Resilience: Spring Back To Life c2e4e

RESILIENCE Spring back to life

Paul Robinson

Names: Robinson, Paul, author Title: RESILIENCE - Spring back to life. Subjects: Self Help/ Personal Growth, Positive Psychology, Inspirational, Life Coaching. First edition eBook published in July, 2021.

Also by the author THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A WINNER THE INNER GAME OF SUCCESS THE LAW OF ATTRACTION MAKE YOUR BRAND ROAR HIGH PERFORMANCE LEADERSHIP A DATE WITH YOUR DESTINY MONEY MAGNETISM MASTERY IN NEGOTIATION TACTICS THE DEVIANTS

©Paul Robinson

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Published by

Positive Revolution

Bangalore, India

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“Life is like jumping on a trampoline, the lower you hit, the higher you rise”

Paul Robinson, in 2008

Table of contents

Chapter 1

You have the power to overcome almost anything

Chapter 2

Turning adversity into advantage

Chapter 3

Flexibility- bend but don’t break

Chapter 4

REALTO- Realistic And Long Term Optimism

Chapter 5

Acceptance and Control

Chapter 6

Perseverance: Conquering little obstacles one by one

Chapter 7

Humor: Laughing at your misery

Chapter 8

Managing Crisis

Chapter 9

Pressure is your ally, and stress- an unwelcome enemy

Preface

“Circumstances do not make the man; they only reveal him to himself” - Epictetus, a Greek stoic philosopher

Most people tend to expect their lives to always keep moving on the path of happiness. They view the idea of an ideal life as nothing less than a bed of roses with things and situations smoothly happening at the right place, and at the right time. But if we think about it carefully, what is life, if one never gets to encounter challenges and obstacles on their way to finally reach their destination for which they’ve been diligently working? Would the fruit of success taste as sweet as it would if everything falls so easily in place?

What I want you all to know is that there are some junctures in everyone’s life where you may feel like everything around you is in complete contradiction to what you desire or had planned for. You might feel mentally and emotionally stuck in troubled waters as you witness one bad thing paving way for another bad one. When everything would seem to go in vain, you would find yourself swimming against adverse currents; grappling with the situation in the hope to make things work by finding solace in calling it a ‘bad time’, or a mere ‘consequence’ of bad karma. In such times, punishing yourself by asking questions like ‘why me?’, or ‘why not others?’, would only make you more confused. The endless loop of questioning whatever comes in your way would eventually make you feel not only hopeless but powerless as well. Your brain would often have to battle with intrusive thoughts when you are stuck in the dilemma of why a bad thing happens to a good person or why you have to always suffer. All such thoughts would eventually make you believe that you hold no control

over anything that is currently happening with you or might happen in the future.

I don’t know if all of what I mentioned above has ever happened to you or not. But it happened to me, in the year 2007, when I constantly asked myself, “Why is everything going wrong around me?”

It wasn’t just a random thought, but a repetitive cycle of several thoughts that were sucking me into a downward spiral of questions like ‘why me?’ and ‘why now?’. The impact of my suffering provoked me so much that I tried to hold on to anything that would bring me even an inch closer to getting an answer.

Books were my first refuge, and they did help a lot. Through the pages of different books, and voices of the different authors, all I wanted was to change my perspective - my understanding of failure, rejection, adversity, challenges, and problems. I spent days and hours pondering over the same until one day, I went to a bookshop where I found this classic book titled “Why bad things happen to good people” by Harold Kushner. I think these questions that always lingered around in my mind and my desire to get a justification for the personal miseries I was enduring were the reason why the title of the book instantly captured my attention.

After I read that book, I started pondering over another provocative question. But this time, it was different. Instead of focusing on the reasons, my mind shifted towards making an effort to solve the situation by putting up questions like “How can I make it right?”, ‘’How can I turn around?’’ or, ‘’ What’s the flip side here?’’. I believed that I would never be able to accept and move forward until I understand the reason behind the things that were happening to me. Only later did I realize that merely looking out for justifications for our questions would not help; with time, I also need to

change the foundational basis of the questions that I was asking.

Therefore, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I can develop a different mindset. It took me several months to alter the questions that kept me awake every night. Much later, I realized that the setbacks and challenges that life throws upon us, are nothing but opportunities that open avenues of personal growth and happiness. But there’s a catch here. The challenges would seem to us as avenues of growth, only if we’re able to maintain a positive mindset while dealing with them. If you rise every day with the determination to deal with situations and people with positivity i.e. with an optimistic outlook, it would change you, and thus would eventually also change the world around you.

We might ask such questions during the worst time of our lives when the adversity or the challenge may seem almost inevitable. The similarity is that the nature of these questions is alike; whether it is the existential one -which challenges the realities of life or the questionable one- where something that we planned doesn't go according to the way we thought it would.

We all have different expectations from life and ourselves as well. We expect good things to happen and we want to hear happy news more often. We need stories of progress, triumph, and victory because they hold the capability to not only motivate us but also influence our perspectives about various things and situations in life.

The sad reality is that watching too much bad news consistently makes us expect bad things to happen. What I mean to say is that, what we see, we tend to inculcate in ourselves too. It can happen while we are aware of the same or perhaps, in our subconscious mind. And when we develop a negative outlook towards life, it makes us pessimistic and sometimes, helpless- which is worse.

Our brain is wired to pay attention to the danger that we might encounter or are going through. This is precisely the reason why we pay more attention to the bad news. Bad expectation means expecting the worst possible outcome to happen. Sometimes, despite making all efforts that might help you achieve that positive outcome, you fail and face failure. This happens because, on a subconscious level, your brain becomes so habitual to bad news that your expectations with all the things around start getting projected towards negative outcomes. You may claim that you think you’ll win a particular competition or would be able to crack a certain interview, but your subconscious mind operates in a manner in which it attracts all the negative energy, and hence, you encounter a failure.

Therefore, it is true that you get what you expect. If your mind is accustomed to negativity, you tend to experience more of the same. Now, when everything around you seems to go down the lane, it becomes extremely important to understand that nothing is permanent and like everything else, misery will also fade away. The point to be noticed is that it will fade for those who constantly believe in the hope that it will get better and they will get out of the mental block they’re stuck in. During the hard times, one must count and trust the blessings that life has provided them with. Now, the next question to ponder over becomes how long the worst will prevail. Everyone has a rough calculation about when the misery they’re facing will disappear. Yes, the idea might be just a foggy one, but all we can do is to wish that it goes away because it must go away.

When bad things happened to me, and I found myself struck amidst situations I never even thought I would go through; I made sure that I don’t give them the kind of power that they can make me heartless. I knew that when people hear bad news, they react. It is only human tendency to behave that way. At that time, I had become almost numb to the feeling of pain. I felt that maybe, I had seen way too much, way too soon already. For a long time, the thought that I had suffered too much, and that probably more is out there waiting for me, haunted me. It was a process to finally unlearn

what I had always believed in, to start a new dialogue with adversity. My efforts to gather knowledge on anything that might assist me in developing personally, to find calm amidst the chaos I was stuck in, kept increasing with each ing day.

The nature of my questions began to change at a faster pace every time I delved deeper into my search for answers. While recklessly dismissing anything that took me far from getting answers, I realized that when I changed some of my questions, I found new answers. Interestingly, these new answers changed the old meaning that I was blindly holding onto. The famous psychologist CG Jung once said “Meaning makes things endurable, perhaps everything”. Previously, this statement merely felt like a combination of words put together, until later, I finally experienced it happening with me. The impact was so huge that I had started modifying my way of thinking. And when I was able to transform the way I thought, I was able to change my life.

Success often leaves clues for us to bring betterment in our lives, while tragedies leave warnings so that we’re able to mend our ways of living life. When you study about people who have faced challenges in their life and how they overcame them, you get to learn that they all possessed one of the greatest life skills called - resilience.

Everyone’s response to different stimuli is different. Every person has a unique way of handling a situation. The thing to be understood is that how you deal with a situation also plays a pivotal role in determining the nature of the outcome as well. Our perspective and the amount of optimism that we carry in our heart influences the outcome. All of us face difficult situations in our lives. Some can defeat the obstacles and emerge victorious, while some end up encountering failure.

To date, I have written a few books that emphasize the importance of

personal growth and achieving success in the business and professional fields. But somehow, I always wanted to write one on the subject of resilience as well, because this was something that I learned to master over the past years- through experiencing and exploring. So, a few months back I was going through the notes I had written down over the past twelve years, when all of a sudden, Covid-19 struck the entire world in a way that it became the most testing time for people all around. That’s when it dawned upon me; that right now, what everyone needs in themselves is the skill of resilience. Moreover, I felt that this skill is something that can be learned and willfully is inculcated in ourselves through various means, even from a book like this. You just have to look around, and the day you’ll wake up with a will to find hope, you’ll get to know that it is available out there in abundance. You just need to want it enough.

A lesson that I took away from all my past experiences is that we all are capable of turning suffering into a joyful experience. By turning adversity to our advantage, we can overcome challenges along with the of our loved ones. My belief has increased manifold over the fact that it is possible to survive tragedies and heal ourselves if treated and ed with human comion. While it wouldn’t be the easiest road to ride on, you can rebuild yourself and your life while making sure that you’re not just surviving, but thriving in every field you decide to put your feet in.

During difficult times, one must that there are always two sides to a coin. All we need to do is to flip it at the right time and look at the other side. This flipping can be done in any situation, and it becomes extremely necessary to do so especially to survive in this post-corona world. Human lives are adversely affected all around the world. So many people have lost their jobs, businesses have been suffering losses like never before, which in turn has resulted in a rise in the total national debt. Moreover, the general paranoia is spreading at a fast pace and the world is awaiting the dominos effect.

But when you decide to take the road less taken and talked about and flip the coin, you will find that there’s room for hope, optimism, courage, and resources to deal with the future in a more concrete and planned manner. It doesn’t completely depend on where you are or who you are, all you need to look for is a breakthrough, whenever you encounter a breakdown. Always my friend, if there is a problem, there’s a solution as well. Calm yourself down and sit with the motive of reaching to the crux of the situation to solve it, rather than sitting idle and feeling bad about what happened with you. Therefore, even though you face a defeat, it won’t make you regret that you didn’t give your 100% or didn’t do what you could have done. This way, you actively take responsibility for your actions and the things that happen with you.

I have written this book with a purpose, and hope, that it would help you become friends with the failure and rejections you face in life. I strongly believe that reading this book would help you ease your everyday sufferings, assist you in handling the demons that haunt you so that you never get tired of wrestling with challenges that life throws upon you. My sincere hope is that upon finishing this book, you would feel a spirit of renewed enthusiasm for life.

