This article is about ‘letting go’ of something, and why it is importan to prepare for that moment. I consider the ‘T-minus 15s; guidance is internal‘ moment, to be exactly that point when the thing (whatever it is) is out of my hands. You are handing it over to someone else or its just not your baby anymore.

Recently, I have found myself using this phrase to remind myself when I no longer have ‘control of something’. Any situation where the outcome really depends more on external factors than my influence.

A good example of this is when I am handing over a solution design to the team to implement. Another example is raising kids, during the early years you prepare them for life and as they get older, they are responsible for themselves (guidance is internal).

Usage in rocket launches

The video above is from the Apollo 11 launch, which took Neil Armstrong and crew to the moon. This is probably the most popular rocket launch video. It has been sampled a few times in pop culture by the likes of Jay-Z an Frank Ocean.

Rocket launches can be broken into two phases, preparation and flight. These two phases are seperated by ‘lift-off’ which is the moment the rocket literally lifts off the launch pad and starts flying. The whole point of a rocket is to fly somewhere, so since lift-off is when the flight/mission starts, it is referred to as ‘T zero’.

Before lift-off (preparation), the time will be counting down towards ‘T zero’ (countdown) and after lift-off the time counts upwards from 0.

During the countdown, there are many critical steps/milestones that are followed in order to succesfully launch. Each milestone has a specific time to be completed, and this is time is relative to lift-off. For example, if you load fuel 10minutes before lift-off, then that milestone is done at t-minus-10mins.

For the Apollo program, t-minus-15s was when the rocket’s internal computer took over control of the rocket.

Summary

There comes a time when you have to ‘let go’. It is important to know when to do it and also to prepare for it. You may still have to provide some guidance/advice/help, but you have to trust and beleive in the other person/team. The key to this is preparation, you must prepare for that time when you have little control/influence.