GA 424 | When Things Go Wrong: The Spirit of Kaizen with Adam Lawrence

The whole idea that when teams are trying to solve a problem that there's so many different ways and so many different things that could go wrong, but we've never had it where we didn't solve. So there's always a way to do something. You just gotta have that spirit in you to try anything.

Today I'm excited to welcome Adam Lawrence back to the show. Now, today's episode is. Well, it's very, very unique, and we've never had one like this before in the previous 423 episodes that we've done well, as. As Adam's going to share. He took the trip of a lifetime, to put it lightly, as he traveled to French Guiana, which is. Well, he'll explain where it is and why he was there, but he was. His brother. Adam's brother, named John, is a lead mechanical systems engineer for NASA and in fact was involved with this James Webb space telescope. Anyhow, Adam goes into the story of how he got to French Guiana and how he got home, and then he sort of. In the end, he sort of ties it all together on what's lean got to do with it? What does the Kaizen spirit have to do with everything? And. But it's just. It's one of these bizarre stories where you, like, you can't even make stuff like this up. So I will tell you, it's a. It's a longer, longer episode. And so if you need to listen to it in a few different segments, feel free. But it is a pretty fascinating story. Story of, let's just say, perseverance, grit, determination and. Yeah. And as he. As he shares just having that. That mindset of. Of continuous improvement. So really, really good stuff. So show notes, which will include some articles that Adam has been a part of. We're sort of summarizing this trip. Not a lot of people were able to make it out to this, obviously, because it's in a very difficult place to go to. But. But yeah, NASA was there and it launch and. Yeah. So check it out. I think you're gonna enjoy this one. This is episode 424. So just go to gembapodcast.com look for 424 for all the show notes. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Adam, welcome back to the show. How are you?

I'm doing well, Ron. Thanks for having me back.

Yeah, man.

Lucky seven.

Lucky seven. Number seven coming for you, Karen. I don't know how many. She's gonna have to add them up. See if you're getting. You're Coming close, if not and overtaking the lead, man. It's a fierce battle. So. Well, hey, man, thanks for coming back on. I guess you were last on. We were looking it up, episode 398. We were doing some part two of some storytelling, lean storytelling. That was a lot of fun. So how's everything been going since then?

Things have been going very well, Ron. I've been busier than I have ever been helping lots of teams implementing the wheel of sustainability, as it turns out.

Love it. Love it. All right, well, Adam, you know the drill. You've been on a number of times. We do like to get rolling with the quote. So what do you got?

So my quote today, I'm going to attribute it to someone, but I'm not sure it's actually right. So I believe that Robert Maurer created the. The word spirit of Kaizen. And because I believe the. The story I'm going to tell illustrates the spirit of Kaizen. I would say the spirit of Kaizen lives within all of us.

I like it. I like it. I agree. Or if it doesn't, it should.

It should. It absolutely should. Yeah. All right.

Well, we got a different style of episode here today. Not your. Not your typical lean transformation or anything like that. Not that those are bad, but this is a different twist. So I'm really excited. So I understand that you had an interesting experience. Well, I don't know the exact date. When was the exact date? Time frame for your story.

So the time frame is late December of last year. And I'm going to tell the tale of the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and me living in my brother's moment in witnessing history.

I love it. Tell us about your brother first.

Okay, so my brother, John Lawrence works for NASA and he has worked for them since 1992, I believe. And in 1997, he was assigned to the James Webb Space Telescope project as lead systems. Lead systems mechanical engineer. And then later on, what they call the launch vehicle liaison. I may have not gotten that exactly right.

Okay.

So he is truly a rocket scientist.

A smart dude.

Smart. Hard to follow, that guy in college, let me tell you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now talk about this. This telescope. What's going on with that?

So the James Webb Space Telescope is essentially the replacement for the Hubble Telescope. Right. So the Hubble is. I would never under. Wouldn't know this had my brother not been working for NASA. So please understand that I am not a rocket scientist. However, the HU is rotating around the Earth at about 350 miles up and it's looking deeply into space in a certain way. And the James Webb. The whole idea is it's going to be, and I believe it is now at what they call L2, a million miles above the surface of the Earth. And the idea is it's looking far deeper into our universe, trying to get us to understand the mysteries and the Big bang, if you believe that and all that other cool stuff that I really don't understand. Very. Yeah.

Oh, man. So cool. So cool. All right, so why in the world did you think it was a good idea going to this. To French Guiana? Right. That's where. Where, where the launch was. And let's just jump in there. Like, as we say, start with why.

