Neil, Sully, you, me, and The Meaning of Work

It was a “Bucket List” moment.

The large dining room thundered with a standing ovation. I glanced over at my wife, beaming with Boilermaker pride, and my 16-year old son Dan, intent despite his awe at the scene he was a part of. There we were, in the same room with not one but two global/American heroes and Purdue University alumni, both of whom have already become historical figures. Certainly all people everywhere in every age will forever know the name of the one. The other is no less a hero.

On Friday night, we were fortunate to see Neil Armstrong (!) introduce Captain Chesley (“Sully”) Sullenberger (!) to receive the Neil A. Armstrong Medal of Excellence from the University at a President’s Council dinner, recognizing his heroic command of U.S. Airlines flight 1549 on January 15, 2009. Armstrong’s presence was a surprise, at least to us. He shuns the spotlight and Purdue did not publicize that he would be there. We were there because Danny has shown interest in a career in Aviation, and Purdue is not only Lauri’s alma mater but perhaps the country’s oldest and best school of aviation and astro-engineering.

A powerful rush of emotion swept over me as Armstrong was introduced by Purdue’s president. I was suddenly a 14-year old boy again on a humid Virginia night in mid-summer 1969, watching the flickering black-and-white images of my hero Neil Armstrong setting foot on the surface of the moon. The moon! As a self-proclaimed “space nut” ever since Alan Shepherd’s suborbital flight in 1961 (when I was six), I felt so much pride and excitement that night eight years later. July 20, 1969 was a culmination of the American spirit of dedication to excellence and bold achievement that so typified those times.

In a remarkable parallel, both Armstrong and Sullenberger were confronted with similar challenges in their heroic stories: both had to override computer control of their craft and take manual command of the last four minutes on their most remembered flights. Both were in dire situations. As Armstrong described, they were “where no one wants to be; out of time and out of options simultaneously.”  In Armstrong’s case, the Lunar Module’s computer flight plan was taking him and Buzz Aldrin straight into a football stadium-sized crater strewn with automobile-sized boulders. In Sullenberger’s now-famous predicament, a flock of geese crippled both engines in the initial climb above one of the world’s most concentrated population centers, with 156 passengers and crew on board what had become a heavy, fuel-filled glider.

What happened next was history. This you know.

Do you know what prepared these two men for the four minutes that would forever define not only their entire careers, but their lives?

According to them, it was a combination of factors so mundane as to be absurd. Yet in the ordinariness of the factors lies a hope of eternal magnitude for all of us. And here are those factors:

Preparation in every moment. All of us have a choice. We can commit our full selves to our work in every moment with our full consciousness summoned in a spirit of dedication to excellence and achievement, or something less than that. We can serve others in every moment with an attitude of delivering maximum value, or avoid work as drudgery. We have the choice to see our work as a calling to bring our best selves to the tasks of our vocations, or not. The choices we make have consequences. We will either be prepared, or not, for the few moments that may come that end up defining our careers. Neil and Sully were prepared.

Support of the team. Scores of other people, perhaps hundreds or even thousands, combined their efforts to the missions. Sully cited his almost anonymous co-pilot, the flight crew, the air-traffic controllers, the ferry boat captains, the Red Cross, the EMT first-responders, and the passengers themselves aboard flight 1549–ALL of whom were prepared to meet an almost-certain tragedy with their best efforts to transform it into one of history’s remarkable success stories. And Armstrong’s team was perhaps the most excellent the world has ever witnessed.

That’s basically it. Commitment to excellence in every moment. Preparation towards mastery. Service as the core ethic. Reliance on others who have made the same promise. These are the tools of transformation, and they begin inside the core of each of us.

As exciting as it was for me to be in that place with those men, it was infinitely more exciting to know that my son was listening to their every word. My hope and prayer for him, and for your children too, is that he and they will dedicate their life journeys as an answer to the call to preparation, service, and mastery of their unique gifts. This is the hero’s journey. This is the path towards happiness and meaning. This is the meaning of work.