And so I remember running to her one day and I said, mom, I know what I want to do. I want to be an astronaut. And she says, oh, that's nice. And started to walk away. You know, I would do with our kids. They come with all these ideas and you got to go, oh yeah. And then suddenly she turns around, realized how important her words were to me.

4:35and she turned around and said that I could be and do anything that I wanted to be, which is probably the first advice and the best advice I've ever gotten. That enabled me to think bigger than what I might have otherwise. And so in high school, I had to figure out not only what college I was going to go to, but what major. And in my research at NASA, I found out that there were doctors who worked in the space program. And I realized that I like helping people. So even if I didn't go into space, I liked this idea of being a physician. And now I found out that there were physicians that could go into space.

5:18And so I went to the University of Houston as an undergraduate school, Texas Tech Medical School, Mayo Clinic for my internal medicine training. and then I ended up doing a fellowship at NASA Ainsworth Center out in California. And that was my, you know, foothold into NASA. And then eventually after that. So when I finished up my residency at the Mayo Clinic, and by the way, the Mayo Clinic, unbeknownst to me when I went there, was involved in the early space program. So I always like to tell the story. I'm sitting at lunch with my physician leader, the professor, and he's asking us kids, these residents, what do you want to do after you finish your residency?

6:04And I said, I think I want to be an astronaut. Because I didn't want to be laughed at, right? And he got all excited about it. He goes, did you know that we have an aerospace medicine department? I said, no, I didn't, because I was They're for internal medicine. So I went to the aerospace medicine department and there, the head of that program liked my story so much that he literally picked, you know, told me to stop almost like mid sentence, picks up the phone calls, the head of NASA and says, I got this kid who says that he wants to be an astronaut. What should he do? You know, you talk about mentorship and how important that is.

6:47And from that conversation, I sat out on the course. He said, tell him if he's really interested, given his background, to find the biggest problem that NASA has with human beings being in space and see if he can be a part of that solution. And so that's exactly what I did. At the time when I studied NASA, it was bone loss. You know, we lose 1 % of bone per month in space because of microgravity. Being in a place that doesn't have gravity, our body adapts to that microgravity environment. We lose muscle, bone, our heart gets smaller. We call that space medicine, space adaptation syndrome, a body's ability to adapt.

7:32And so I chose to become an expert on the bone side. And I started my research career at Ames Research Center and then eventually moved to Johnson Space Center. And then in 1990, applied to the Astronaut Corps and came into the astronaut corps, the 13th class in the astronaut corps. Wow. That's amazing. Absolutely inspiring. You also make it sound somewhat easy, which I'm sure it wasn't. But anywhere through that education process, have you ever second-guessed your dreams, your goals, whether or not you can do it? Oh, yeah. Where do you want me to start? Yeah. Tell us everything. So from the first start, okay, so let me back with the aspiration.

8:261969 was shortly after the Civil Rights Movement. And so as a black kid looking at NASA, I didn't see anybody who looked like me. Right. And even if you were a girl, there were no girls. You know, the right stuff were, you know, white guys. Right. They were fighter pilots. Unbeknownst to me, as we now know, that there were minorities and women working behind the scenes that just weren't in front of the camera. But I didn't know that. So I didn't see anybody look like me. So I first had to overcome that notion that, well, maybe they don't want black folks in space, right? And of course, that's not true.

9:10And things certainly changed some years later. In my class, when you look at our class, we're probably one of the most integrated class, diverse class at NASA. And that was the 13th class, so several years later. So that was probably the first. And then in college, it was the difficulty in getting into medical school, right? Because everybody comes to college wanting to be a doctor and getting the pre-med program, and then they take organic chemistry. And I see you're laughing, so you probably relate that organic chemistry is one of the hardest courses. And that's why we did not become astronauts.

9:50No, or doctors. so uh so you have to go through that gauntlet and then in medical school i remember i'll share this story with you i was really frustrated we had been working up and i was up all night we were working on this patient and i called up my brother he called me and i said man he says i said man i don't know if i'm going to make it you know this is this is really i'm tired and it's this is hard work and all that sort of thing. And you know what he said to me? He said, well, you wanted to be a doctor. That was not exactly what I was looking for. Right. You wanted it. So what are you complaining about?

