FORBES - An Astronaut's Guide To Communication Skills Training

Carmine Gallo - Senior Contributor

Former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino (who many fans recognize from his role on The Big Bang Theory) spent six years of training before soaring into space on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronauts are not thrown into extreme situations without intense preparation. In fact, extensive training extends to everything from spacewalks to presentations.

“Good communication is something astronauts train for early on,” Massimino told me in a recent conversation about his new book, Moonshot.

Massimino and his peers selected for the astronaut class of 1996 were not allowed to talk to the press or give speeches and presentations until they had completed one year of classes and coaching to sharpen their public-speaking skills.

The process by which astronauts train as public speakers applies to leaders in any field. While NASA does the important work of space exploration, it’s also a brand that, like most companies, requires constant support to fulfill its mission.

Astronauts are NASA’s brand ambassadors and have learned effective communication skills to play the role.

1. Train like you fly

Astronauts are trained to keep cool and calm under extreme circumstances. The last thing they need when something goes wrong is to lose confidence. Runaway thoughts can derail complex tasks.

Since panic and negative thinking are mental blocks astronauts are trained to avoid, they spend countless hours in simulators where making mistakes won’t lead to physical harm.

Massimino learned to internalize the mantra, “Train like you fly and fly like you train.” In other words, train hard and trust your training. If you’ve done it in the simulator over and over, you can do it again in real life.

The same tactic applies to managing anxiety when speaking in front of an audience. Most astronauts are former pilots or scientists with deep technical backgrounds. They’re not always comfortable with public speaking. But the more they practice, the better they get.

Public speaking is a skill and, like any skill, you can improve if you put in the work. So get yourself into a sim: a meeting room, an empty stage, an auditorium that mimics the look and the feel of the space in which you’ll be giving your presentation.

By putting yourself in ‘real-world’ conditions, you’ll reduce anxiety and build confidence. “Like anything else, public speaking is a skill that needs to be exercised and respected,” Massimino says.

2. See yourself as a storyteller

“Astronauts have an obligation to tell the story of space exploration,” says Massimino. And that’s why in May 2009, he gladly agreed to be the first person to send a tweet from space. His posts have become so popular that Massimino can now boast of having more than 1 million followers on his Twitter (now X) profile @Astro_Mike.

The role of storyteller is so important to NASA that the space agency selects astronauts with technical skills to fly a spaceship and strong interpersonal communication skills. As Massimino said, presentation skills can and must be honed because astronauts will be asked to speak to schools, classes, organizations, and companies.

“Since most people are never going to space, the story we tell them about the experience of going to space is all they’re going to get, so there’s an obligation to get that story right,” Massimino adds.

Every organization needs storytellers to amplify the brand story. For example, companies seeking to recruit top talent should identify employees as brand ambassadors and empower them to share their experience on social media and to speak at schools, on panels, and on stage. And, like NASA, provide coaching to help them become exceptional speakers.

3. Apply lessons to a broad audience

In addition to teaching at Columbia University, Massimino has given hundreds of speeches and presentations. “At first, I wasn’t sure my stories would resonate with those audiences,” he writes. “But I soon found that what made my experiences relatable was the fact that I wasn’t a natural.”

Massimino says he wasn’t a ‘natural’ because he didn’t fit the mold of a stereotypical astronaut. “Coming out of high school, I wasn’t exactly the next Neil Armstrong,” he writes in Moonshot. “I was a gangly, scrawny, working-class kid from Long Island with bad eyesight and a fear of heights. I didn’t know anyone involved in the space program. I had no road map, and no clue. What I mostly had was determination, perseverance, and grit, combined with a passion that kept me going every time I got knocked down— and I got knocked down a lot.”

After talking to people after his speeches, Massimino noted a trend: the stories that resonated with everyone from graduate students to successful executives were the ones with a message that anyone could take forward into their daily lives.

For example, Massimino tells stories of the mistakes he made and how he learned to deal with mistakes rather than dwell on them. Early in his training, Massimino beat himself up for making mistakes, fixating on them, and being consumed by “a tsunami of shame, guilt, and regret.”

One day, a crewmate told him about the “Thirty-Second Rule.” It works like this. When you make a mistake, give yourself thirty seconds of regret. “Take a time-out. Feel miserable. Berate yourself…because regret is natural. It isn’t healthy to suppress those feelings or deny they exist. Let yourself have them. But keep it to thirty seconds. After your thirty- second rant, let it go.”

Massimo now takes the lessons he learned from space flight and applies them to a broader context. Massimino tells his audiences that making mistakes was a valuable part of astronaut training. “I learned that no mistake is insurmountable, but a bad response to a mistake can be fatal.”

Moonshots are, by definition, big goals and visions. Generate enthusiasm for your ideas by articulating them clearly, concisely, and with stories that inspire people to dream big.