So start with why. So let me preface this a little bit. So I am the younger brother, and I have to be honest with you, until early last year, I had no idea it was French Guiana. So let me set the stage a little bit. This telescope was supposed to launch 2007 initially. And for various and sundry reasons, it kept getting delayed. Fast Forward to about 2011. My brother is explaining the most recent delay. As a younger brother, we tend to torment older brothers a little bit. And I said in my most tormenting way, if this thing, the word is not that I used, ever lunch, I'm going to be there on the beach, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, drinking a Mai Tai out of a coconut, and I'm going to see it either go up or go down, but I am going to be there. And he looked at me and said, okay, okay. And I was like, okay, that's cool. So here's what I didn't know. So as the launch kept getting delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed. Finally, in 2021, it actually looked like it was really going to launch. And so now you have to make a decision, are we going to make good on our threat? So I said, okay, where's it launching from? And he says, french Guiana. And I say, what's that? So I had to go Google it. And for those that are not aware, French Guiana is just north of Brazil on the equator. And because this project was a. A project that the European Space Agency, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency were partnering in, the launch vehicle is actually the European Space Agency's rocket, the Ariane 5. And they launch all their stuff from French Guiana, a beautiful vacation spot, by the way. Okay, so anyway, so now it looks like it's actually going to launch. And there were two other launches ahead of it. One in July, theoretically, one in September, but for different reasons. And then this one was going to go up ostensibly in November. So I said to my brother, well, number one, how do you get to French Guiana? Do people go to French Guiana? Well, they do for launch. And NASA, of course, was going to have this charter, and certainly I'm not allowed to tag along on the charter, and I don't live in the same location as my brother anyway, and he had different duties than I did. So the deal was, each launch, if it went up on time, the next launch would come up two months later, and then the next launch two months later. But as you might expect, the first launch was late, so I didn't buy my tickets at that point. And then. So then that was pushing the second launch into late September, early October, or maybe late September. And that went up. And now it looks like we're going to launch the week before Thanksgiving. And I'm sitting in October. And since I got a guy on the inside who kind of knows what's going on, I say, should I buy tickets? How does one get to French Guiana? So I started doing my research, and it ain't easy. Okay, so here's what was supposed to happen originally. Earlier in the year, you could fly from Miami to Haiti to French Guiana. But then some of you may recall that there was an earthquake in Haiti in the middle of the year. So all of a sudden, that went away. Okay, there must be another way to do this. So there are other places you can fly from, Most likely from the east coast, where I live on the East Coast, JFK to Guadalupe to Martinique to French Guiana. So I start researching this, and I go on the Air France website. That's the only people that you can do it with. They have an itinerary, and I find an itinerary, and I go on the website and I can't book it. And that doesn't make any sense. So then you call up, and somebody in a really thick French accent says, I'm sorry, sir, we can't find. It's on our website, but we can't price it, therefore, we can't book it for you. But you're Air France. How can you not book your own flight? And so. And again, I don't want to offend any French people, but in a very French accent, think Monty Python. French accent. She can't book it for me, so I'm not going to miss this. Well, before I find out I can or cannot book it, something technically happened at the launch site. Let's call it an oopsie. Somebody displaced, a clamp or hit something. They weren't supposed to hit somebody with high skill. And all of a sudden, now the group has to decide, do we test to see if anything's happened to the telescope inside the capsule or fairing? My brother tells me it's fairing, not a capsule. Or do we just go for it? Well, if you've invested $13 billion in 25 years into this, you don't just go for it. So they test it. Now, the November launch is now pushed back to December 18th. And I asked my brother, how firm is that? And he says, you probably could book your tickets. And then I say, but I'm not sure that I can. But I'm going to figure this. So Air France was useless. I go to a travel agent. They couldn't figure it out. So I said one Saturday morning, really early in the morning, I wake up and I say, I'm going to figure this out. So this is the spirit of Kaiser. Nothing keeps us from solving a problem. You just have to identify. There's got to be somebody. A plane is flying. How can I not get on that plane?

Let me guess, travelocity.com?

No, just kidding.

I don't know.

No, that's, that's actually not far off. So Travelocity couldn't do it. But there is a flight consolidator that I'd never heard of called Fly Far. And when I went on their site, I found an itinerary. Now, let me tell you what the itinerary was going to be. So it was supposed to launch December 18th. I was supposed to be in Orlando for Be Toast 2021 as a sponsor exhibitor, presenter, which had been delayed from the prior year. And it was going from the 13th to the 17th. But this thing was going to launch the 18th. I said, oh, I can go to part of the conference, but I am not going to miss history and my threat to go. So I am going to figure out how to get from Orlando to wherever I have to go to fly down a French Guiana. So here was what the itinerary is going to be. Leave Orlando the 15th, right in the middle of the conference, fly to JFK, then fly from JFK to Guadalupe to Martinique to French Guiana to get there on the morning or the evening of the 16th. Launch was supposed to be the 18th. So I said, well, something will happen. Let's fly out the 20th to get home. French Guiana's in South America. I was going to fly from French Guiana to Paris, to Lisbon, to Newark, New Jersey, and then back to Orlando, 47 and a half hour. Itinerary so I was going to have to go east. To go west, yeah, which was insane, but that was the only way to do it. That was actually the best itinerary. So I booked it. And of course now when I was going to get to see my family that was going to be in North Carolina for Christmas visits with family, it would have been the 22nd. So I was going to leave French Guiana the 20th after seeing the launch in the 22nd. And that all sounded really wonderful, horrible actually. And then something happened. There was a communication issue between the capsule and the ground that hadn't happened during all the pre testing. And now the delay became December 22nd. But I already had tickets, and you don't get refunded for tickets for NASA delays. So I dumped the tickets. I didn't go back to Air France. I went back to fly far. And now with a December 22 launch date, I could now be at my conference. The full time drive to North Carolina to see my family fly out of Charlotte to go to JFK to fly down on the 19th. The launch was going to be the 22nd and the only flight back that I could get, but went directly back to jfk. Martinique, Guadalupe, jfk. So I didn't have to go all the way to Paris and come back was on Christmas Day, 12:25pm what could go wrong, right? So now I have an itinerary. So that's awesome. Okay, I have an itinerary. I now paid for an itinerary a second time.