10:33So it's like, okay, I got a good kick in the butt. And I said, okay, he's right. Keep an eye on the prize. He reminded me of that, my goal, what my goal was. And sometimes when we get in the midst of struggles like this and challenges like this, we get depressed or we may think that this is not for us. And my advice is to press on, to remember what your goal and what your dream, to focus on that during those times. And I'm a perfect example of if you do that, if you have that stick-to-itiveness and have that resilience that you can accomplish anything that you want to do in life. I totally agree.

11:16Okay. So you get into the 13th class and you go to astronaut school. What was that like? So we spent about a year or two in basic training. At that point, we're called astronaut candidates. We're not astronauts yet because we've got to go through this gauntlet. Different than the military, we don't have like physical things that we have to do run five miles or do all of this sort of thing. It's more mental than anything else. We are in class mostly learning things like geology and engineering. And if those who don't have medical background doing medicine, and then we go through the survival schools.

11:56So land, water and coal survival training. And all of this is to prepare us for an environment that we yet to experience. And speaking of that environment, the only way we can simulate different aspects of weightlessness of life in space is that we have a water tank, a huge water tank in Houston, where we will put on a space suit and we'll go underwater and we'll practice doing space walks. Or we learn how to dive because that's teeming. And then more importantly, we learn how to fly. So those of us who are not pilots, I was a pilot coming in. So you had flown before. I had flown. I was a private pilot before I joined NASA.

12:42And then we go through what's called a T-38 ground school and flight school and then learn how to fly the shuttle. So all of that takes some time. And this is just to become an astronaut, right? Right. That's the basics for the mission. And for every mission that we are selected to, we spend one to two and sometimes three years in preparation for that mission. Wow. So you learn how you're an astronaut candidate, you go through, you become an astronaut, and then you get chosen for this mission. What are you feeling? What are you thinking? I'm excited, right? Because this is something that I've always wanted to do, right?

13:27Right. So once we go through that basic training, so you want to know what it's like, the first mission. Were you scared at all? No. No, I wasn't scared on that part. Let me tell you, can I share with you the part that I was a little scared of? And that is the blast off. Yeah. So you spend two to three years, as I said, learning that mission, getting prepared as a team. Usually there, in my day, I flew the space shuttle. and many people have seen the space shuttle, but you may not know that it weighs 5 million pounds. In order to get that 5 million pounds into the air, you have to light five engines that produce thrusts of 7.5 million pounds.

14:13And when those engines light you more, you basically get catapulted off the planet. But let me back up to your question. When did I get nervous? When we went out to the launch pad, and we got into the elevator, And the elevator went up to about the 100-foot level or so, where the gantry is that we walk across to go into the space shuttle. And as I was standing there, because we were taking turns, there were suit technicians helping us get into our seat. Because remember, the space ship is on its tail. So when we sit down, we're actually on our backs. Right. So you have to crawl in and get on your back.

14:51You need help getting that. But I remember standing there just looking around the launch site. And there was nobody around for five miles for a reason. This is a bomb that I'm about to get on. That you're about to get into. Yeah. That I'm about to get into. So I was okay. It was like, well, that's cool. Interesting. And I'm talking about my first flight now. So then it's my turn to get in the seat. And they get us all in. It takes about two hours to get us all saved. But I remember sitting there, buckled up. And when they closed the hatch, he had this metal clang and then a slight pressurization of the vehicle.

15:32And I said, what am I doing? What am I doing here? You know, yeah. Can we get out? That's right. Those instant moments. Wait, don't shut the door. It was like, wait a minute. Maybe I really didn't mean to do this anyway. Right. So that was one of those things, a split second you realize, well, guess what? I can't get out. They locked the door. So I'm in for the ride, whatever ride. And what a ride. I'm sure. Was it anything like you had imagined or was it completely different? I think the first flight, it's completely different. I mean, just think about that. All the experiences, you know, before you could only imagine it.

