Apollo 13 ─ Leadership and More Life Lessons

You know how you can watch a movie or read a book the second time and see and learn much more?

In 1970, three astronauts left Earth aboard Apollo 13 with the clear objective of landing on the Moon.

Two days later, an oxygen tank exploded, and Tom Hanks, playing commander Jim Lovell, delivers one of the most recognizable lines in movie history: “Houston, we have a problem” (very close to the actual transcript).

And from that moment forward, everything changes. The spacecraft was damaged, power was disappearing, oxygen was limited, and three men were hundreds of thousands of miles from home.

Extraordinary people in Mission Control didn't spend their time wishing the explosion hadn't happened or arguing about the new plan. Nobody had one.

They broke an overwhelming problem into smaller problems.

What do we have? What still works? What do we need next? Who knows how to solve this part? And then they went to work.

One of the lines written for the film is, “Failure is not an option.” Gene Kranz apparently never said those exact words during Apollo 13. The mission as planned did fail; they never landed on the moon. But NASA succeeded, not with determination alone, but with adaptability and trust in hundreds of people doing their job well enough that the next person could do theirs. It is a spirit that America has lost too much of, and I’m hopeful we will get back.

What is your ideal life? How specific would your answer be if asked? Financial planning starts there. It is not a spectator sport. We don’t get in better shape watching videos; we must hit the balls and move our feet.

Successful people are not lifelong learners; they are lifetime doers. You must be clear about your personal motivation to do the work. Your financial script is the same as the playbook for a professional athlete. A scripted, repeatable process; what you need, when you need it. Learn, implement, get results.

The late Peter Drucker, the father of modern management practice, wrote, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.

Is that really possible? Yes, it is. What goes into creating your ideal life? It took me a long time to connect the parts ─ first solving one and then letting another slide.

It took a specific process. True wealth is discretionary time. Having your entire financial house in order. Personal finance author Brian Portnoy refers to this as “funded contentment.” And I think that’s just right.

Circumstances change. But responsibility doesn’t. Now go get your ideal life.