Over the years, I have come to realize and make peace with the fact that when we understand suffering and pain in a new light with a renewed perspective, we begin to understand life itself. Right now, from this very moment, let us stop telling ourselves sad stories to justify the miserable life we are leading, and instead start telling ourselves stories of victory and success of our own lives- about how we dealt and overcame the obstacles that come in our way in this post-covid world.

It only takes a moment, a certain decision or a choice, that changes almost everything. Honestly speaking, if you are willing to pay attention to this current moment you are in with all your heart, you can always find a way to make it right. If you have come this far with me, then keep reading on.

Finish this book to push yourself in picking up a new mental muscle named resilience. Flex it the next time you are put through any challenge whether in your life, at work, or in your business. The key to change lies in your mind. Make sure you use it wisely.

Spring back to life.

Paul Robinson, Bangalore, during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown

Chapter 1

You have the power to overcome almost anything

“Resilience is very different than being numb. Resilience means you experience, you feel, you fail, you hurt. You fall. But, you keep going.” ― Yasmin Mogahed

Traveling on the road of life is not as easy as it seems, because it is a combination of various situations, challenges, moments of laughter, and small triumphs.

Regardless of the unfortunate circumstances, we have to deal with, our aim remains the same, i.e. to find out ways that would help us gracefully tackle hard times, without sacrificing our sense of self. Everyone indeed has their way of dealing with different circumstances. This is what I appreciate about life the most- the uniqueness and peculiarity that lies in everyone’s ways, in different places, and with different personalities. But what is that value which binds all of us together; without which it is almost impossible to succeed in life in the long run? My friend, the answer to these questions simply put, is RESILIENCE.

What is Resilience? Let us now look at the irony of life. If you’ll carefully look around, you’ll find some people who thrive on adversity, while some who constantly abuse

the blessings that are available in their life. Despite being blessed with almost everything one would want in life and after countless successful moments; some people still go on to become unfortunate examples of personal tragedies like suicide, and drug abuse. The question that might be hovering over your mind is that why do some people overcome horrible and unimaginable personal disasters by triumphing over their demons, while some become unfortunate examples of personal disasters? Why are some people able to use adversities to their advantage while others work on their advantage, and unknowingly turn them into their self-nurtured adversities?

Speaking from experience, I have come to believe that everyone has a choice here. All of us can decide whether we want to carry on the path we were always moving around or if we want to bring a change in ourselves to achieve newer heights in our life. Although for all of this, it is essential to have a sense of awareness about ourselves; we must understand what situation we are in and how we can go about it. Only then would we be able to decipher the pros and cons that would help us in choosing our path. A person can either choose to carry around the memories of the tragic events of their lives, letting those color the way they view the world and themselves; or they can stand tall against the hardships to prosper in life.

At its core, resilience is about being capable and strong enough to persevere in adverse or stressful conditions and to take away positive meaning from that experience. According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is adapting well in times of adversity, trauma, tragedy, or significant ongoing stressors. No matter how one chooses to phrase it with exact precision, it is about overcoming a challenge in our life with a capacity to withstand stressors, thrive, and fulfill our potential despite the ongoing adverse life events.

At work, resilience is about adapting to the pressures that one faces in an evolving or a changing environment. It is about our capacity to thrive when the odds are stacked up against us. Therefore, resilience is a mental outlook

that shapes our mindset and behavior. This attitude can be developed by changing the way we perceive what’s happening around us. We can choose to look at problems bigger than us or miniaturize and focus on solving our problems.

Sinking or swimming in the face of challenges is your choice, my friend. This will determine whether you will act like a victim or a winner when circumstances aren’t in your favor. Resilience gives you the will to overcome challenges, and the power to turn around any unfavorable circumstance into a favorable one. Whether you are stuck in sports, in your career, or life, with the resilience muscle, you have an advantage over anything and everything that stands between you and your dream. That is a fact.

Resilience is a growth tool that stretches you beyond your limits. It pushes you to function beyond your comfort zone. It makes you grow into a better individual by building your character and confidence which ultimately paves a way towards a successful path.

Jim Carrey, the famous actor, and comedian is an inspiring example of resilience. At the tender age of fifteen, he boldly took the responsibility for his family and dropped out of school to them. He spent his teenage years living with his family in a van. Even though the hope to get out of poverty was faded and bleak, Jim Carry never gave up his childhood dream of becoming a comedian. Throughout, he worked dedicatedly to help his family, and then himself. Today, we all know how successful he is in the field he decided to move forward in. This is the power of resilience. Every step might have some obstacle, maybe big or small, but our will to accomplish our dream must never fade away. Only when we believe in our dream and our capabilities, will we be able to lead a happy and satisfactory life.

Resilience is a renewable strength that lies within each of us. Some of us replenish this inner strength and amplify and nurture it, to enlarge its

bounty. Think of resilience as a flame that burns within each of us. We can either fan the fire to destroy the obstacles or let it inflame us. The choice is truly ours. According to me, the truth is that we are all resilient. It is a power that we all carry inside ourselves. But sadly, for many of us though, our inborn capacity to be resilient is never fostered or nurtured. What happens to us can erode our spirit for resilience. But like any muscle, this mental muscle called resilience can be worked upon in tough times.

This is the biggest test of all time. We have adversities and challenges that are brought about by the coronavirus. Its aftereffects are reflected worldwide in all areas of life. But one key skill that will separate people who are going to thrive in the future, and the ones who will merely survive is their capacity for resilience. In the present and the coming years, we need resilience in our lives more than ever before. One thing is clear. It is not really about what happens to us which makes us winners or losers in life. It is about what we do when something happens to us, that makes all the difference. We may not be able to change our past events, but we can change the way it impacts us. Therefore, resilience is a positive response to all kinds of stimuli, especially the challenging ones. Being resilient means understanding that we cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond to it. We get to choose our responses. We can go beyond reacting and begin to respond to people and situations with proactiveness and solutions.

Respond Vs React. Everyone knows how to react to the situation in which they are in. But only a few know how to respond. Back in 2007 when I was having a hard time, I used to put my energy in unconsciously reacting to the hardship that I used to encounter. But gradually I came to understand that reacting and responding are two completely different concepts. And knowing the difference between both is necessary. Responding is a more thoughtful action and it involves analyzing the probable outcome of the given situation and then moving forward. Reacting, on the other hand, is a spontaneous

action (a reptilian brain reaction) that a person undertakes without paying much attention to the pros or cons. All of us should learn how to stay calm in the most chaotic situations. Always that even in the toughest storms, there’s the possibility of finding something to hold onto. Nobody can undergo the transition from reacting to responding in an instant, I believe that even responding is a skill that comes with practice. Never lose hold of your emotions when required to deal with an emotionally or mentally taxing situation, try to keep yourself collected at all times. Even if you lose control, regain your self-composure immediately. This way, you’ll observe that the environment and your mental state would also simultaneously improve when you start responding instead of reacting.

The power of resilience. You see, life is quite unpredictable, and it often doesn’t go according to your plan. But still, you would want to hold on to the steering wheel to navigate through your plans and goals. Losing control and being reckless with life can be depressing and devastating. You need a sense of control and balance and the mental muscles of resilience. Moreover, some setbacks and obstacles push you towards the edge of disappointments. When such things happen and you’re stuck in a series of unfortunate events, you need resilience more than ever to bounce back, and to find your balance again. You don’t want adversities to define you. You want to remain in control. And resilience, my friend, gives you the power to turn your adversities into an advantage. , calm seas do not make skillful sailors. We need a certain amount of stress in life to learn and grow. Whenever you have to face any challenging situation, the gift of resilience gives you the power to endure suffering, be it obstacles, failures, or difficulties of any nature. You go from the natural reactions of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn to a level of endurance to sur challenges with the right attitude. It is about learning to deal with your problems effectively and maintaining cool under pressure. You achieve more because you can focus well while most people get distracted. So, resilience helps in getting to focus on your goals while others are left puzzled and confused. You live with confidence while others are clouded by pessimism and cynicism. Resilience is your ultimate weapon to move ahead.

And in times like these, where uncertainty is the new norm, you need to build resilience in yourself. You need to nurture it and share the spirit of resilience by helping others embrace the change.

Resilience: Flex your inner muscles.

This book is for helping you develop your inner muscles for resilience so that you too can navigate and weather the difficulties and challenges you encounter without unnecessary mental, emotional, or physical distress. With resilience, you can handle life’s challenges and pressure in a more efficient manner and without it, you may completely lose your cool or even hope for a better future. When you are resilient, you possess a unique perspective to learn from life’s experience and you cultivate the capacity to recreate your life from anywhere, at any point of your life, and it’s one of the most important life skills that will determine your success.

Life is not meant to be easy. As Jim Rohn said, “Don’t wish it was easier. Wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom.” Bruce Lee once said, “Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” We all possess this uncanny skill and ability to rebuild our life backto repair what is broken, to rise from the ashes of destruction. Let us move in a direction of resilience and learn to choose courage over fear and tribulations every time.

What resilience is not. Put aside the things and notions that don’t come under what resilience truly is.

Resilience is not a personality trait that is gifted to a few individuals. Instead, it can be described as a life skill, just like the virtues of patience or determination. It involves behavior, thoughts, and actions that almost anyone can learn and develop. Research has shown that the ability of a person to learn resilience is ordinary, and not something that can be considered extraordinary.

Resilience doesn’t mean that a person won’t experience any kind of difficulty or distress. People who have suffered from major adversities or trauma in their lives commonly go through a lot of emotional pain and distress. The road to resilience is likely to involve a considerable amount of emotional distress. It is not about avoiding suffering; but about succeeding, despite the suffering.

There are countless examples of people and communities who are rebuilding their lives from square one, even after undergoing devastating tragedies like terrorist attacks, floods, earthquakes, and nuclear disasters. It takes a lot of courage and to undergo such events. It may take months or even years to get over them but just know that it is just a phase and there always exists the possibility to find a better mental place to be in. Therefore, when empathy and humanity are combined with hard work and resilience, people find the right paths that help them in rising again.

Our capacity to adapt to resilience puts us, humans, at the top of the food chain. But all of us are not equally equipped to handle the uncertain changes and adversities of life. Those who constantly work on building their skill of resilience stand tall against setbacks while others tremble and eventually fall. But once you develop the skill, you gain more confidence and courage to face the realities of life. Moreover, you can also help others in developing this skill. All you need to do is understand and work on the many ing attitudes and behaviors that constitute resilience. So let's

get started.