Okay, I'm guessing these itineraries aren't exactly cheap.

If I were to guess, that would be correct, sir. So there comes a moment when you realize, stop thinking about it, stop calculating it. Just if you're going to do it, just go do it. Once in a lifetime, live in my brother's moment and witness history. This is, you know, and make good on my threat because ain't nothing going to stop me at this point, right? Nothing. Because I'm just too stubborn to be smart. And my wife, God bless her, she says, you said you're going to do it. And you know you want to do it, you ought to do it. I said, okay, that sounds good. You want to go with me? No, you do it. I'll watch the lodge from here. So she's the smart one in the family. Okay, so I take our little SUV and we drive down to North Carolina, drop the family off, drop my wife off, drive 619 miles to Orlando for the conference. Oh, I forgot to tell you. See, now here's a Fun thing that happened right before I left in November, the World Health Organization declared a bunch of countries as ones you shouldn't go to. Okay? So they had a list of things. The only way you can get in without quarantining is to be one of these five things, which I was not. The closest I was was to contributing to the economy and welfare of the country, which of course I was not. What could go wrong? So I say to my brother, well, I can't come down there and quarantine seven days. Obviously I can't do that. What can we do? He says, well, let me do a little research. I said, well, clearly there's NASA family members coming for this. There's got to be a few crazy other crazies coming, right? How do I do this? So after about two weeks in November, early December, he gets me a letter. Actually, it was the day before I was leaving for Orlando because a letter comes in French from the European Space Agency with my name on it that says he is essential personnel and he must be there on site. I have the letter, wow. In my hand because I said I can't fly down there. I had to have Covid shots, Covid tests, yellow fever shots. I had have proof of all this stuff. I had to have anti malarial drugs because it's the Amazon rainforest after all. What could go wrong? So I had gotten all these shots, all these things. I had to have proof of everything. Rapid Covid tests three days before leaving the country. All that good stuff with negative results, of course, which I did that in Orlando and have all that and not lose all that. And so just when I think I've got this thing figured out, I'm at the conference, I'm in touch with my brother every day, maybe once or twice a day. How's it going? Because he had been there since the 9th of December, because he's one of the guys, he's the last crew that makes sure this stuff happens. And while I'm at the conference, there's been another delay and they had a little technical difficulties. And now the thing is slated to launch December 24th. What could go wrong? So before I leave, so now I have another conversation with my wife. I said, now. Well, I asked my brother, what's the launch window like if it doesn't go up on the 24th? When would it go up next? 25th. 25th. He goes, yeah, but the French workers down there have refused to work on Christmas Day. I said, so it's either the 24th or nothing for me. He says, and they mentioned no earlier than December 24th. What could go wrong? So I asked my wife. I do a little soul searching. She goes, but, you know, you got to be there even if you don't see it launch. I said, boy, would it be a shame not to see it at launch. But you'll get to see your brother in all his glory. Because I really hadn't done a lot with my brother over these many years because we've gone our separate ways, done different things in our lives. I've never seen him at work. So I do. I go on the 18th, I fly from Charlotte to JFK, and on the 19th, I fly from JFK to Guadalupe. And I get to Guadalupe, and they make us get off the plane and go through customs. And then you're supposed to check back in at the gate or at the ticket counter. But when I get there, there's nobody at the ticket counter. And we're trying to figure out what's going on, but very few people speak English. And there's all these people, hundreds of people at this back wall. And we're trying to figure out what's going on. We finally found somebody who spoke a little bit of English that said, oh, there's a problem. You may get out later today. You may not get out today. And we're like, oh, that's not good. And no one could tell us what was going on. No one would tell us what's going on. What we found out later was they had just done imposed the COVID lockdown in Guadalupe. There was rioting in the streets, and it had shut down everything. But luckily, 30 minutes after them telling us this, there was this huddle of Air France employees on the side, and they went to the ticket counters and they said, we need everybody to check in right now. So the massive humanity all tried to do it at once. Now, I was very fortunate. I met the producer of a documentary for Netflix that was going to do the documentary for the launch. And she had all these VIP stamps on her stuff. She goes, come on, let's see if I can get you through. And she did. Wow. You got to know the right people or just get lucky. I don't know what it is. So we get on the plane and we make it to French Guiana, and my brother's there waiting for me at the airport. So that's 19th. And so I introduce him to Nell, who is the producer for Netflix. And I said, look, now you've met my brother. He's your inside guy at NASA. He'll get you to Anybody you talk to. And so that, you know, that was kind of neat. I'm sure she could have paid it.

