From Astronauts to Navy SEALs: Prepping Elite Minds for High-Stakes Moments

“You don’t belong in the room… until you realize you do.”

In this episode, I sat down with two people who’ve seen the edge of chaos and kept their teams calm:

Holly Ridings, the first woman to ever lead NASA’s flight control team, and Dr. Preston Cline, a performance expert who’s spent 20+ years training special operations teams, wildland firefighters, and technical law enforcement.

This one’s about:

• The mindset NASA looks for in its top-flight directors
• Why most elite teams avoid talking about failure - and why that’s dangerous
• The moment Holly realized she didn’t have all the answers (and what she did next)
• Preston’s lesson from 100+ firefighters who had all been first on scene at a fatality
• What sport can learn from special ops, wildland fire, and spaceflight

If you lead a team or find yourself in high-stakes situations where failure isn’t an option, you’ll want to hear this.

Connect with Holly:
🌐 NASA Profile: https://www.nasa.gov/people/holly-ridings/
✖️X (Twitter): https://x.com/Viking_Flight

Connect with Dr. Preston:
🌐 Mission Critical Team Institute: https://missioncti.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/preston.cline/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestoncline

Follow me for more:
🌐 Website: www.toughness.com
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paddysgram/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddysteinfort/
✖️ X (Twitter): https://x.com/Paddys_posts

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