Chapter 2

Turning adversity into advantage

“Each problem has hidden within it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.” - Joseph Sugarman

Napoleon Hill was appointed by the millionaire Andrew Carnegie to study the lives of successful people and find out the clues and principles that helped them become successful. He was paid commission to study and interview many successful men and women that the world was aware of. While observing, Napoleon found that they all had one characteristic in common. Each of them had developed a habit of continuously looking into every difficulty for the seed of an equal, or a greater benefit or advantage. They constantly tried to discover a silver lining even if they felt that they were staring at the darkest clouds.

The major takeaway from Hill’s observation is that it is not the people’s background that makes them successful; it is their unique psychology. How they respond to events is more important rather than letting the nature of events affect their mindset and behavior. Therefore, it is a fact that between the stimuli and the response lies the power to rewrite your destiny.

Every successful person has experienced countless temporary setbacks, breakdowns, and even outright defeats in their course of life. But they always could respond positively and constructively to these defeats and to bounce back that ultimately assured them success. The real defeat is not when you fall, but when you refuse to get up. It is always the bouncing, rather than the breaking part that eventually makes people successful.

Murphy’s law says ‘whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Of all the things that can go wrong, the worst possible thing will go wrong at the worst possible time and cost the most amount of money’. Cohen’s law states in addition to this, ‘Murphy was an optimist.’ If we look at the flip side of the Murphy’s Law, it also means that whatever can go right will go right as well. It is our job to find out what can go right when things go bad. Instead of asking ‘why bad things happen to me?’; we should learn to ask ‘how can I turn this around?’ By bringing a change in our questions, we take one step forward in changing the outcome. Ask yourself, ‘what good can come out of this challenge right now or in the coming future?’

Disappointments can come despite our maximum efforts to avoid them. Whenever a disappointment comes in our way, we should become our reminders of hope and love, and never fail to tell ourselves that the goal might have got delayed, but our desire should remain the same- which would gradually drive us to what we want to accomplish if we work harder for it. Moreover, if we think about it carefully, disappointments can only occur when we love or want something enough. Our ion for achieving our goal should be the driving factor behind our efforts, and when faced with disappointment, the fire of ion grows more that pushes us into performing and doing better in our lives.

Between the inevitable and the unavoidable one, those who can stay on with a happy face are the ones who are capable of understanding the hidden blessings in all the insurmountable challenges they may ever face in life.

In praise of adversity. Adversity on a sublime level teaches us, and on a deeper level, it is capable of transforming us. It also plays a pivotal role in transforming us spiritually because adversity facilitates the death of our big ego. When we break down while going through suffering, we learn the values of humility and appreciation (gratitude), which help us, cherish the simple pleasures of life. Moreover, the death of our ego when we are undergoing an adverse condition can give us the spiritual evolution that is necessary to pursue a larger purpose in life.

Adversity builds the depth of character and inner strength. The very best qualities of strength, courage, character, determination, and persistence are brought in you when you face your greatest challenges. Some of the most valued virtues that wield strength and character are nourished through bad and unpleasant events in life.

At a psychological level, adversity serves us more than we know of. Dr. Abraham Zaleznick of the Harvard Business School did a study on the role of disappointment in a person’s life. When everyone was talking about motivation and its contribution to making a person successful, Zaleznick was looking at disappointments. He discovered that successful people respond to disappointments in an entirely different manner in comparison to unsuccessful ones. He concluded that the way and manner in which you deal with disappointments in life is a great predictor of whether you will achieve success. Successful people use disappointments in life to create a frustration point to bring changes in their behavior. When they hit the rock bottom, a level of frustration emerges, and that makes them do things that were previously termed impossible for them to achieve. They develop a sense of courage and tenacity to face their demons head-on with perseverance. They roll with the punches and respond to adversities bravely with a greater enthusiasm to overcome them. While many people are

paralyzed by their challenges, a very few go forward just like Charlie Jones once said ‘it is not about how far you fall, but how high you bounce back later that counts.’

Epictetus the great stoic philosopher wrote : ‘circumstances do not make a man; they only reveal him to himself’’. So, if you want to know what you are made of, just observe yourself on how you think and behave when problems and challenges surmount you. When you squeeze a lemon, the juice which is inside coming out. Similarly, when you are pressured and squeezed by the insurmountable challenges that life presents to you, what comes out of you? If there is fear, you will the buck. If there is love and courage, you will act with confidence. If there is frustration within you, more frustrations will come out. The undeniable truth is that what’s inside always comes out. So next time you face adversity, ask yourself: ‘do you want to give up on your dreams or do you want to stand tall and ready to roll with the punches?’

Bad things are not always bad. It is good to have detours and changes too. When you bring change in a bad experience, you will always see a good thing emerging out of it. Those are nothing but blessings in disguise. Hollywood star Christian Bale was auditioned and was rejected for the role of Robin in the Batman and Robin sequel, and the role later went to Chris O’ Donnell. Christian Bale, who was a struggling actor then, felt extremely disappointed for being rejected for Robin’s role. Years later, he was chosen to play Batman, and today, he recalls the previous rejection as a blessing. If he had played Robin back then, he would not have got the lead role of Batman later.

Throughout history, great thinkers have reflected upon the paradox and have concluded that adversity is the test that you must when you’re on the path to accomplishing anything worthwhile. Herodotus, the Greek philosopher said, “adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have lain dormant in its absence.” Very true!

If there is no Goliath, there is no reference of David either. It is a modern phrase that signifies how a small, weaker opponent gets face to face in combat with a much stronger opponent. While it is difficult for the weaker one to win, but if it does, the situation would be nothing less than a miraculous and inspiring story. Similarly, without villains, there are no heroes. Without adversity, there can be no great story that is worth telling. And it entirely depends on us, about how we want our story to move forward. Therefore, we should always never stop trying to write a better story for ourselves. Always , that our stories define us. So, how would you like to be defined? Take a moment and think about it.

Life is like a trampoline my friend, the lower you hit, the higher you rise. Therefore, don’t be disappointed by your troubles. They are merely temporary circumstances and never forget that you have absolute control over them. The power lies purely in your psychology and responsibility towards handling your challenges and solving them intelligently.

What Norman Vincent Peal once said was very apt, ‘‘When God wants to send you a gift, he wraps it up with problems.’’ The thing is that most of us look only at the wrapper and ignore the gift that’s inside. Here is an interesting story of a gift wrapped up with problems.

The tornado sale. On the afternoon of June 14, 1981, a big tornado hit a small town called Roseville in Minnesota, USA. The tornado ripped through the whole town for 26 long minutes destroying most of Roseville, including an electronic store called ‘Sound of Music’. After the big storm, the staff at the electronic store began recovering the inventory that was scattered across the neighboring areas. The twister damaged most of the goods, but the employees started loading up most of what was left of the speakers, VCRs, and other electronic goods to their warehouse situated in Bloomington.

The employees were quite disappointed because of the destruction caused by the natural tragedy. So, they came up with a sale idea and called it the ‘Tornado sale’. The Sound of Music team knew that they could greatly reduce the price of the damaged goods and sell them in their current condition. All of them were also aware that no one would take fancy in buying those damaged electronic goods. Therefore, the CEO decided to add something more to the sale strategy; he asked the employees to include other open items, display pieces, discontinued models, and overstocked inventory as a part of the sale. To create more buzz, it was also decided that the sale would take place in the lot where the tornado struck within six days of the destruction.

On the sale day, employees wearing the ‘Tornado Sale’ T-shirts started welcoming curious customers who wanted to see the tornado damage. Soon, more customers began to flock in and everything was sold out on the first day itself. On day two, they added more inventory from other warehouses and the sale madness picked up further. It was something the employees had never seen before!

The tornado tragedy gave them a glimpse of a new business model. They observed that the customers not only flocked to the sale, but their attitude was also much different than before in dealing with the company employees. They were more relaxed and friendly. Everyone treated each other with empathy without any hard sell sale- talk. Customers were happy that they got the best deal for the products. Next year there was no tornado, but the team continued the tornado sale.

After two years ‘Sound of Music’ was renamed ‘Best Buy’. It was possible only because of the positive attitude and determination displayed by the employees. From the wake of a natural disaster, ‘Best Buy’ went on to become one of the biggest American Multinational consumer electronics

retailers in the world. The worst of what happened became the best of what happened for their business.

What good can be derived out of even the worst situations? Victor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and holocaust survivor. In 1945, within months of his liberation from a Nazi concentration camp in , he decided to write down a book whose title was ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’. Through this book, Victor had intended to narrate the story of his survival through the deadly experiences the concentration camps had put him through. But more than this, his major focus was to talk about efforts that must be made to find meaning in all forms of existence, even in the most sordid ones.

He was a keen observer of human behavior and how the thought process works when faced with different situations of life. When Victor had to undergo such adverse situations in his life, he also concluded that he wanted to share with the entire world to hold onto. One of his most profound observations was: “We who lived in concentration camps can the men who walked through the huts, comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. “

How he narrated his story of surviving the Holocaust proves that no matter how unfavorable is the situation we might be stuck in; the outcome depends largely on our choice about how we want to deal with it, and with which type of attitude. Conversely, the people who fail in successfully overcoming the challenges that life puts on them, also relinquish their power to control their thoughts. By constantly directing their energy towards asking and thinking the wrong questions, they barely focus on even giving it a try to control the environment they are in. When dealing with such situations, it is

essential to never forget that every setback in life is merely a setup for our stronger comeback in life.

How is it even possible for someone to give a testimony on life if they have never gone through the ‘test’ that life presents with itself?

If you’re going through a tough time in your life currently, then try to choose an attitude that would push you forward to move up in life rather than the one that would bring you and your morale down. Spend time thinking about ways that would assist you in conquering your challenges. If you get to face a challenge in life, never think of them as mere obstacles. If you shift your mindset and perceive them as opportunities to narrate a good story, then it can become possible for you to overcome them without touching the deep dark abyss. It is of course hard to completely ignore the impact of the problem, but what you can do is not focus just on the impossible. Take time out to pay attention to the various gifts and blessings you have got in your life in the form of your loved ones and the privileges you have access to.

