(View entire post here)

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I fell in love with Zen Buddhism, which, in retrospect, was a perfectly Scandinavian thing to do. One of the Zen meditations I learned was: Imagine a future, where all your dreams come true. Especially at times when things aren't going well in your life, spending ten minutes each morning focusing on a tomorrow where every hope is realized can be nourishing and energizing, a powerful salve for wounded souls. So this is a focus meme I've used pretty regularly over the past twenty-five years, meaning thousands of times closing my eyes, and imagining a perfect world. 

Now that Rocket Men hit the New York Times' bestseller list the first week it went on sale, and is getting acclaim beyond what anyone ever could have ever guessed, nearly all of my professional dreams have in fact come true ... and I can't believe, after all those times of imagining what it would be like, how absolutely wrong I was in those meditative states.

It turns out that, when almost all your dreams come true, you only get to sleep about four hours a night, but on tour you have to be up and energetic and charming and focused and ready to deliver the right material in the right form on a moment's notice for hour after hour to  nonstop all day. This means you flit back and forth, drunk with exhaustion and ferociously alert, on a personality seesaw, at the same time that you keep forgetting what time zone you're in. The hotel phone rings, and a voice says, "We're calling to make sure you'll be ready for the show," and you say, "What time is this show?" and the voice says, "It's a 7:22 show" and you say, "But, what time is it now?" and the voice says, "It's 7:12, your time," and you say, "Oh no problem, I'll be ready." 

(View entire post here)

Even though it's the dream of anyone who writes about aviation to make an appearance at Smithsonian's National Air and Space - the Rocket Men table was next to Apollo 11's Columbia on the floor and The Spirit of St. Louis in the air - I have to say that my favorite D.C. invitation came from the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, where The Right Stuff found its opening chapters. Since another of my books, The First Heroes, tells the story of the birth of the Air Force in World War II with the Doolittle Raid, I've done a lot of talks with servicemen. And these audiences always end up surprising me right out of my shoes.

Every time I talk at a military academy or base, I start off dreading that the audience will be be gimlet-eyed and blasé, youths slouched in boredom and impossible to reach. But in fact, every time, the exact opposite happens - the hardcore military pilots are the most enthusiastic audience ever, fans who are super fans. It's even visible in economic fundamentals: A young aviator, buying three hardcovers at $85 while being paid military grade, is making a serious commitment. Yet, every time this happens, I'm startled all over again, even though I've seen it time after time at Wright-Pat, and the Citadel, and numerous base-adjacent flight museums. And it was at Pax River that I finally understood. 

(View entire post here)

Craig Nelson is our guest blogger during the week of July 13th If you have any questions for Craig Nelson, add a comment to any of his posts.

Here is more information on Rocket Men: