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The following is an excerpt from Doug Holladay’s newly released book, Rethinking Success: Eight Essential Practices for Finding Meaning in Work and Life, which is available from the link on this page.
As we develop our own definition of success, one that makes room for failure, a necessary trait becomes obvious: resilience. If we do not know how to bounce back from failure or hardship, then we may never achieve the success we seek.
Research is clear that those who thrive are resilient. Success seldom comes to people who live problem-free. Setback and adversity can provide opportunities to test and develop your resilience. My friend and investment partner Bill Mayer has observed that the best way to see if someone is a great leader is to place them in a circumstance where they need to “figure it out” for themselves. He divides people into two categories: the ones who, if stranded on a remote island, would quickly die, and the others, who would find a way to survive. Which are you?
I’ve long pondered the relationship between suffering or setback and resilience. The French existentialist Albert Camus observed a powerful connection between these forces in himself. He declared, “In the midst of winter, I finally found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” Camus is pointing to a moment of discovery of inner strength that had been unacknowledged up to that point.
I’ve wondered whether people are born with resilience or is it a learned behavior. According to UCLA Health, “Resiliency is a cultivated habit. The more you practice it, the greater your ability to bounce back from adversity. It’s not about pretending everything is fine. Rather, it’s about developing healthy life management skills.”
I tend to agree. Clearly, some are born with a more sunny, resilient outlook, but resilience can be built and strengthened through positive attitudes and practices. You can learn and improve resiliency skills every day. Don’t wait for trying times to test your resilience. Create a solid foundation, one that will enable you to weather those severe times. Be a communicator with yourself and others. Meditate, converse, and reframe situations. Focus on gratitude and laughing. All of these actions decrease stress hormones and boost the immune system, making you stronger and more resilient.
The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress.” In its opinion, rather than viewing resilience as a one-time occurrence when you have to “bounce back,” we should think of it as an ongoing practice. In other words, as we do in learning any new skill, we need to practice resilience.
In 1962, psychologists Victor and Mildred Goertzel published Cradles of Eminence: A Provocative Study of the Childhoods of Over 400 Famous Twentieth-Century Men and Women. Despite its catchy title, the book is loaded with useful data. The Goertzels focused on famous people who had positively impacted society, from Henry Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt to Marie Curie and Louis Armstrong. Shockingly, the Goertzels discovered that only 15 percent of their subjects were raised in stable, supportive homes. Of the four hundred, 75 percent, or three hundred people, grew up in environments with severe problems, such as abuse, alcoholism, abandonment, or some other misfortune. The authors concluded, “The ‘normal’ man is not a likely candidate for the Hall of Fame.”
Today’s list would include LeBron James, Howard Schultz, and Oprah Winfrey, among others. These people share a common trait – determination, or an inner defiance – that has played an important role in their success. They have all mastered the art of resilience, of not letting others define their path. One military officer described how he survived years of bullying as a child: “I refused to accept that what they said about me was true.”
I once heard of two brothers raised in a home with a violent alcoholic father. One brother grew up to be a model citizen and a good abstinent parent, while the other became a hopeless drunk, prone to abuse. When asked how they came to be who they were, both answered, “Given who my father was, how could I not?” We all have the opportunity to shape our stories, even when we are told otherwise. We have choices.
Poet Dylan Thomas wrote, “There’s only one thing that’s worse than having an unhappy childhood, and that’s having a too-happy childhood.” Adversity might not catapult everyone to fame, but to a large extent it can help us become more resilient and appreciative. In a multiyear study of adults aged 18 to 101 at the University of Buffalo, psychologist Mark Seery found that subjects who had known some type of adversity were higher functioning and more satisfied than others. This is a surprising and yet hopeful truth. Adversity frequently sets us on a positive course.
There are many ways to endure adversity: we may tackle a situation head-on or take a more subtle approach. Our state of being before being faced with a setback will define how we navigate it. Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist at Stanford, presented interesting information about mortality in a 2013 TED Talk. According to McGonigal, major stressful experiences, such as a personal financial crisis or divorce, increase our risk of dying by 30 percent. However, she also shared that those who spent their days caring for others showed absolutely no stress-related increased risk in dying. Zero. So the deadly effects of stress are not inevitable and can be managed through practices of selfless caring. We find here that reaching out to others in need enhances resilience.
Resilience is, at its core, an interior strength. In his short work Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl notes that those who survived the Nazi death camps were not the physically robust, but rather those with a rich interior life of the mind and spirit. Often they had a purpose for wanting to survive, such as to see a grandchild play the violin again, and so on. Once, when I was speaking with a couple of Navy Seals who endured the arduous training regimen known as BUD/S School, they told me that much more important than athletic and physical prowess was a fierce interior resolve. I’m not surprised.
You can begin to develop resilience at any point in life. Once you begin your work life, it’s a process of constant discovery. M. Scott Peck begins his classic work The Road Less Traveled with this line: “Life is difficult.” It’s true. Life is wrought with twists and turns. It is a difficult odyssey. A 2016 Brookings Institute study of the relationship between age and happiness found that the low point of happiness was between the ages of twenty-five and forty-seven, with the lowest point at around age forty. Such conclusions are hardly reassuring to college graduates. But perhaps it also means that, over time, we begin to become more comfortable with how unpredictable life is and thus more resilient and accepting. Simply showing up, even when you don’t feel like it, produces a strength.
Obstacles are there for us to surmount and for our growth. Adversity and suffering are useful in sculpting a life. Only adversity can remind us about what matters most. It prepares us to appreciate the range of life experiences and what each can teach us. So how are we to think about suffering, pain, and hardship? I would suggest that we summon our inner fighter and take the long view. However you were shaped growing up, you have the power of choice on your side. You can choose a different path. If we view setbacks, failures, and adversity as opportunities, then we set ourselves up to succeed and grow.
Basketball icon Michael Jordan described it best: “I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
J. Douglas Holladay is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University School of Business, co-founder of Park Avenue Equity Partners, L.P., and founder of NorthPoint, a networking organization for executives. He was also an investment banker at Goldman, Sachs, and worked for the White House as a Special Ambassador coordinating international relations. Holladay holds degrees from the University of North Carolina, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Oxford University. He lives in McLean, Virginia.
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