Asset Based Thinking. To master this process, you first need to develop Asset-Based Thinking that revolves around focusing on the blessings that are available to you at that specific moment. Such thinking requires you to identify the assets available in your surroundings and use them to overcome any hurdles that you may have an encounter with. Never forget that every test, no matter how easy or small it is, all of them are there to prove a certain point in your life. The best possible way to determine if you’re courageous or not is by putting yourself through a test where you stand against your fears. Your faith in something or someone is known by the doubts that exist in your mind. Similarly, your love for someone can be tested through the amount of hatred you carry in your heart. Therefore, my friend, accept the fact that every adversity that

comes in your way of life, is a lesson that’s draped under the pretense of a test. So, make sure that you never hesitate to put in the efforts that would help you in turning your trials into triumphs and agony into ecstasy. All these are small steps that will ultimately help you turn your problems into possibilities and adversity into advantage; thereby ensuring your success.

Look at the flip side. Tragedy contains in itself the power to transform human lives. Often the worst of what happens can eventually turn out to be the defining moment for the best to unravel itself. Robert Schuller said it aptly, ‘’Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.’’

Most people forget to notice the flip side of the things that happen to them. When faced with adversity, we have two choices; either to look for a flip side that could turn everything around for the better in the future or cling on to the past losses and suffering entangled in a negative spiral. Looking at the flip side is a way to train our minds to see things in a positive light. Some people take months and years to see the available blessings after something bad happens to them. But some people see the advantage right away. The earlier you realize the flip side, the greater the advantage.

Even though intellectually we know that each human suffering contains a boon, many people fail to overcome it because overcoming adversity is more painful to them, than the adversity itself. People who fail at overcoming their adversities accept them as limitations. It’s easier to be powerless, take no responsibility and blame everything on something or someone else than assuming 100% responsibility for the same.

Taking up a challenge negates human ivity to live with problems.

Turning adversity to advantage goes beyond our thinking to action. It’s not just an attitude of putting on a smile during difficult times but it is also about transcending them. You don’t suppress problems; you transcend them. You don’t become paranoid; instead, you become an inverse paranoid.

Become an inverse paranoid. A paranoid person is someone who believes that the whole world is conspiring against them. An inverse paranoid on the other hand is a person who believes that the whole world is conspiring to make things happen; to make them successful. This is a benevolent worldview versus a malevolent worldview. An inverse paranoid believes that the whole universe is on their side. They will always interpret life’s events, both negative and positive in nature as a plan and purpose to enhance their own goals in life. Furthermore, they know that opportunities and obstacles are polarities of life and that once you encounter the other side of the pole, obstacles, for example, they can smartly identify the available opportunity side of the pole as well. Such people are smart enough to realize the fact that opportunity cannot be easily identified without its polar opposite - ‘obstacle’. This is the reason why they can boldly make statements like ‘everything happens for a reason’ or for a cause to advance their progress. Any bump in the road can make you slow down and help you realize the fun you can get from a highspeed pace. Most people define a problem as an obstacle but an inverse paranoid person calls it a ‘challenge’ that drives them to stretch even more in life.

Inverse paranoid people love challenges. They welcome it because they know that these challenges make them grow into better individuals, and into stronger people who can shoulder bigger responsibilities. Such people make sure that they hesitate in choosing the road less taken because they know that the lesser taken route is the more difficult one. When most people try to find a shortcut out of any situation or task, these people willingly step courageously on the path of difficulty. Therefore, all of these people prove it

to us; it is true that from great adversities, comes greater strength.

Be like an alchemist who can transmute base metal into gold. Learn to turn your suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment, and your adversity into advantage.



Chapter 3

Flexibility- bend but don’t break

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived” ― Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven

The Menninger Institute of Kansas City conducted a study to determine what qualities would be the most important for success and happiness in the 21st century. After carrying out extensive research, they concluded that the most important quality that you can develop in times of rapid change is flexibility.

Flexibility means the ability to change, adapt and welcome questioning, and being open to new information. The opposite of flexible thinking is mechanical thinking or holding rigid positions. The by-products of rigidity are orthodoxy, one-sided thinking, and narrow-mindedness.

I have observed that most people around often associate resilience with the concept of flexibility which means; to bend without breaking, and to stretch without being pulled out of shape. You need to embrace change and not resist it. Resistance often brings breakage. People don't have to like changes, but they may need to start embracing them instead of fighting them. With fighting and resisting comes rigidity, and this helps no one because such behavior leads to arguments. On the other hand, flexibility implies elasticity; a willingness to flow with whatever happens. It means to try more things, use different approaches, and being open to new ideas, suggestions, constant improvement, and learning. For instance, let’s suppose that you

need to shift to another city because of your transfer into another office branch. Maybe, the prospect of earning is way better there but for that, you temporarily need to live there alone and manage things by yourself. It would not be easy, but it is possible. Instead of resisting this change and complaining to get the transfer canceled, you might just try to look at the flip side i.e. what the new city might have for you. Not only would you get to meet new people, get acquainted with a different culture, but this opportunity would also help you grow and become independent in life. You may either consider it a chance of growing or just decide to sit down with it and let it become the reason for your sadness.

Being adaptable and flexible is the key to being resilient. If we look up in the dictionary, we can see that resilience is defined as elasticity, as the ability to recover quickly and easily and to return to one’s original state after an illness, misfortune, or shock.

An essential part of becoming more resilient is developing flexibility. By learning how to be more adaptable, you will become better equipped to respond to a life crisis or a predicament that you may face in life. While most people may be crushed by such an unexpected or unforeseen change, highly resilient individuals can adapt and prosper. Therefore, a key component to resilience is to learn how to bend but not break. Alice Walker once rightly said, “Nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend.”

The most obvious example of flexibility around us is Bamboo. It may be the perfect metaphor for the idea of flexibility and resiliency. Despite its hard body, bamboo is incredibly flexible and will sway even in the gentlest breeze. Yet it will often be the only thing standing after a typhoon, with its roots firmly anchored to the ground. Bamboo plants can endure challenging temperatures, extremes of winter and summer, and yet they are one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. There are arguably many life lessons to glean from bamboo, such as learning to face obstacles not with stubborn

resistance, but with flexibility.

Flexibility means having a flexible mindset that focuses on growth instead of a non-flexible one.

The Growth mindset. A growth mindset means realizing that abilities and better understanding can be developed. Those with such a mindset believe that they can get smarter, more intelligent, and talented by putting in the time and effort on anything they are ionate about. Whereas, a person with a fixed mindset is always constrained by their beliefs and thoughts. They believe that people are born with special talents and every person has different abilities and that their intelligence levels cannot get better with time, persistence, and effort. Every skill can be learned and worked upon. Imagine the case of a Rubik’s cube. A lot of people give up before even solving it completely. Those with an optimistic and growth outlook trust themselves and persevere to keep trying until they master the art of solving the Rubik’s cube- which isn’t just about matching all the colors but about trying again and again until you win.

‘Psychosclerosis’ is a term used in psychology to describe people with hardened attitudes and beliefs who are hard to change. It is your natural tendency to fall in love with your ideas, thoughts, views, compulsions, in a way that you impose your opinion on others. The people who are opposed to this are highly adaptable and flexible because they believe that any thought, idea, or belief can help them solve their problem. They also know that the state of mind which created the problem cannot help in solving it unless they shift their state of mind to a solution-seeking behavior and thinking. Open-minded people love to receive new ideas from a variety of resources available to them and they always prefer to apply the right ideas at the right time.

One of the greatest discoveries of positive psychology is that you can change your life by changing the inner state of your mind. The direction of our destiny is in direct proportion to the mental state we are directed towards. When we say ‘take charge of your life’, it simply means to take charge of your current mental state.

The power of thoughts. The thought we hold in our minds has the potential to make us act in a certain way. Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly puts it ‘The ancestor of every action is a thought’.

You can have control over your habitual thoughts. It is important that you pay attention to the nature of your thoughts and intentionally substitute negative thoughts with positive ones. When you change the nature of your thinking, you are literally changing your brain. Modern science—especially the developing field of neuroplasticity, or the brain’s capacity to reorganize itself—tells us that the human brain has an amazing ability to change its ways through the repetition of thought.

All you need is the right tools to harness your brain’s learning power through repetition. With intention and deliberate practice, you can change your mental pathways, by replacing self-criticism and other negative tendencies with more resourceful, healthy patterns of thought and behavior. You can train yourself to think like a winner by shifting your focus from dwelling on problems to seeking solutions. That's why resilient people can figure out creative solutions to a problem that will eventually lead to a positive outcome. Whenever they are stuck somewhere, they simply just ask themselves about how they can get out of the situation and what’s the best possible solution available to them then. This way, resilient people have

their brains wired to process any situation with a motive of solving it rather than finding excuses for the same.

Never turn to the victim road. When things don’t go your way; it’s easy to develop helplessness and think like you’re a victim. Your mind uses pain and misery to create a victim’s identity to escape from solving your own problems. This mindset forces you to feel sorry for yourself by telling stories to create permanence in helpless conditions by negating all possible ways of seeking solutions. Psychologists call it ‘learned helplessness.’

Victim road is an easy road. You can always find something or someone responsible for an unfortunate outcome in your life. Author Wayne Dyer once said “If our problems were caused by other people, we would spend a fortune sending them to a psychiatrist.” Resilient people take 100% responsibility for both their failures and success. They know “If it is to be, it is up to me”

When we were kids we knew that our parents would look after our problems, and many people still delude themselves by thinking that fixing their problem is someone else’s responsibility. The day you realize that nobody is going to do anything for you to help you fix your mess, you begin to think like an adult. The acceptance of 100% personal responsibility for your own life is a giant step to grow mentally from childlike innocence (naivety) to maturity.

If you want to cultivate resilience, then you need to stop identifying yourself as a victim. Ultimately victimhood is perpetuated by the stories that we tell ourselves. If you are in the victimhood narrative, then it’s time to change

that narrative. Instead of staying rigid, stay flexible. Sometimes the reality we see might not be clear and can often delude us. We need help in changing our perspectives from people who can help us see things more objectively rather than subjectively.

Resilient people understand that anything can happen because the world isn't fair and that difficult thing can happen even to the most wonderful people. When you feel shattered, you need to pick yourself up and move forward. You should always that there is always a way out of anything. It is in your hands to change the spiral that brings you down and comes in your way of becoming a resourceful person. Resilience is a state of inner resourcefulness that allows you to solve whatever difficulties and challenges you may encounter in life.