16:12Then you come to NASIS and train and you get trained for different aspects of it. So you feel like you're really ready. but you can only train different aspects of the mission, and nothing puts it all together like the mission itself. So we're sitting there getting ready to lift off. You have a headset on. You're listening to mission control and launch control and getting all the systems together. And then at T-Maius 2 minutes and counting, we go for what's called, they ask you to close your visor and turn on O2, which means close your visor and turn on your oxygen, right? That's when you know that everything is safe and you're ready to go.

16:57At T minus five seconds, the main engines of the shuttle, they begin to come to life and they roar. And that puts out about a million and a half pounds of thrust. And the whole vehicle is just shaking. You're just sitting there, but you're not going anywhere because what the system is doing is checking out to make sure those three engines are going at top performance before they light the solid rocket motors. And when you light the solid rocket motors, they are solid rockers. Once you light them, you can't turn them off. And so you want to make sure all those systems. So that takes, that whole thing takes about five seconds.

17:34At T minus zero seconds, they light the solid rocket motors and those kick out six more million pounds of thrust. And that's when you get push back in your seat and you just get shot into the air. So within first stage, two minutes of flight, that's first stage, we reach an altitude of a hundred thousand feet. Think about that. That's crazy. Going a mere 2 ,500 miles an hour. And over the course of the next, you know, six and a half minutes, total eight and a half minutes, we go from 2 ,500 to 5 ,000, 15 ,000, eventually to 17 ,500 miles an hour to get us safely in orbit. Is anything going through your mind in those minutes or are you just blanked out?

18:23No, you're not blanking out. You're forced back to about two and a half times your weight. So you're really heavy. And the first thing that's going through my mind is breathe because think about that. So you're on your back, the force is going through your chest and you have to consciously tell yourself to take a breath because it's so difficult to breathe during going through that. And then when that eight and a half minutes is up, that pressure is released. And it's such a liberating experience as you pop out and, you know, as you release that pressure and now you're in microgravity and the things around you begin to rise up and you realize that I'm in space, 250 nautical miles above the earth.

19:05Was that magical? Oh, it was. It was. It was like a dream. That part of me was like a dream. And then, you know, how many missions have you gone on in total? Two missions. Two missions. And so was the second mission the walk-on space? The second one was the walk-on space, yep. And so what was that like? Oh, you've seen these big white suits that we wear that look like the Michelin Man. You know, they're really kind of big and white. Those are full-pressure suits. So those suits allow us to go outside because you don't have any pressure whatsoever. In fact, it's a vacuum of space. It takes us about four hours to go through that whole process.

19:45In fact, about six hours if you include the two hours prep and then the four hours in the airlock, in the suit, breathing 100 % oxygen. Why? Because we want to get rid of the nitrogen out of our system so we won't have decompression sickness because we're getting ready to go, right? Getting ready to go outside to a lower pressure. The hatch opens up and you start floating out. and I had two sensations. One was the hatch was pointed toward the earth and I felt like for some reason, stepping outside the vehicle, gravity was going to pull me down, that I was falling. So I had to get over that. Again, one of those split second things.

20:25And then the other sensation was the sheer movement as we're going or skirting across the atmosphere at 17 ,000 miles an hour. At 17 ,000 miles an hour, we can go around the world every 90 minutes. We get to see a sunset or sunrise every 45 minutes. It's pretty cool. So imagine it. So we call it a walking space, but it really is a misnomer because we're floating. We pull ourselves along in handfuls and we spent about six hours or so out and it was just an amazing experience. That is just incredible. And did you realize like in the moment, what a big moment that was for you, for history? No. The short answer is no.

21:14No. Why not? All I want to do is make sure I didn't screw it up. Yeah, I'm sure. You're so focused, right? You've got mission objectives that you've got to do, and you're so focused on the things and activities that you have to carry out, not only for yourself, but for future missions and for the scientists that are depending on you as you're doing experiments up there for them. And after something like that, when you come back, do you experience a withdrawal? Are you thinking what's next? Like, I've accomplished the most extraordinary thing. I floated through space. Yeah, it's a great sense of accomplishment.

