Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement -- and happiness. The secret to Chris Hadfield's success - and survival - is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst - and enjoy every moment of it. The anecdotes were laid out in a dizzying manner (perhaps reminiscent of the De-orbit in the Soyuz capsule? But his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth-especially your own.

It was narrated brilliantly by the author, full of warmth, full of humour, full of wanting to share with us all. Houston, we have a superstar' Washington Post 'Hadfield has done more than probably any astronaut since the Apollo missions to transform the image of space exploration . His music video, a zero gravity version of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' received over 10 million views in its first three days online.The environment is also highly competitive, without the competition ever being explicitly acknowledged.

Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. It’s so big, with so many discrete modules, that it’s possible to go nearly a full day without seeing another crewmate.

Occasionally his philosophy can be a little shallow, assuming that everything in life will turn out for the best (well, DUH, if it didn't you wouldn't have become an astronaut!

There is a lot of rocket talk, and talk about what it is like to live without gravity on a space station. Listening to this grips you from start to finish, an all round humbling experience that is made all the better with Chris himself being the reader.His response to this and the way that he discusses managing fears and being prepared and maintaining a healthy level of pessimism while still pursuing the best outcome was actually touching. Recently, there were two of us who were asked to help a teammate out, but it became quickly clear that we were essentially doing the work for this person — and it was difficult to stem the rising tide of resentment that was building up. Hadfield's success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst- and enjoy every moment of it. From the first where you see the three astronauts crammed into the rocket, you understand where each of them is sitting, why you can hear Russian and why it is a Soyuz space ship.

If the only thing you really enjoyed was whipping around Earth in a spaceship, you’d hate being an astronaut. To try and be an astronaut is to seek to perform a task to perfection even though it is most likely that task will never be performed by you. So how do you take a group of hyper-competitive people and get them to hyper-cooperate, to the point where they seek opportunities to help one another shine?His music video, a zero-gravity version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," received over 10 million views in its first three days online.