Get help, if you can't do it all by yourself. All resilient people know that they cannot do it on their own. So, they get help. But more precisely, they go to the right person. Getting help is not a bad thing at all. It doesn’t matter if you think people will make fun of you for not knowing something. Asking for more knowledge is never a bad thing. Moreover, the person who can come out of their shell to ask for it is the one who is mentally brave. It is possible that sometimes you might feel ashamed or embarrassed and hence won't ask for help. But do not let your pride get in your way. , there is no rescue mission for those who do not want to be saved. Never stop trying to interact with your friends, family, strangers. Everyone out there knows something that you are unaware of. It is a beautiful world filled with never-ending knowledge. Hence my friend never stops exploring and discovering because, with each new experience, you get to know about yourself and the world out there, a little more.

The art of reframing. We all experience reality with our own ‘unique psychological reality’ that is

perceived by our minds. My perception about a certain thing would be different, and yours might be in complete contradiction with mine, who knows. Just like two people can witness the same traffic accident and can give two varied descriptions of it, our reality is subjective to our unique perception and experience. William Shakespeare was right when he wrote, ‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’

Nothing has a meaning except the meaning that we give to it. Typically for a person who loves chocolate, eating chocolate is a pleasurable experience. But if the same person becomes obese and finds himself in a dreadful situation because of that chocolate which caused him to gain weight, he will then begin to associate pain with chocolates. Therefore, what one person finds painful can be pleasurable to other people. We all have different mental associations with various words. For some happily married couples, ‘marriage’ means love and companionship. But when the same couple starts missing freedom and space in their life, they will later term marriage as ‘bondage’. After a bitter divorce, they will term it as ‘pain’. Ultimately, our neuro-association to words is derived from our own experience. Some meanings never change but some do over a period of time. The meaning we give to anything will have an impact on how we feel, and what we decide. When we change the meaning from negative to positive, we can change how we feel and choose, and ultimately alter the outcome itself. This is called reframing.

Resilient people are the masters of reframing. By changing the meaning of failures and setbacks, they can move ahead with confidence. Reframing means adapting to new perspectives or revising your current beliefs. It focuses on changing a negative statement or experience into a positive one, by altering the frame of reference used to perceive an experience. People frame their minds to perceive a human experience. By reframing, we can put a new meaning to a previously perceived experience. Our fixed perceptions can be reframed, making us more adaptive to changes. We can term or label our experience as good or bad and we hold the capability to change the experience itself.

By reframing, we can turn a bad experience into a good one, and a traumatic moment into a moment of triumph. Haven’t you heard people complaining, ‘gosh I have to pay more taxes this year? Reframe it with ‘thank god I made more money this year.’ See? how reframing can change your attitude and the overall experience itself. Instead of complaining about paying bills, reframe it and think of how fortunate you are of being able to afford the things you have to pay for.

You may not be able to reverse a bad event that happened in the past but you can change your perceptions and internal representation of that past event by reframing the meaning of the event. You can thus turn your scars into stars. That is the gift of reframing.

Through reframing, you can change your past, present, and future. It’s not about what happened that shapes your experience, but the narrative about what happens that defines your experience. If you can change the story, you can also change the meaning attached to it. And once the meaning changes, whatever happens to you, however bad it is, what happened no longer matters.



Chapter 4

REALTO- Realistic And Long Term Optimism

“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.” - Noam Chomsky

Neuropsychologists who study ‘expectancy theory’ say that we all spend our whole lives becoming conditioned to believe what happens next, either positively or negatively. This is because our brain expects an outcome and it unconsciously behaves in a manner to ultimately achieve that outcome. Therefore, it can be said that our expectations prime our behavior. If we expect positive outcomes, we are more likely to make choices that those outcomes.

For instance, let us suppose you’ve recently gone through a divorce, and even though the pain is real, you still expect to find happiness again in life. It is almost certain that you will find it because you will make choices that will help you move forward in the direction towards your expectations. Or maybe, you’ve recently lost your job due to the Covid pandemic. While it is extremely saddening to go through such financial instability, but, if you believe in your capability and the possibility of finding another job soon, then you will not spend the majority of your time just being sad. You will constantly try to find a way out of the hardship and keep applying at new places. Maybe, while trying to find a similar job, you might just discover another talent in yourself that you weren’t aware of. This is exactly the way

we are psychologically wired. Therefore, a person’s level of success is largely influenced by the optimistic nature that he holds in his mind for positive outcomes.

You must understand that your expectations are self-fulfilling prophecies. What you expect, will invariably determine what you will experience in the future. Bottom line is that your mind manifests what it expects strongly. Experts in human potential development advocate the power of optimism. Science has repeatedly proven that optimistic people are generally more successful, more lively and spirited, and have better mental and physical health - all of which further the quality of resilience.

Psychologists define optimists as people who generally expect good things to happen in their lives. Pessimists, on the other hand, expect negative outcomes. The difference is in the nature of their expectation and the confidence they hold in their future and themselves.

In a study involving 70,000 nurses, researchers found out that higher optimism was associated with a lower risk of mortality from many major causes of death- including cancer, heart disease, and strokes. In another study, people with a family history of heart disease who also had a positive outlook in life were one-third less likely to have a heart attack than those who had a negative outlook. A study of cancer patients revealed that pessimistic patients under the age of 60 were more likely to die within eight months than non-pessimistic ones of the same initial health, status, and age.

According to Dr. Martin Seligman (the father of Positive Psychology and whose many works have influenced my research on resilience), optimists have a completely different way of viewing success and failure as compared to pessimists. When an optimist experiences failure, he or she views it as a learning experience and a temporary setback. In stark contrast, when a pessimist experiences failure, they assume that it is due to their lack of

ability and begins to believe that it is a permanent situation they are stuck in. For instance, people who are a bit weak at math, instead of practicing harder to gain mastery over the subject, get deflected from their goal because of being occupied with their pessimistic views and start believing that they can never get better at the subject. If they were to try again, they just ‘know’ that they would fail again, so what is the point of trying? Such people act out the symptoms of ‘learned helplessness’.

Learned helplessness Vs Learned optimism. Learned helplessness is a psychological condition that affects both people and animals. It is a tendency to interpret a future event and expect it to happen in correspondence to an experience. People develop a tendency of helplessness and powerlessness in areas where they have failed earlier. Seligman demonstrated in his theory that people can be broken down by repeated experiences of failure to ultimately reach a point of extreme pessimism. What he found was that optimism is something that can be learned. He discovered that optimists constantly talk about what things are, rather than what they aren’t, what is there in front of them instead of what isn’t. The difference is that pessimistic people talk about what things aren’t.

Dr. Seligman also claimed that how optimists and pessimists explain their failure is very different from each other. Suppose, there was a presentation at work that didn't go according to the initial plan and the was given by the superiors was terrible. In such a situation, both optimists and pessimists tell themselves very contrasting things. This is where the difference lies. Let us see how:

In such a situation, the optimist naturally tends to see the temporary nature of the situation and hence tells themselves that they’ll do better next time. A pessimist, on the other hand, will try to fix its perspective on a more permanent explanation that might state something like “I am terrible at

giving presentations.” Secondly, a pessimistic person often tries to generalize the nature of their self-criticism by concluding, “I'm not very smart” as opposed to an optimist's view where they instead understand that they're not that good at doing presentations and aim to improve on this setback. Thirdly, optimists notice the impact of factors that are outside their control while a pessimist tends to internalize the outcome with a sense of blame on their self. A huge difference can be observed in the kind of statements both such people might make. An optimistic person would be seen saying “I didn't have enough time to prepare.” While a pessimistic person would usually conclude, “everyone else is so good at this. What's wrong with me?”

Look around yourself and try to think about it. In your daily life, you encounter several people who fall under different categories. Pause for some moments and try to understand the reactions of both such people in a similar situation. You’ll come to understand how greatly the attitude with which a situation is dealt influences the outcome. Hence, it is clear that the kind of ‘explanation style’ (Dr. Seligman calls it explanatory style) one undertakes- optimistic or pessimistic, influences our perception of the world and the way we react to the stressful conditions that we are going through. With an optimistic lens, we see various possibilities even in adverse conditions and thus we actively employ a wider range of problem-solving strategies that help us develop a calm sense of hope regarding the outcome. On the other hand, Pessimism, like many other negative emotions, narrows down our focus and limits the options that could be available to us.

Nobody is born with an explanatory style; we all gradually develop one. Nobody is a born pessimist; children are optimists. Somehow down the line, as we grow up with experiences, especially the bitter ones, our nature of optimism also changes.

Sometimes when I am alone in my study room riding on a train of my thoughts, I think about how helpful it might have been if there was a way to

shift from one experience to another, in a snap. The world would surely not remain the same. Isn’t it?

That is why I believe that optimism is a delicate subject to consider. Often, we misunderstand what exactly is optimism. There is short-term optimism and also exists long-term optimism. There is realistic optimism and there is delusional optimism. The optimism that makes us resilient is realistic and long-term optimism. I would like to call it REALTO- Realistic And LongTerm Optimism.

Short-term Vs Long-term optimism.

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear hardship today.” - THICH NHAT HANH

Optimism is a positive expectation from the future. But if we put a timeline on the future, the very nature of optimism is bound to change.

First I would like to talk about what short-term and long-term optimism is.

One of the early references of Stockdale Paradox is from Jim Collins’ book

‘Good to Great’. James Stockdale was a naval officer and a Vietnamese prisoner of war. He was held captive for over seven years and was repeatedly tortured. He had no reason to believe he'd make it out alive, but he did; unlike many of his fellow inmates who died in the prison itself. When I read about Stockdale, I found out that he believed that many socalled ‘optimists’ could not make it out of the prison alive. His fellow soldiers in captivity were counting their days in optimism, hoping that they will re their family sooner. The optimists said they will get out by Christmas, but many Christmas dates came and went. Then they thought they would be out by the time of thanksgiving, but many thanksgiving dates came and ed, but all of them were still imprisoned. They hoped they would be out by Easter but as usual, Easter came and went. Most of them who hoped optimistically with certain deadlines in mind were growing in despair and hopelessness as many deadlines kept ing. Their health deteriorated and they died with broken hearts.

But Stockdale wasn’t himself a regular optimist. He knew he would make it out, but did not know when. He was a long-term optimist unlike many others, who focused only on short-term goals. He asserted that we all must hold a strong belief that whatever situation we are stuck in is nothing but a temporary phase and there always exists the possibility of coming out of it. But to move forward in life, a person must hold an unwavering spirit to confront realities however hard they might be to digest. Therefore, I have started trusting in the fact that with courage, comes the power to overcome and triumph.

I think we are now in a position to discuss the differences between shortterm optimism and long-term optimism. Short-term optimism is not grounded in reality. It is about wishful thinking and can also be called delusional optimism. While the latter is grounded in brutal reality and fixes a complete faith in long-term success. It’s a belief that no matter what the obstacles are, sooner or later success will prevail in the end.