21:55And I think it's more than just, you know the act of going in the space for me it is realizing the fruition of a goal that i had when i was 13 years old right all of that all of that training all of that education all of that time has culminated into this point in time where i get to look back at mother earth and see the earth as, as what I believe God, how God sees the earth, right? As one people. We're earthlings. Yeah. I don't think there's an astronaut who's gone into the space who's not come back with that great sense of belonging, that we have this precious planet that we need to take care of.

22:42And also the fact that only a few of us get a chance to do that. So it's so important for us to have conversations like this, to share that experience with people here on earth. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to talk a little bit about your life after Astronaut and, you know, the book that you've written, because I think that some of the things that you're talking about just in your own experience probably led you to write this book, but we're talking about the sense of fear. And, you know, in your book, it's embracing infinite possibilities, but it's like letting go of the fear. And I think a lot of people I see in my career, I'm in BC now, I'm in venture capital, so I advise a lot of companies.

23:27There's just so much fear that holds people back from doing and working to their best potential. So why did you write the book and why was that message important to you? So I wrote my first book 10 years ago, and it was called A Dreamwalker. And it was a play on my dream being fulfilled and the fact that I walked in space, so Dreamwalker. I also chose that name because I actually grew up in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. And why New Mexico and Arizona? It's because my mom got a job working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and I was actually raised for a part of my early life on the Navajo Nation.

24:11And so it also is paying homage to that background, you know, and being raised on the Native American reservation. So that dreamwalker. I love that. That was a book that was essentially a memoir. And what I wanted to write was the book that I just recently wrote, Embracing the Possibilities, because one of the chapters at the end of Dreamwalker, I talk about the power within. So I want to talk about the power that we all have within ourselves to do whatever it is that we want to do in life and how there are issues and things and challenges in our environment sometimes prevent us from accomplishing our dream.

24:57So I wanted to write a book to help people. And the fear part of it is that all of us have fears, right? So all of us have fears to overcome. And when we overcome those, that's where the victory comes. So, you know, in lies the title, Embracing Infinite Possibilities. First, helping people realize that they are infinite beings with infinite possibilities. They can do anything that they want to. They're born multi-potential, multi-talented. They are born for a reason. We are born for a reason. And when we discover that reason and fulfill that reason, that's what I consider to be ultimate success in life.

25:37But then there are challenges and obstacles and things along the way that may prevent us. And that first obstacle I remember I had to overcome was that fear of, am I enough? I grew up in America as a black citizen, but I'm being told, I'm being stereotyped. You know, so I have to first overcome that. And when I overcame that, I realized how beautiful I am, how beautiful my mind is, what contributions, you know, that were pent up inside of me that needed to come out and how were they to come out. So all of that's self-discovery. And as I talk about that, I'm getting actually goosebumps. Because it's that inner strength, it has to be developed, has to be found.

26:28It's there. We just have to discover and let it out. And sometimes those fears keep that from happening. What's your advice to people to work through that fear? Yeah. Spending time with yourself sounds sort of basic, doesn't it? Getting to know who you are. Who are you? And I call it, you know, some people, it's not just me, but some philosophers call those life questions. Who am I? Right? A question, just a simple question. One that can only be answered by you, not by your parents, not by your colleagues around you. That's why I said, find a quiet spot. The first thing is to sit back and say, who am I?

27:13Then what do I want to do? What are my natural skills? Because I've already told you that we all have them. We're born with them. We can use our brain to learn other things. What are those natural things? For those that sometimes are lost, you can go by what things are you attracted to, right? When I was growing up, this is going to really date me. There was a show called Marcus Welby, MD. It was an old show. I know you guys are too young, but it was, it was a great show. It was about a country doctor and he was just, he was probably the ideal image that I have of physician. I would watch that show religiously because I was drawn to the fact that he was, he was helping people.

27:59And that's when I discovered that I like helping people. So that was going to be in the equation. And then I've already shared with you about the fact that I love science and I love space science. And so I was drawn to that. So just think of those were natural things that nobody told me to do, but that was part of my self-discovery that I eventually put together into becoming a chief medical officer on a flight. What did your mom say when you became an astronaut? What did she say? You asked me about fear a few minutes ago. I have a video of my mother during the launch, and she's got her hands together.