<story><title>Neil Armstrong, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman</title><url>http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/08/neil-armstrong.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>loboman</author><text>Ok, question. How do you develop the skill of keeping calm under that kind of pressure? I get stressed for the silliest things, I&apos;m sure there is a way to fix that.</text></item><item><author>tmhedberg</author><text>Among other things, he managed to land &lt;i&gt;Eagle&lt;/i&gt; with only seconds of fuel remaining, having manually maneuvered it to an alternative landing site after the computer had navigated to a primarly landing area covered with boulders. All this while several unexpected computer alarms were going off.&lt;p&gt;Maybe others could have done that as well, but Armstrong actually &lt;i&gt;did&lt;/i&gt; it, staying calm under unimaginable pressure and averting disaster.</text></item><item><author>dag11</author><text>He was the &lt;i&gt;chosen one&lt;/i&gt;, but can someone inform me of the major achievements he himself did? As far as I know, many others could have been chosen to make the historic first steps.&lt;p&gt;Note: I&apos;m not trying to make a comment phrased as a question here. It&apos;s truly a question.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>patrickyeon</author><text>The best way I know of to deal situations that make you uncomfortable is to expose yourself to them, often but at low intesity, and build up a tolerance. Start small, and as you handle each issue, you&apos;ll find yourself thinking &quot;I&apos;ve got this, can&apos;t be much worse than [x] that I did last week.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I used to be a really heavy traveller, carry everything I could possibly need with me, just in case. I gradually whittled that down, and now when I get nervous about forgetting something when I pack, I just tell myself that so long as I have essentials (eg wallet, passport/ticket, change of clothes, netbook), I can fix everything else. So set yourself up with small stressful situations, know that you have a relatively painless way to back out of them, and talk yourself through it.&lt;p&gt;Have faith that you can fix whatever situation you find yourself in. You may have to start out by lying to yourself in saying that, but as you try (and succeed) you&apos;ll find that yes, you can handle things. Even the ones that really worry you.</text></comment>
<story><title>Neil Armstrong, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman</title><url>http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/08/neil-armstrong.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>loboman</author><text>Ok, question. How do you develop the skill of keeping calm under that kind of pressure? I get stressed for the silliest things, I&apos;m sure there is a way to fix that.</text></item><item><author>tmhedberg</author><text>Among other things, he managed to land &lt;i&gt;Eagle&lt;/i&gt; with only seconds of fuel remaining, having manually maneuvered it to an alternative landing site after the computer had navigated to a primarly landing area covered with boulders. All this while several unexpected computer alarms were going off.&lt;p&gt;Maybe others could have done that as well, but Armstrong actually &lt;i&gt;did&lt;/i&gt; it, staying calm under unimaginable pressure and averting disaster.</text></item><item><author>dag11</author><text>He was the &lt;i&gt;chosen one&lt;/i&gt;, but can someone inform me of the major achievements he himself did? As far as I know, many others could have been chosen to make the historic first steps.&lt;p&gt;Note: I&apos;m not trying to make a comment phrased as a question here. It&apos;s truly a question.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rquantz</author><text>I&apos;m sure it can be helped, but I&apos;m not sure if the kind of cool Neil Armstrong displayed can really be developed. If you want a good illustration of this, hang out with pilots and listen to their stories. I recall one pilot friend of mine, a flight instructor, describing an incident when he was guiding a student to landing in a small plane, when something malfunctioned and the plane started to tilt a hundred or so feet off the ground. My friend shouted &quot;my plane&quot; and took control, correctly diagnosed what had malfunctioned, and guided the plane to a safe landing.&lt;p&gt;Analyzing what happened afterwards, a few things were determined: first, given the altitude at which the malfunction occurred, my friend must have seen the problem, correctly diagnosed it, and acted in less than a second, and the total amount of time from when it offered until touchdown was something like four seconds. Second, this particular failure had occurred on this model of plane a handful of other times at such a low altitude, and had resulted in fatal crashes every other time.&lt;p&gt;So, being able to do that comes from a combination of a few things: tremendous rote training and knowledge of the plane, the ability to act calmly when your life is in peril, and an extremely efficient nervous system. Some of that can be developed, particularly the first one, and response to negative stimuli can probably be improved if you have time to think rationally, but in emergency circumstances like what an astronaut or a pilot go through, I have to say I think you&apos;re probably born that way, baby.</text></comment>