Victor J Frankl who was a holocaust survivor calls it ‘tragic optimism,’ which means having optimism in the face of adverse conditions. It is a paradoxical idea about acknowledging your current difficulties and tragedies and intermixing them with a positive belief, that in the end, you will still triumph.

Realistic optimism Vs Delusional optimism. The second gist of Stockdale Paradox is that you need to balance realism with optimism. Most of us are short-term optimists and we lose hope when our desires and the expected outcome don't collide with the timelines we had previously set. Indeed, hope is not a strategy, but sometimes when you don’t have anything else standing in your favor, all you have got is the hope or a belief that everything will be okay in the end. Keeping the smallest ray of hope close to your heart when nothing around makes sense would help you feel less alone on the rough side of the path of life.

What short-term optimists fail to do is to confront the reality of their situation. They often stick their heads in the sand like ostriches in a hope that the difficulties will go away. For example, suppose there’s a major possibility of losses in a certain business field. Instead of preparing to combat such situations, a short-term optimistic person would spend their time contemplating these possibilities and the outcome they might have to bear in the future if the possibility becomes a reality. Maybe, they may decide to bring in some changes, but these changes would only be for carrying out the business well in the short run instead of a long-term strategy.

You all must understand that sitting idle with the problems and doing nothing to change or improve them is never the solution you should resort to.

On the other hand, resilient people are okay with sitting in the negative, feeling real sadness, and experiencing the gamut of emotions. Truly resilient people know that a huge part of the process is accepting the bad feelings that come with adversity, and not trying to escape them. One shouldn't resort to finding escape gates from such situations because, through them, you learn how to fight back. You grow from them because they help in building your strength. You realize that avoidance and fear are signs of weakness. If you’re given two ways of achieving something you strive for, whenever possible, take the harder route. Not only will it assist you in understanding the ways of life better but it will certainly provide you with more than what you initially hoped for. I had a friend of mine who once gave me a piece of sound advice, I still : ‘If you are finding financial difficulty in paying your electricity bill, then make a plan to buy a diesel generator’.

I read about the Pollyanna principle a few years back and today I would like to share it with you. According to this principle, it is the ‘tendency for people to pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones’. Various studies have been carried out on this subject and it is proven that at a subconscious level, people tend to emphasize more on the positive outcomes and often assume and completely believe in the best possible outcome or situation without gathering enough information about the same. So, my point is that resilience is not about a falsely optimistic Pollyanna view of the world, but about being realistic with what happens, feeling intensely, and not turning away from facing the struggle. It is about engaging with life and involves being authentic with your experience to reach the other side, rather than circling it or wishing that it disappears on its own. It is an option that's common, apprehensible, and available to all of us.

The opposite of realistic optimism is delusional optimism. Some people get stuck in a cycle in which they set unreasonable expectations, and as a result, fail. They try and fail again due to being unrealistic in setting the idea of

what they can accomplish. To prevent this failure from happening, make sure that you do proper research before setting a goal. Ignorance leads to unrealistic expectations, which in turn leads to failure. Let’s say you want to start working out from tomorrow. Before doing so, you must sit calmly and first try to decipher what your capability is and how much strength you have. You need to understand that setting an unrealistic goal of doing 30 push-ups on your first day of workout would only result in disappointment. Therefore, know yourself enough to conclude what amount of target that you’re setting would you be able to achieve. Taking small steps in the process of reaching somewhere would not harm. Learn to be patient and give yourself time to adapt to new changes or even a setback so that you can rise again with even more courage than before.

What differentiates resilient optimists from others is the level of reality they are able to adjust for, and their self-efficacy (belief in one’s abilities). There have been several studies that were done on nature and the way cancer patients live, and the worst outcomes are for those with a pessimistic attitude who mostly feel defeated by the disease. Since the body listens to what the mind says, when people give up mentally, it affects their physical state, which seems to give up too. Optimists, on the other hand, generally get better outcomes. It’s not a ticket to a definite survival, but it increases one’s chances of succeeding. Since optimistic cancer patients believe they will survive, their positive attitude primes their body to endure what comes in their way, therefore, they tend to make behavioral and treatment choices to this vitality.

Realistic optimists do even better. They can accept their current situation and the fact that they don’t know what the future holds while fighting to survive. That’s where self-efficacy comes in. Patients who can accept unpredictability, while simultaneously taking an active role in recovery and remaining optimistic, have a greater likelihood of long-term flourishment. These facts are not just limited to the life of cancer patients but are allpervasive.

Learning optimism in the time of Coronavirus. Coronavirus is a world-changing event. We are already facing its major impact in all areas of our life. Getting back to normal without knowing the brutality of the situation can make people delusional optimistic about a new reality which they are not prepared to handle well. Here is the thing; shortterm optimism will kill your resilience. It’s time to re-strategize and bounce back from the failures and declines. It’s important to cultivate the belief that no matter what happens; in the end, everything will be fine. We don’t know when, but surely, the difficult phase will . Nothing stays the same forever. It is important to develop the quality of being patient for reaching the end.

The reason we need to be long-term and realistic optimists is that we see many people become hopeless and helpless with the situations they are currently in. In these times of uncertainty caused by the coronavirus, many people thought things would get back to normal in just a few weeks, and the outbreak will be over within a few months. But when they realized that it is something that’s going to stay for a time longer than expected- their dreams were crushed. Their sense of false short-term optimism did not allow them to prepare for the worst. Their hopes will be unfulfilled. Potentially, their business will be in no fit state to carry on because they had not prepared themselves for the worst-case scenario.

Patience is long-term optimism in action. Of course, it’s frustrating when things take longer than you expected, but if you give up because your progress is too slow, then you won’t be able to make your dream come true at all. Does it matter that it will take you longer? What difference it makes if it’s a long process, learn to explore and discover the unknown in this time, become friends with those parts of you and the world around that you aren’t aware of right now, and see how your life changes.

Don’t get obsessed over deadlines. Certain things take longer and don’t work within the timeframe. The gestation period from seed to fruit varies based on the projects you have undertaken. Just because 100% of your goal is not accomplished on time, it does not mean that you have failed. It means you are making progress and you just need some extra time to complete it.

If you often fail because slow progress discourages you, focus on reaching the goal and not on reaching it within a made-up deadline. Deadlines should be rough estimates; they should not dictate your life. Detach yourself from anything that you feel hinders your growth, or ponder over how you can make that hindrance an advantage.

I first wrote the subject of resilience for an audiobook project titled ‘Adversity to advantage’ way back in 2008. My computer crashed and I was unable to recover any files including the first draft of the audiobook. When I recall that experience in retrospect, I feel much better, because now I have a book completed on the subject of resilience. And this book you are holding has more flesh and blood (and a soul) than my first draft script for Positive Revolution Audiobooks, a company that I have co-founded.

Find a purpose and let it drive you in life. The driving force of realistic and long-term optimism is having a larger purpose in life. Nietzsche, in a famous phrase, said: “those who have something to live FOR are capable of standing almost any HOW.”

If you want to be driven with resilience, then develop a purpose in life. Have a reason to wake up every single day. Create a strong vivid vision of what

you want to do, indulge in exciting and engaging activities every day that takes you one step closer to fulfilling your dreams. It's important to not just have a dream; we must live the dream as well. Whenever you do things that will take you closer to the fulfillment of your goal, you are living your dream.

Purpose gives your life a boost to go beyond temporary obstacles. It provides a clear and targeted direction to maintain the course. Even when plans get sidetracked, purpose helps to refocus and continue. That’s at the heart of resilience. The stronger your sense of purpose, the better equipped you are to handle challenges and setbacks and to recover from them. If you are not clear about why you do what you do, it can lead to unwanted feelings of frustration or aimlessness. Being able to identify this can help you to feel that you’re leading a more meaningful life.

Your eye on the horizon and your inner optimism, which says that you will get there, make your everyday journey worthwhile. You cultivate the ‘never ever give up’ attitude because you are driven to achieve something larger than you. Refuel your realistic and long-term optimism and live each day towards the progressive realization of something worthwhile.

Stick to discovering new ways of achieving your purpose every day.

The heart of resilience lies in carrying a purpose in mind because on days when our plans might get sidetracked, it still helps us in refocusing by constantly giving us hopes about a better future. The stronger your sense of purpose is, the better equipped you’ll feel to handle the setbacks. Many-atimes you’ll find yourself recovering faster than you thought you would from a certain adverse situation.

It is natural to go through overwhelming waves of frustration or aimlessness when you are still struggling to decipher why you are doing what you do. Having an insight into your own emotions regarding the work you do, would help you in leading a more meaningful and satisfying life. Spend time with yourself every night before heading towards sleep and talk to yourself about your day. This way, you’ll learn to lead a life in a manner where you are self-aware about your emotions and perspectives.

If you strive to gain an optimistic outlook in life, i.e. inculcate resilience in yourself, then develop a purpose for your life. Lookout and explore and find a reason that would wake you and push you out of your bed every single day. You must willfully engage yourself in exciting and engaging activities that would bring you closer to your dreams. If you carry with you a vivid vision of what you want to create or do in your life, then my friend, you’re not just dreaming for something, that means you are making every possible effort that would help you in living that dream as well.

Moreover, with such a vision, each day brings you one step forward in the process of cultivating a ‘never give up attitude’ because your aim is now to achieve something much larger than yourself. It is different than before because now, with your eye on the horizon and high optimism in your heart that never fails to tell you that you will get there, just wait a little longermakes your journey worthwhile.



Chapter 5

Acceptance and Control

“If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.” ― Shane Koyczan

Some people possess an uncanny ability to immediately come to with their reality. While many suffer because of their inability to cope up with what’s going on within them and around them. When it comes to acceptance, two sides need to be taken care of. The first is self-acceptance, which means accepting the reality within you and the other is acceptance of the reality that is around you.

Many things are in your control and many are beyond it. Knowing what we have control over and accepting the things we do not have control over is a strong foundation for resilience. Back in 2007, I spending a large amount of my time trying to find out ways that would help me gain control over the things that weren’t in my hands. It took time for me to realize that not everyone and everything around me in life would move according to how I want them to be. And today I think this is a piece of advice that everyone must turn to, whenever they find themselves stuck somewhere. By subtracting all the unnecessary parts of the issue about which we barely can do anything, we enlarge our perspective and start focusing on things with an improved dedication. This ultimately helps in getting to the crux of the issue faster and solving it more effectively.

