Where do you find resilience? Jonathan Haight, the NYU professor who co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind, says that people often fall into a misunderstanding around resilience – and how to access it. As a business coach to entrepreneurs and executives (as well as media personalities and political candidates), I’ve helped my clients to discover new levels of resilience, using what Haight calls the “concept of anti-fragility”. This concept, first proposed by Lebanese statistician, Nassim Nicholas Taléb, allows anyone anywhere to find resilience in the midst of conflict, turning change into transformational progress.
Top performers know how to access resilience – and they often hire coaches to accelerate that process. Adversity happens to all of us; how we respond is what separates high achievers from the rest.
Unlike a teacup, which breaks the minute it hits the ground, human beings get tougher (and better!) when faced with adversity. “Children,” Haight writes, “are antifragile. Their brains require a wide range of inputs from their environments in order to configure themselves for those environments.” Haight advocates for stress as necessary and useful (in age-appropriate ways, and within limits) for all of us. While it’s not a great strategy to treat your co-workers like children, it’s wise to remember how we are all wired. Do you have a coach that is compassionately challenging you – so that you can grow in your career?
According to Taleb and Haight, we tend to treat others (and ourselves) as if we can not withstand adversity of any kind. Imagine someone going to the gym to work out, but they were afraid to sweat, stress their muscles in any way, or challenge themselves. What would a personal trainer (yes, they are a coach) say about that?
Resilience Begins with Falling Down
Alvaro Pascual-Leone is a neurologist and Harvard professor, and he was curious about how quickly our brains can adjust to extreme circumstances. Together with his fellow researchers, Pascual-Leone blindfolded a group of study participants with 20/20 vision. The blindfolds induced blindness for the sighted participants – the first step in exploring resilience.
The scientists noted neural reorganization – a literal restructuring of the brain in response to sensory deprivation – occurring almost immediately. Touching objects resulted in activating the part of the brain typically reserved for eyesight – just as it does for the blind, when they use this innate rewiring to read Braille. Participant brain patterns literally transformed to respond to the challenge. The test subjects weren’t doing anything to enable this resilience. Restructured resilience occurred naturally within one hour after blindfolding. Resilience was already doing its thing.
When transition happens to us – all of us – we respond with resilience. The ability to adapt is part of our DNA. The test subjects did not enroll in a six-step training program, start meditating, or or do anything in order to access resilience. They didn’t have to, because they were anti-fragile (resilient). Just like you.
Adaptability is Resilience – and It’s Built In to the System
Researchers from the American Psychological Association say that human beings in industrialized nations are getting smarter. “Over the past century, the average IQ has risen to keep pace with the complexity of modern life.” Over the past 100 years, Americans’ mean IQ has been on a slow but steady climb – evidence of resilience and adaptability on a neurological level. Between 1900 and 2012, IQ rose nearly 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900. The steady rise in IQ scores in the United States and throughout the developed world has been dubbed the “Flynn effect,” named after the scientist in New Zealand who first identified this compelling evidence of our natural intellectual resilience.
Where Challenge Meets Resilience: the Power of Coaching
As the saying goes, “It’s never tougher than it is in your mind.” Mind shapes our experience of the world around us. Consider two men, looking at a mountain. The first says, “Look at that – how beautiful! I can’t wait to climb it!” Meanwhile, the second man says, “Ugh. I just want to turn around, go home and watch Netflix.” So, is the mountain a good thing, or a bad thing? The answer is: Neither. It’s just a mountain.
It is our mental interpretation (of events, circumstances and the world around us) that shapes our experience. Resilience gets easier when we see our thoughts for what they are: just thoughts. Want to be more resilient? Don’t believe everything you think.
Resilience isn’t a destination, a quest, or a goal to be reached. Resilience is a reminder. Remind yourself that resilience is built into the system – and find a coach you trust to help with that conversation. That way, you can access greater resilience more quickly. Getting comfortable with how resilience works can help you to be better…for your career, your relationships and your life. By returning to who you naturally are, even in the face of unexpected challenge and conflict, we find a strength that many often forget. Resilience, it turns out, is a lot closer than we think.