Off for her then to help you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean definitely. I got the benefit of all this. Okay, so that's cool. I am now in French Guiana. So my brother's got this little Citroen and he drives us to the hotel about an hour away through the jungle in the dark. And it's raining pretty hard because that's what it does in the Amazon rainforest. But I am in country. I am in country. So that's really cool. So, so let's fast forward a little bit. So the next day is Monday and my brother John, he's got work so he hooked me up with the husband of a NASA employee. He had been down there for about three weeks supporting his wife. She had been there. She's in the, what they call the contamination team. Their job is to make sure nothing bad gets onto the rocket because it's going up to space and if things go wrong, they only get one shot at this. So everything's got to be right. So we go adventuring for, for the day. He, he's like a wildlife photographer as a hobby. So he showed me sloths and all sorts of interesting things and, and we kind of palled around. And then my brother informs me when we get back that the mathematical models are showing that the winds of the upper atmosphere are showing that they're aiming in the bad direction. Meaning that if they abort the rocket before it gets out of the atmosphere and have to up, because I guess that's a thing, the wind direction would then blow the chunks of rocket onto populated areas and perhaps kill people. So because of that they're not going to launch on the 24th. And I say, oh, what do I do right? Because my flight is at 12:25pm Dec. 25. And I've realized that I'm not going to disrupt any longer. I'm not going to disrupt my family plans. I'm not going to make a third itinerary. So I'm just going to hang out and see what happens because what you going to do right? So let's fast forward to Tuesday. So Tuesday comes and my brother has gotten an invitation to the home of the European Space Agency director. A special thing. I was going to be my brother's plus one. And so I did a little adventuring with the other guy during the day because my brother was doing the pre launch review. You know, they go through, they have standard work like you ain't Never seen before, man. Every minute. Who does what, what has to happen, when can I abort the launch, all these things, who pushes what button? I mean, they practice it, which is what of course we should do because they only get one shot at this. And you know what could go wrong? Yeah, apparently 10 billion things can go wrong. So he comes back and we go to this reception at this guy's house. Very nice, I guess, especially by French Guiana standards, because if you kind of think back to the jungle type view of things, there's a lot of that going on. I was in the jungle a lot. I saw a lot of interesting stuff. I had all my anti malarial stuff on my clothing and on my person because there's lots of mosquitoes that want your blood, apparently. So anyway, we go to this thing and there's lots of speeches told and everybody's telling me what an awesome, you know, colleague my brother is. To them, he's like the rock star of NASA. He's an individual contributor. He's not a manager of any kind, but he just gets stuff done, man. And I didn't know. I just make fun of him. He's my older brother. That's what I'm supposed to do. So anyway, during all these speeches, the guy, the director, tells us that the models of the atmosphere are starting to get better. And they've convinced the French workers they will not launch on the 24th, but they will launch on the 25th should everything stay stable. I don't know if President Macron got involved. I'm not certain what happened, but whatever happened, the new plan was December 25th at 9:20am local time. And my flight is at 12:25pm oh my gosh. What could go wrong, right? What could go wrong? Nothing. Everything. It had. I'm like, okay, I'm going for it. I don't know how I'm going to get to the airport. By the way, there's not Uber in French guillotine. Okay? I just want you to know that there's no. Yeah, unless. Unless you call an Oxcart Uber. There ain't no Uber. Okay? Okay. Ain't gonna happen. Now, the NASA people had a charter, they had a bus, they had all that. I'm not the NASA people, I just know one. I'm related to one. Okay, fast forward to Wednesday. So Wednesday is the 22nd. So Wednesday the 22nd, my brother gets us a tour of. They launch all the Soyuz rockets in French Guiana. European Space Agency launches all the Soyuz rockets. Now, this was before all the insanity in Ukraine and all that. So. So we got an insider tour, which was really, really cool, by the way. And the guy that was in charge launch program informed us, gave us a tour, got to see everything. I wasn't allowed to take all the pictures that I wanted to, but he informed us that in 55 years they've launched a 1728 Soyuz rockets. Now your eyebrows raise. And most people would. Most people say, I think they've launched 300, no, 1700. So think about how much actually is up there in space that we do or don't know about. So that's what we did on Wednesday. Now Thursday, my brother was going to work all day. So what we were going to do, the person I was palling around with wanted to go see Devil's island, which is an old horrible penitentiary where the worst of the worst of the worst were sent. And a movie called Papillon was filmed there. So I took a boat ride with the lady from the Contamination team, her husband, who I'd been palling around with, and just me and a bunch of other folks on the boat about an hour out to Devil's island and we toured around. You know, it's not a. It's a self guided tour. The couple that I knew, they went off on their own. There was monkeys everywhere and sloths and all sorts of cool stuff. Just walking around, trying to steal stuff out of your hands, which was kind of neat. And I just walked around. But I had hours, hours and hours and hours. Now I met them at lunchtime and the loudest, hardest rain I've ever been a part of came from the sky. And the locals, for them it was nothing. So they just rolled down the blinds, you know, because we were eating the outside. They just roll down the blind. And I've been through a hurricane before. This was louder and scarier. Wow. But for them it was like, that's just today, right? And it's 88 degrees every day, so if you get wet, you'll just dry off anyway.

Yeah.

So that's cool. So after lunch, I had a few hours and I had seen most everything because it's not a giant island. I even saw where they set up the guillotine for worst of the worst of the worst. So that's the way life was in those days. So again, if you see the movie Papillon, George C. Scott and Dustin Hoffman are trying to escape. I don't know if anybody ever escaped, but I can't imagine you would want to stay there. But anyway, I decide because my spirit of Kaizen and my spirit of adventure that I'm going to walk deep into the jungle. I'm just going to walk, I'm there by myself, by the way, you don't get a lot of cell phone reception there. And I walk about 10 minutes deep into the jungle. And then I realized what a bad idea that was because had I turned an ankle or met a viper or a spider or something, you and I probably wouldn't be talking because they'd never have found me. Because, you know, this is not where he says another really bad idea. But that's okay. So I did make it out because we obviously are talking and we take the boat ride back and it was absolutely lovely and, and had a great time. Took 100, 200 pictures. Monkeys took dried pineapple out of my hand and a monkey stole the bag of pineapple from behind the lady that was feeding them. It was hilarious. And we come back and I find out my brother had pulled some strings. Now there's an official answer to this, but I'm going to tell you. He pulled some strings and he was able to get me a VIP seat. So he was going to be in the control room on Saturday morning, Christmas Day, and I was going to get to sit in the gallery with all the VIPs. Two were coming, some weren't coming anymore and their answer was because of COVID But I think it was pretty much because it was Christmas Day for goodness sakes. Yeah, you know, they were smarter than I was. So I have this ticket that says VIP and I'm going to sit in the Jupiter 2 control room. And that's really cool. So now once again I have to figure out, okay, I, I can get there, but how do I get home? So Friday, my brother set up a rapid COVID test for me because to get back in the country of United States, you needed a one day test. One day before you leave. Luckily not. 24 hours. And then he was going to get his rap COVID test. So he found, I know this is audio in air quotes, a pharmacy in French Guiana for me to go get my COVID test at about 8am on Friday morning. So we went up there and we found on this lady named Salome who took me into the back room of some pharmacy and stuck a swab up my nose so far she tickled the backside of my head, man. And I've had a few rapid covet. So I'll tell you, she says this shouldn't be too bad for you.

Yeah, your brain thought otherwise.

Yeah, my brain felt otherwise. But wait how could it go wrong? So I'm leading you up to the launch. So here's the dealio. So then we had to get back so my brother could get his test, you know. Luckily he didn't have to use Salome, her torture.

The NASA version, right?

Yeah, the NASA version, yeah, they treat them a lot better. So they were, you know, with the gang and then he, he had to come back because to the hotel. So we had a hotel room with two double beds. So it was like just when we were little kids growing up in Maryland, we had shared a room. So you know, we were telling stories from our childhood and just torment each other, all that kind of stuff. We hadn't done that like 40 years. 40 years, not 4, 40. But then he says, you talk too much, Adam. I need to sleep, he says. I said well you're right, that's true. And he says when I wake up we'll get some dinner but I have to go into the control room at 10pm Friday evening and then we'll be doing an all nighter until launch. And I said okay. I said so here's what we're going to do. Here's what I need to do. I need to see if I can find my way to the airport. So luckily he had a rental car. Don't tell the US government. And he offered his international driver's license to me. And I said well we don't look any near alike. I said so I'm just going to drive your car. What could go wrong? What I needed to find out was could I find it? Can I find the airport? Can I find where to drop the rental car? Can I figure out how much time it takes? Can I keep a charge on my cell phone? Because Citra NS don't have your United States standard car chargers. And does my GPS work? Google Maps, let's see if I can figure it out. So he gave me keys to the car, wished me luck. He went to beddy by and I took a drive. So I drove to the launch site first, parked the car exactly where I felt that I would get out of there quickest and then hit the stopwatch, hit the, hit the GPS and 54 minutes of two lane road through the jungle passing scooters and carts and walkers and trucks and cars and stuff. I found the airport, I found the, found the rental car place, found the code I was supposed to punch in to drop the car off, took a walk to the terminal just to see how long that took, walk back and drove back and also went to see If I could fill the tank up with gas, because, you know, it's a rental car, you're supposed to do that and you're in another country. And I was driving my brother's rental car in the government's name. What could go wrong, right? Nothing. Well, as it turns out, on December 24th, I find a guy in a gas station and he says, oh, no, no, no, not open. Not open today, not open tomorrow. I was like, okay, okay, gotcha. Oh well, so drive back. So 54 minutes from parking lot to rental car lot. 1225 flight 920 launch. Sure, why not? What could go wrong? So I drive back and then I find some other stuff to do while my brother's still asleep. And then I ran into a few of his colleagues that again, were kind of really giddy about all this and gushing and all that kind of good stuff. And. And we. Eventually I get a text from my brother about quarter six. I'm awake. You want to get some dinner? Well, sure. So I drive us to dinner. There's a McDonald's. We get there at 6:03. They had just closed. I was like, well, I guess we're not getting dinner there because it's Christmas Eve after all. But there was a little supermarket that he had showed me. So we went, the supermarket was open and we went shopping for like camping food. So we had peanut butter and we had jelly and we had a baguette yogurt and we had drinks and we had silly stuff. And so then we had a little picnic in his hotel room and we just shared stories of growing up. And he said stuff I didn't had remembered. And I said stuff he hadn't remembered. And then he got all dressed up, he took a shower and he got all dressed up for his launch thing. And I told him I loved him and I wished him good luck and I'll see him on the other side, brother. So he went and I, and I went to bed. He said, try to get there early. I said, you know, I'm gonna wake up at 3am But I said, how early is early? He said I'd be in the parking lot no later than 6:45am I said, I can do that. That's easy because we're about, I think it was about 15, 20 minutes from the launch site. So he gone and he said, make sure when you drop those keys off, you get a photo of it to prove that we did that. And make sure you do this and do that, pack everything and you know, all that kind of stuff. Said I'm doing my best man. We'll figure it out. So he goes away. I wake up about 3:30 in the morning, excited, giddy, you know, I'm ready, I'm here. It may actually happen, I might actually see it. God, I hope I can get home, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I leave the hotel about 6:30 and I have to go through armed security at one spot. So they wave us all off the road. And I had to show all the stuff, including my shot records, my, my negative test, my VIP ticket. Luckily I had that. My letter from the space agency. I had it all, man. I had it all in this one little packet. That's my go bag. I was there. So I make it through that. Then I go onto the launch site parking lot and I found the one spot I'm. It's like at a rock concert how you get to be the first guy out so you don't have to be behind the 10,000 people on the guy. I got my spot. So I've got it in my head now I can stay for 32 minutes after launch because I need to be in the vehicle at 10am, 10am I need to have the engine on and off I go because if I don't, I ain't getting home. And there wasn't another flight on the 26th. The next flight was the 27th. And my brother had a chartered flight at 4pm that day. So if he gone, where am I going? You know, because the hot. He had already checked out of the hotel. So I'm fully committed because you know, what could go wrong? Nothing. Right. So, so I get out of the car, there's all sorts of people lined up through the next level of security. Oh, by the way, I wasn't on the beach but I did have my Hawaiian shirt. So I did at least have my Hawaiian shirt. But I couldn't be on the beach because that wasn't as cool a spot to be in as where I was going to be. Okay, right. So they get us through this line. There's all sorts of stuff. There's two spots. We had the better spot but the control room's like six to eight miles away from the launch site because if things blow up you don't want to kill everybody on the launch crew. Right. So it's a good idea. And it was extremely overcast because you're in the jungle in the Amazon rainforest. So it's, you know, I couldn't even see the rocket from where I was. Yeah, but that's okay because I'm. I'm living in the moment, man. So about an hour and a half before launch, we finally get to the. Into the building and into the gallery, and I see some folks I had met and behind glasses, the control room. So I had to kind of conserve my phone battery because it had to get me to the airport. But I'm texting him, I made it, I'm alive, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I text my brother, I'm here, I'm here. And he, you know, he's real busy and they're all wearing masks and they're all focused on whatever it is. But he finally was able to stand up way I. He saw me and we waved and I told him I was proud of him and all that cool stuff. And he had to get back to what he was doing. So I get my seat. There is nowhere to plug anything in. I'm taking 10 billion pictures and it's T minus hour and 30 minutes. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever. And I'm thinking, okay, now, 32 minutes after launch. There are supposed to be two major milestones within an hour of launch. The first one was when the capsule or fairing separates from the launch vehicle. The big rocket separates. That was supposed to happen about 25 minutes into launch, an hour into launch, which I wasn't going to be able to stay for, was when the actual telescope gets open and deployed from the capsule, or fairing or whatever it is you call it, because I'm not a rocket scientist. I don't really know. He's corrected me a hundred times. I still don't know. But anyway, whatever it is, I say, well, I'm going to stay for the first Biggie. The first Biggie is at launches. The second biggie is that it separates. I'm going to stay for that. I'm going to try to anyway, unless it doesn't launch on time. So 13 minutes before launch, I tell everybody this. It got very real for me. Me like, holy crow, I'm actually going to see this. Oh, my God, there's history being made. I'm going to actually get to be in it in my brother's moment. And my wife is texting me. She is not an early riser. It's two hours earlier where she is. And she's been up since 6am because she's watching the live stream. She says, I see John. I see John. That's so, so cool. And I'm like, I see him too, but did you see me? Nope. Yeah, they're not focused. They're not focused on me at all. I said, but I gotta get off my phone because I don't know if I'm gonna make it to the airport, you know. And then my brother advised me that two minutes before launch, they opened the doors to the outside gallery. So I knew exactly where those doors were. So at 2 minutes and 30 seconds before launch, I'm the guy right at the door, man, because no one's gonna get in front of me. That's what's gonna happen. So two minutes before launch, the doors open, we go outside, it's raining. They aim me, you know, where are we looking? Okay, I took my phone and I'm. I got to film and see launch, and everything went up perfectly. They call the word nominal. Every time they said nominal, that means everything was working exactly as planned. And they just kept saying nominal. And the thing was this ball of fire going up. I've never seen a launch before, so I didn't know what to expect. But there's this ball of fire. It was like six or eight miles away. And you don't hear anything until 40 seconds in, in. And you start to feel the ground rumbling and then you hear the roar. Because sound, you know, takes sound a while to travel, right? And then it was almost overwhelming. It was just freaking crazy. And there was a big crowd outside and people are clapping and yelling, go, baby, go. And I'm just filming on. Oh my God, I got to see the launch. And now I'm thinking, oh my God, I wonder if I'll get home, you know, Right? So I go in, we launch, everybody's clapping, high fiving and all that stuff. And they start making all these speeches and stuff. And there are these big screens, apparently on the vehicle, the launch vehicle itself. There are cameras so you could see what was really happening in real time in space, you know. And I think like 25 minutes after launch, or 27 or something, the separation happens. So it's 9:47 now, remember, I need to go be in that car by 10 o'. Clock. That's in my head. That's the. It's the only way I'm getting home. I better be in that, that car by 10 o' clock with the engine on. So I see the milestone. There's high fiving and clapping and cheering and all that stuff. And now I'm leaving. I am the only person in the entire building that has gotten up out of his seat and is leaving the building it. Because I gotta go. Yeah. Ain't nothing I can do about it. I text my brother, tell him how proud I am that I love him. And I, I'm out of here. And he, he said, I'm so glad you can make it. And of course, you know, he's still working.

Yeah.

And I get out of the building and just as I get outside and I'm walking to the car, I hear a roar of people and applause that was five times louder than what I heard in the prior thing. Because the second milestone had I waited five more minutes. It was unplanned. It happened much sooner than they thought, which is actually beneficial to the launch. But it separated. The telescope actually separated and it started deploying. And basically they said because of all how well everything's worked, it's extended the actual life of the program by almost, they think maybe 10 more years.

Oh, wow.

Because everything worked so perfectly. So 9:58, I'm in the car, I hit the button, hit the engine, engine comes on. And now I'm hauling butt two minutes ahead of schedule. Ahead of schedule. And I am hauling, I'm trying not to speed because, you know, you really don't want to get stopped. This would be a bad. Number one, I have a car that's not in my name. Number two, I have a driver's license that is not going to be respected. And number three, I don't know where I'm going. And I'm hoping that my phone will hold the charge. So I made it. I passed cars and scooters and horse driven things and you know, and I'm just going around the man, because I got to get to the airport. I don't care where they're going, I gotta get to the airport. So I go, I remember I had written down the code. I drop off the car, I get my stuff out of the vehicle. You know, I'm still intact, I'm still alive. I'm trying to remember all the things I'm supposed to do. Okay, now I find the car rental counter to drop the car keys off and of course there's nobody there because it's Christmas, right? Why would you work then? So I took a picture, like my brother said, of me dropping the keys in the box so that there's some record that it actually happened. And now I go to the ticket counter and I don't know if I'm going to make it. It's a little after 11, so 12:25, I have to make it through customs. Tanzania is not a large country and it is Christmas day after all. So I'm at the Ticket. Ticket, kiosk. And I use my credit card, and it says, baggage charge two bags. Each bag, €180. Now, Ron, I have spent so much money at this point, it's. It's like it doesn't even register, except I'm. I'm about to do it, and it says, please see ticket agent. So it wouldn't even let me do it. So I go up to the ticket agent, who luckily was bilingual, and I said, hey, man, Man, I couldn't make this work, but it is Christmas. Do you have a Christmas that's going to be really expensive? Do you? Is there a Christmas miracle to be had today? And he looks at me, and he's kind of seeing that I look a little tired and a little crazy, a little, you know, worse. He says, let me see what I can do. He says, how does €60 for both bags sound? I said, you're my hero. It is a Christmas miracle. Merry Christmas to you. And so he takes my stuff, and I made it to the plane on time. But wait, there's a little more to the story. So I'm on the plane, and we get out, and we land in Martinique, and they make us get off the plane and go through customs. No, Guadalupe. I'm sorry. Guadalupe is when they made us do this. So I stand in the line for customs, hoping to make my next flight, and a gentleman, not a TSA agent, but whatever the version of that is, says to me, where are you coming from? And I said, french Guiana. And he says, no, no, no. Very bad. Now, French Guiana. No, no, you can't come in our country. Like, what? What are you talking about? And I said, no, I got this, and I got that, and I got this, and I got my negative COVID test. And here's this, and here's this, and here's this, and. Oh, no, no, no. Very bad, very bad, very bad. And I said, okay, what do you want me to do about it? Oh, no, quarantine. No, no, no. I can't quarantine. What are you talking about? So we argue for a little while, and then he goes over and talks to another guy, and they're arguing for a little while, and then they come back to me and they say, okay, you go. I'm like, okay, so, okay, get ready. I go about five people down, and another person stops me. Me. And goes through the exact same routine. And I said, I just did this. I showed him this, and I showed him this, and I showed him this. And he starts arguing with another guy, and eventually he lets Me through. That actually happened three times. I can't make this stuff up because it was so surreal. But after guy number three, I'm two people from the customs agent and he just waves me through, stamps my stuff. I made it to the gate. I had 2% left on my phone. I needed some power because just in case I had to quarantine, I had to be able to contact somebody, right? But I made it through. And when I made it through, I found some power that I could actually plug into. So that was really good. And I made the plane. I actually made the plane. And that mostly is the end of the story. But wait, there's one more thing that happened. Of course there is, Adam. One more. Of course there is. Because you know what could go wrong? Freaking everything could go wrong. So the one more thing that happened was when I got to the United States, first of all, it was Christmas evening in jfk. So of course the shuttle for the. For us folks that were lucky enough to fly out on Christmas day, the guy took over an hour to get there, even though I'd called and called three times. And I understand that. So I slept in a hotel. The next morning I was supposed to fly from JFK to Charlotte, and that would have been fine, except every flight was almost canceled. My flight was canceled. Two flights after was canceled, there was another flight. Luckily, I woke up so early that I talked to the ticket agent and she said, I can get you on this flight later this afternoon, and it goes through here and here to get you to Charlotte. It. I said, you got anything else? She says, you want to fly sand by? I said, heck yeah, I do. She goes, it's risky. I said, lady, you have no idea. Yeah. She goes, it's. It's a direct flight. And I said, okay, put me on. She goes, you're number one on the list. You got a chance. I said, good, do it. He lets me through. I go, Now I'm at the gate really early. So while I'm sitting at the gate, I get this notification that American Airlines has booked me on this multi stop flight to Charlotte because my flight's been canceled. And I said, I'm on standby. Why would they do that? So I see two gate agents for a different flight and I go up to them and I said, hey, man, I don't want to go on this other flight. Can you help me out? Oh, you need to go on that flight. Why? Because you don't want to go standby? Why wouldn't I want to go stand? I was really Risky. I said, you have no idea what I've just been through. I said, I'm going. Put me on. They tried to talk me out of it six times. I said, look. Look at my face. Do I look like a person that doesn't want to go standby? Is there something here when I'm saying, please put me on standby that you're interpreting as? I don't want to go standby. They're like, okay, but we're going to have to. To cancel that ticket. You're at grave risk of doing this. You have no idea. So I go stand by. And I made it. And I finally got out of JFK and I made it to Charlotte, and I drove and met my wife, who had seen the whole thing, and she was so proud that we arrived. I made it to Charlotte and I drove to High Point because the next day we had to drive home to Pennsylvania. That was my adventure in French Guiana. That was it. What could go wrong?

What could go wrong? I think that's what we need to call the. The episode, this podcast. What could go wrong? So, my gosh, we're going on 51 minutes here, but I know. I wanna. I wanna. I do wanna ask. I mean, obviously you kind of let on a little bit in there, but I'm curious, like, like, with your background, you know, as a. As a lean thinker and, like, do you think it helped? Like, I mean, because obviously, I mean, there was just a lot of perseverance that you needed there and courage and bravery and whatnot. But. But do you think being a lean practitioner helped you?

I absolutely do, Ron. So I did set it up. So the spirit of Kaizen, right, the whole idea that when teams are trying to solve a problem. Problem, that there's so many different ways and so many different things that can go wrong, but we've. We've never had it where we didn't solve. So there's always a way to do something. You just got to have that spirit in you to try anything. And, you know, this might have been an extreme example of that, but, I mean, I think we've all seen where there's this crazy moment of breakthrough that nobody anticipated. And I think that kept me going. I will say I'm getting a little old for doing this level of physical and mental adventure. Luckily for me, I don't feel the need to see the next project that my brother's working on. You know, I don't really feel the need to do that. And I will say that there are two life lessons to be learned from what I did. So if you, if you will tolerate this, I will tell you what they are. The first one is never threaten to do something if you intend to follow through without knowing what you're actually following through. Because I always thought this thing was launching from Florida, man. Or Texas. I had no idea. So that's one. The second one is the reason why they say it's a once in a lifetime thing is that most people wouldn't be stupid enough to try that twice. So clearly had I known, well, I might have tried it anyway because that's in my nature and it's always been in my nature to try things. But this might have been. Been the most extreme of things.

Yeah. You know, the thing that, that kind of resonates with me a little bit about this and we'll wrap things up here. But you know, they talk about, you know, like, I mean, obviously you spent a lot of money, right, like on this to, to do it, but it's.

Just, I feel like still don't know how much.

Right? Yeah, you probably don't want to know. That doesn't matter at this point. What could go wrong? Right? But, but, but it's like spending money or on, on an experience, you know, but that's what I feel like. That's what, where money is best spent and we can go on the. Buy the biggest car, house or whatever and that's fine. It's stuff, you know, but you'll never forget about this and your brother won't for the rest of your life. You know, when you're right old men on your deathbed, you're going to remember that crazy experience, you know, and.

Right.

Yeah. So, well, well done, man. On, on, on, on that and just the courage and the perseverance that it took and, and obviously the, the love that you and your brother have for each other. I think it's, it's, it's fantastic. So, ah, good stuff, Adam, man, if folks want to connect with you, you know, obviously we're going to link all the previous episodes. They can read about all your, all your lean work and, and Wheel of Sustainability and all that good stuff. But what's the best way for folks to connect with you, Adam, if they're not already?

Yeah, sure. So definitely find me on LinkedIn. Adam Lawrence. I think, you know, the big value you get from working with me is that I don't give up on nothing, man. I mean that's the whole point. The point is we teach this. I don't, I don't suggest that anybody goes to French Guiana, it's not a vacation spot. But again, the teams that work with me know that we're going to figure it out no matter what, no matter what happens. So Adam Lawrence on LinkedIn at lawrencei-partners.com if you just want to email me, you know, or chat with me or just share, share your adventure story with me, that is the best fun. So I love LinkedIn because people have reached out to me and you know, we just share stories. That's why not we can learn from each other.

Exactly. All right, my friend. Well, thanks again for coming on and who knows what we'll talk about next time, but I'm sure there will be.

So hopefully not that kind of adventure. Ron, I appreciate that.

Good stuff.

Thank you so much.

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