At times when we have to face a crisis or a problem, it’s only a human reaction to get overwhelmed by the things that feel far beyond our control.

Instead of wishing there was some way you could go back in time or change things; you can focus on the things that are in your control.

Reinhold Niebuhr, an American protestant theologian, composed a prayer that has become the cornerstone of the recovery movement ‘God grant us the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference’.

Accept the reality within you. An important element of acceptance is withholding judgment. When we judge something painful as ‘bad’, we reinforce our tendency to resist it. This resistance can express itself in the form of self-criticism that hampers our ability to deal with daily challenges. And when we continue to judge others, we also neglect the valuable that others can give us to nurture our lives. For growth in almost any type of field, constructive criticism is very beneficial. It helps us in noticing those faults in ourselves that might not be visible to our eyes. One thing that I have learned in my life is that we should always keep those who can give us the right and necessary close to us. At the same time, we must also first observe and get aware of who is actually in a position where they can give . Some random person who barely knows about the topic in which you are seeking excellence is unlikely to give good . Therefore, you must understand that even the slightest things like choosing the people whose you should notice also play an important role in the process of achieving something that you desire.

Acceptance of your inner reality is non-judgmental awareness of who you are with all your strengths and weaknesses and yet you hold the power to change, alter and improve whatever you want in your life. True acceptance is seeking change, but at the same time accepting yourself as who you are. But there will be always pressure from people who want to change you, to fit

you into their expectations. And those who don’t accept themselves are always seen seeking approval and seldom learn to exercise their power.

Self-acceptance deepens your inner strength to handle challenges wisely and you become more in control of yourself, because of the awareness you have about yourself.

Worldview- accepting the reality around you. Some things can be changed and some things are beyond our control. For example, if you have children with traits you cannot accept, then it is your duty as a parent to guide them, and try to inspire them to change. But if your children decide to go their way, then the only available option is that you accept your child for who they have chosen to be.

The world does not always move according to your plan. You can’t be complaining all the time just because the reality that you are facing is unacceptable to you. It will be very naïve to say that ‘the dog shouldn't be barking, or the sun shouldn't be so hot in the summer’. Acceptance does not mean that you have to like it. Accepting what is happening around you isn't as difficult as you may think, it just means that you are willing to let it be the way it is. After all, what other choice do you have, since that is the way it is?

Therefore, the real wisdom is in knowing what you have control over and what you don’t have control over. Some suffering can be legitimate and sometimes, there is nothing that you can do, to undo something that has already happened.

Accepting the reality around you is as important as accepting the reality within you. One of the reasons we turn away from reality is that we are programmed to reject life as it is. We want to live a life that is based on our idea of how life ‘should be’, and this leads to a conflict with the reality we face in our day-to-day life. When we cannot understand our reality, we tend to develop undue expectations from our loved ones by resisting the discomfort of situations and people. It becomes our natural tendency to resist the unpleasantness involved in that change and we try to hold onto our miseries rather than focus on overcoming them.

People who constantly live in conflict with themselves and the situations around them find it difficult to connect with their friends and family and have a hard time in facing everyday life because of their inability to understand themselves. While you don't need to always know exactly what you want or need, you must give yourself enough time to reach a conclusion that satisfies the turmoil within your mind. My friend, it is okay to be lost. We all are, at some point in our lives. What matters the most is that you never stop trying.

Deciding what we need to accept and what we can change is an eternal challenge for us. David Richo, psychotherapist and author of the book ‘Five things we can’t change and the happiness we find by embracing them’; primarily outlines five immutable facts that we can’t change, which are listed below: 1. Everything changes and ends. 2. Things do not always go according to plan. 3. Life is not always fair. 4.Pain is an essential part of life. 5. People are not always loving and loyal.

One of the greatest achievements of the human spirit is the inner power to transmute personal suffering into inner peace and joy. There are necessary evils, and there are events and situations that are part of a higher benefit. So, there is no shame in accepting defeats, shedding tears or being exhausted if you have no control over your circumstances. But one thing that you must is that you have absolute power over your internal circumstances; that is your mindset.

What do you have control over? Most people are unable to disassociate themselves from their suffering or the traumatic situations they once endured. They tend to blame themselves for what happened in the past or keep feeling guilty for being impacted by those past instances in the current situations. They forget that trauma and suffering have a grave impact on life and until we completely heal, we unconsciously might keep getting back to those flashbacks that hamper our current state of mind. But dear reader, please write this on a slip today and tie it up on your cupboard so that you are reminded of every day you wake up-you are different from the situations you are in. The circumstances can influence your thinking and decisions but your internal mental condition also has the power to function independently. Your mind has the power to hold over your circumstances. This power is called intent.

The key is to differentiate yourself from the situation you are in. Learn to separate life from life conditions. Your problems are temporary. The way the challenges affect you now, need not always be permanent. Your circumstances do not define you. , the outside does not make the inside. You may not have the power over your external, but you can take 100% control over your internal. People can make you go nuts, but you can maintain your sanity if you know how to handle the triggers and stimuli. You don’t need to react to everything and every provocation. It's not necessary to answer all the questions. You have the power to take an independent and objective stand irrespective of how circumstances pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do. Just because a ball is

thrown at you does not mean that you have to catch it.

You can see your life and change it, only if you take the role of an observer. Learn to think objectively rather than experience everything subjectively.

Unlike giving up, acceptance is about pushing yourself to try every day. Accepting something is not surrendering or being ive, it means observing things as they are. Acceptance is an active choice we should make to release ourselves of a false sense of control so that we can stop fighting reality. We can still be accepting while also working diligently and effectively to bounce back, which is what resilient people do best.

Resilience occurs when we accept that there are things we cannot change and that nothing is permanent. Everything is going to change sooner or later. Every moment changes; therefore, what might be present will change too. This allows continual acceptance to happen. That helps us to move forward. We move forward with the lessons that we learn from our previous experiences.

Acceptance isn’t about sitting back and letting life go by. There’s always something to learn from every experience, and finding those lessons is an important part of the process of resilience. Psychologists call it Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which affirms that living our most vital life involves accepting reality as it is and working with whatever that it brings with itself. This form of therapy believes in helping the person improve their psychological flexibility and is majorly used for treating medical conditions such as OCD, depression, anxiety, etc. People who take this therapy are taught mindfulness skills along with inculcating values of self-acceptance in them.

The opposite of acceptance is denial. Very often, we resist reality to avoid the pain associated with it. But pain my friend is a necessary aspect of living that alerts us about the fact that something needs our attention. Our natural tendency to avoid pain leads to resistance and suffering rather than acceptance and healing.

Some people see reality with a natural consequence of events but some fail to see it because they are blinded by the desired consequences.

While all of us mostly look at pain as something that is nothing but negative, very few can look at the flip side. I believe that sometimes, pain is necessary for us to determine what makes us happy or what is our definition of pleasure. Not only does it make us realize what brings us happiness, but also helps us become aware of what are the things that aren’t our cup of tea. As much as it is important to know about the good things, in my opinion, it is equally important to be familiar with things that cause us pain or aren’t what we want to move forward in life. This, therefore, helps in maintaining a healthy mental balance in life and our communication with ourselves improves for the better.

A dose of pragmatism helps you accept things as they are; not as you hope or wish they would be. It is easy to slip into denial as a way of coping with challenging times, but the only real way to prepare yourself is to face the brutal reality. With each day and month, the cost of denial goes up. Denial is the worst escape plan that you can think of when it comes to assuming personal responsibility. I like what Zig Ziglar wittingly comment, “Denial is not a river in Egypt”.

Ignoring a problem does not always solve them. Resilience means having the capacity to change before the change becomes a necessity. This is planning

for the future rather than being victims of reality.

, resistance delays action, and denial avoids action.

Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Resilient people accept what is; they accept that nothing is permanent. And therefore, they focus on the lessons they can learn, ways through which they can overcome, adapt, and move forward with grace and dignity.

Resilient people stand up and take charge of their life. Stoicism is based on the concept that peace of mind comes from focusing on what you can control instead of wasting your energy on things you can’t change. According to the Stoics, the only things you can always control are your thoughts, subsequent beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Everything else whatever is not your thought, belief, or action - is outside of your total control. Therefore, getting annoyed when something doesn’t go your way is a waste of resources.

Whenever you are stressed about something, you are thinking about something that is out of your control. To paraphrase Dr. Wayne Dyer, ‘There is no point worrying about what you have no control over like weather or growing old. And there is no need to worry about what you can control’.

Resilient people look for circumstances that please them, and sometimes when they are unable to find any, they create one. They know their locus of control very well. Resilient people feel that there is something they can

always do about their circumstances; however bad they appear to be. People who lack this control tend to act helpless in a given challenging situation. ‘Learned helplessness’ is a term psychologists came up with to describe what happens when people feel as if they have no control over their environment.

Therefore, resilience is about building your internal locus of control. Those with a strong internal locus of control tend to believe they’re capable of influencing the outcome of their experiences, and hence take responsibility for their actions while paying less attention to what others think. They also tend to be high achievers and attribute negative outcomes to their failings. Those with a weak external locus of control are just the opposites. They believe that life is controlled by others, or by external elements which they cannot influence, such as fate or luck, and tend to blame others for what happens in their lives.

When you internalize external circumstances, you tend to lose control over your circumstances. Your mind is your only weapon that can turn around anything that you perceive in reality. It can make you see opportunity while others may continue to see obstacles. You can see the advantage over adversity. But all this worldview begins from how you perceive it from your internal locus of control. When it comes to reality, we have absolute control over the causes but not over the effects. In most cases, causes determine the outcome. That’s why Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Shallow men believe in luck or circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

Here is what resilient people do: What they can’t control, they let go of them. What they can control, they take action.

Practice the courageous act of letting go.

Acceptance is merely a concept until we learn how to let go of what we have not learned to come to with. It would not happen instantly and is a process, which requires you to learn from losses and gains.

A strong dimension of acceptance and control is having the power to let go of something that you have no control over.

What you can’t let go of has power over you. Therefore, practicing detachment is the key for developing resilience. Humans tend to define themselves with what they have or possess, over what they are. It’s the conflict of ‘having versus being’. Since it’s difficult to define who you are, it’s easier to resort to what we have or possess to define your existence. We identify with how we are defined by the structures around us: by our jobs, titles, our relationships, our families, and our successes. This leads to the identity battle between having versus being. Here is the fact: what you have, you can lose but who you are, nobody can take it away from you.

The truth is that we all have potential energy that brings in us the capacity to change, evolve and grow. You are not a single, unrelated speck of energy; you create a field of energy, relationships, and outcomes. If your world changes, you change too. And if you change, the world changes around you. The truth of the matter is that a tiny shift in perception or behavior can create monumental changes in the internal dynamics that you call your life.

What you possess does not define you. If you do so, you are at a vulnerable point. Because when you lose what you have, you become nothing. ‘Who you are’ must define you, and not ‘what you have’. This concept is important because the crises in your life attack the very core of your sense of self. It is easy to understand how a person who identified herself, say, as a wife would feel that her life was over when her marriage ended. A successful young entrepreneur loses his company. Who is he now?

when you cling to a narrow definition of yourself, you are vulnerable to an end number of crises. You can be shattered when you lose something that you are identified with, whether it's fame, title, or fortune.

You are not what you do. What happens to you, when you are no longer doing it? Your worth does not depend on what you do. Your self-worth must be measured on what you are- the potential to do anything and to become anyone.

You are resilient when you truly know who you are. The more detached you are from your possessions and titles, the more you are immune to crisis, loss, and separation.

Therefore, real acceptance is embracing who you are. Not what you have. You are nothing but a pure potentiality. You are a human spirit, a speck of this infinite universe, capable of evolving, changing, and growing. You have the power over your circumstances. You can navigate your journey in any direction that you want. And nothing can stop you except you. That is a fact.



Chapter 6

Perseverance: Conquering little obstacles one by one

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” - Albert Einstein

When you think about the most successful people throughout all the generations, it's their power of perseverance that stands out as a winning trait above everything else. There are moments in their lives when they too felt like giving up but didn’t. They overcame failures and rejections because they had the will to persevere.

Oprah Winfrey (one of the most successful talks show host and humanitarian in the world) was demoted from her first job of a news anchor because her boss said she “wasn’t built for television.” Rather than giving up on her dreams, she relied on her grit to prove her boss wrong. Dr. Seuss, one of the biggest-selling authors of all time, had his first book rejected by twenty-seven publishers. He persevered and found success by working with the 28th publisher. Lady Gaga (celebrated singer) was dropped from her first record label three months after g. That did not stop her from winning Grammys and Oscar.

Another great example is James Dyson, who failed more than five thousand times as he struggled to create his first Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner. Thomas Edison's quest to invent the light bulb saw him fail more than

10,000 times, but that didn't deter him from his goal. He just refused to quit, and instead learned from his failures and continued to move forward.

Imagine failing more than a thousand times at something, or even three thousand. How many of you wouldn’t give up?

When I first stood up for public speaking in a crowd I failed miserably. This happened during the school days. The experience was terrible and the fear of public speaking was real. My body stood up but my mind sat down. My feet trembled and my mouth became very dry. I could not utter a word in public. I thought I am not a natural at all. But one episode of failure did not stop me from trying again and again. What you feel as unconquerable can be conquered. What is difficult can be solved. I did not quit. Years later with enough practice and hard work, I became one of the most hired and busiest keynote speakers in India addressing corporate clients worldwide.

If quitting is the first thing that comes to your mind after failure, then you do not know perseverance. You have been training yourself in succumbing to failure. But if you have programmed your mind to lookout for new ways to achieve your goal after you encounter each failure, then you possess the capacity for perseverance which means you have trained yourself to succeed.

You will be pushed down many times, but you must understand that getting pushed down is not a failure. The real failure is your refusal to get up. Mary Pickford once said, “Failure is not falling down but staying down.”

Consider this quote on courage. “Courage is not the lack of fear. It is the willingness to persevere despite fear.”

So what is perseverance and how can you develop this life skill?

Perseverance in your life means to move forward and not accept failure. It is the willpower to reach your goals without accepting defeat. It requires a mindset locked on a goal where the person refuses to accept anything, but ultimate success regardless of what resistance they encounter. It's about suffering through whatever is necessary to fulfill your dream, without any limit placed on the time required to achieve it. One simply keeps at it until the task gets done.

An ancient proverb states, “Get knocked down six times, get up seven times.” That is the essence of perseverance.

None of us are insusceptible to the challenges and difficulties that life throws in front of us, but we do possess the power to choose how we want to deal with it. People who are resilient persevere and overcome their challenges. First of all, resilient people perceive and understand failures differently from other people. So, first, make yourself understand that to achieve success, you must win all the short races that ultimately make the long race.

Failing forward. Failure is not something to be embarrassed about, because you learn more from failures rather than from success. Bill Gates once said, “Success is a lousy teacher. It makes smart people in to thinking that they can't lose”. I feel failure is a smart teacher that makes smart people win eventually after every setback. The entrepreneurial Silicon Valley has taken notice of failure and their mantra for success as ‘fail cheap, fail fast and fail forward’.

Most people when they fail, tend to take failure to their heart. They make it personal and emotional, but resilient people take failures to their heads and then strategize their next moves wisely. When we take failure to our head, we fail intelligently; we fail forward. We learn from our mistakes. We postulate on factors that have caused the failure and come up with strategies that will help in avoiding any future disaster as well. It is completely humane to feel a little dejected when you fail, but the catch is that resilient people never fail to use this dejection as a boost in their spirit to work even harder with greater dedication.

Emotionally dissecting failure can only aggravate the situation. Failures are nothing but s that must be understood rationally and intelligently. They are an integral part of any success. Some of the world’s most notable high achievers have flunked or dropped out of school, been fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes, or dealt some other major setback that forced them to hit the rock bottom. But they bounced back. They possessed unshakeable grit and determination and never let any kind of humiliation or failure diminish their conviction.

If you’re someone who’s learning how to drive, it might take you a month to do so, or even two. But what matters is that you never stop trying to learn. What difference does it make if you learned how to drive in two months rather than one? Ultimately, it is about you and your ability to drive. You’ll reach the end of your destination only if you persevere and bring courage in yourself to go to your driving class every day instead of just sitting back while thinking it’s not worthwhile, just because you’re taking a bit longer than others.

When you think about quitting.

People quit for several reasons. What gets more people to get started is often the excitement of winning something or achieving something. It’s easier to have enthusiasm in the beginning but the hard part is sustaining it when you hit a stumbling block. Encountering failures make people lose patience and hence they resort to quitting. Several studies point out that one of the major reasons why people quit easily is because of the boredom they experience. Therefore, one of the major keys to success is tolerating boredom. The cultural restlessness of boredom is growing rapidly and to counter this attitude, Icelandic educator and researcher Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir now makes boredom a part of the curriculum for the two thousand children who are enrolled in her kindergarten.

Of course, boredom is not the only reason we quit too soon. When something, whether a job or a marriage, turns out to be more difficult than we anticipated, some of us decide it’s not worth the effort. Some people want to move on so quickly that they give less importance to their commitment. This is especially true when the obstacles we run into expose an area of our weakness or inadequacy. The fear of humiliation shatters our willingness to persevere. We are afraid of itting this to ourselves, of course. We just find reasons why it’s best to cut our losses. Hence, setbacks are considered as further obstacles rather than a tool that helps you move forward. Take for example, on average, it can take as many as eleven attempts to quit smoking before someone is finally able to stop. But each time you fail, there is something you can learn about how to succeed the next time. Take the time to examine how each setback can propel you forward. Then get back up and try again, and again, and again. This is the essence of failing forward.

Grit : A major ingredient in the recipe of success. Perseverance has so much power that it can substitute talent. People who persevere are always taking action because they can overcome ivity by working harder. A combination of grit with hard work helps you persevere. What’s a little counterintuitive, but equally as important, is that

perseverance actually requires a bit of stubbornness, relentlessness, and rigidity-all qualities that you generally wouldn’t think of when it comes to resilience.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. But people who are resilient stick to their guns. They possess the tenacity, a relentless ability to stay focused on their goals. They make hard choices and don’t compromise on their goals even in hardships. One classic story to illustrate this is, how the actor Sylvester Stallone landed on a role to play Rocky that made him an overnight movie icon in Hollywood.

When Stallone wrote Rocky, he had no job and his girlfriend had just broken up with him. He sold his dog at the local liquor store just to get some money to live. In this desperate state, someone offered him $100,000 for his script. The catch was that he wouldn’t get to play Rocky. Since his purpose was to be an actor, especially for the fulfillment of this role, he said no. The offers kept coming, up to a million dollars, and he kept denying them. Finally, the studio offered $50,000 along with the lead role of Rocky. And he happily took it. Stallone possessed the grit to persevere. He sacrificed his short-term gains for his long-term goals.

Stanford University researcher Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., has championed the concept of Grit, which she defines as having the ion and perseverance to achieve long-term and meaningful goals and possessing the direction and commitment to persist in something you feel ionate about. According to her, the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but grit: a special blend of ion and persistence. Grit is about having ion and perseverance for long-term goals. Gritty people can maintain their determination and motivation over long periods despite experiences with failure and adversity.

Various studies have shown that grit consists of three major aspects. I think everyone should be aware of all these to understand the concept of grit better. Firstly, you must believe that everyone has an important meaningful purpose in life. Secondly, all of us can leave an impact on our surroundings and the events happening around us. Last but not the least, grit is about knowing that life is a combination of the positive and negative experiences that we should learn to embrace in the course of our life. This is how having an undying grit in ourselves becomes an important part of any victory. Dr. Robert Schuller said it wisely in his book title “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”

Tough times come and go because everything is cyclical like seasons. Things may be okay today but may not be tomorrow. In the face of all changes, it’s tough people that last; the people who can weather the tough times are sufficiently tough enough to handle just about anything. The truth of the matter is that with ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.

Developing perseverance. The real test of character is how you face adversities and challenges. Learning perseverance requires the exercise of character. This is itself a character trait, but while learning perseverance, you will need to apply other character traits like commitment, determination, diligence, optimism, patience, persistence, purpose, and resourcefulness.

Perseverance is a life skill that we can build. It is having faith in action and holding conviction in yourself and your resourcefulness to know that you can get through the difficulty you’re facing.

People who persevere have long-term goals and they are committed to them no matter what happens in their way to achieve their plans. Every time they fail or face setbacks, they become more charged and energized to move ahead rather than retreat. Each failure or challenge helps them develop their inner strength and endurance. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said: “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” Many people could be more talented than you, but if you learn to use your time well and put in the hard work through perseverance, you can beat most of the talent out there. That is a fact.

Sunk cost fallacy- Know when to quit. One important lesson that I have learned in life is that perseverance is not doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It’s committing to an end and being flexible enough to change the means to achieve that desired outcome. During this process, one thing to watch for is ