Hi, my name is Nicole Stott. I am a retired NASA astronaut and aquanaut, now artist. I was blessed with the opportunity to fly in space two times. One time for a little over three months on the International Space Station, and then a second flight, which was the final flight of the space shuttle Discovery, where we went back to the space station but was only there for about two weeks.

I had been told by many people, “Oh, Nicole, you need to write this book.” And that was based primarily on presentations I would make of the experience I had at different events and people coming up to me afterwards and saying, “Okay, you need to tell this story.” And I think it’s a meaningful story as well, and it’s not a memoir. And I think that is what makes it even more important, is that it’s not just: Oh, here’s how Nicole became an astronaut. It’s: Here’s some of the insight into what Nicole experienced as an astronaut. And in a much bigger sense with respect to how we live and work, what we’re doing in space as crew members, that really is the best example for how we should be living down here as crew on spaceship earth.

The whole motivation was really that I felt like I had an important story to tell – a meaningful story to tell – based on the experience I had in space. And I wanted to share the story in a way that hopefully will connect with people so that they can relate and understand all of the amazing things we’re doing in space that are about improving life here on earth. But more importantly, how the way we’re doing that in space can help us all live more like crew members here on spaceship earth.

I first met Robin through an introduction from a dear friend named Will Li. Our first conversation was really introductory, what Robin does, how she works. But I could tell right off the bat that she was prepared to help me bring to life what I had been thinking about. That she was prepared to help me kind of scope the story, focus the story the way it needed to be, to be a meaningful presentation of what I wanted to share.

Everything I’ve ever done… When you fly as an astronaut in space, it’s not just you that got you there. I mean, there’s just tens of thousands of people on the ground, your trainers, mission control, everybody that’s making that possible to even happen for you, and then you’re just kind of the implementer, right, as you go and fly in space. I discovered the same thing is happening with writing this book and Robin is, I mean, really has been one of the key members of my crew that’s helping make this happen.

She’s kind of like my mission control person, my flight director that’s saying, “Okay, Nicole, before you can actually complete the manuscript, you’ve got to encourage people to want to help you tell that story and the way you do that is through these steps. There’s this proposal, there’s this platform, there’s this presentation of yourself that you have to make before they will even show an interest in the book content that you want to have.” It was interesting to me that it took: you got to tell the story of yourself, whether you like it or not, first through this proposal and this platform to be able to tell that the more important story that you want to capture in your book.

I am really thankful to have the opportunity to work with Robin on my book. This is a woman who definitely has the expertise as a writer, as a coach, as someone who can lead you to the meaningful book that you want to create, I would describe her as insightful, thoughtful, and confident. And those are three characteristics that come through in the way that she edits the material I provide to her. She’s not just rewriting it in a style that she wants to write or she’s not just commenting to me based on what she would want to see, but she’s thinking about it from the standpoint of what any reader should be thinking about as they’re reading this book and hopeful, like I am, that people will read it, take meaning from it, and then want to take personal action based on it as well.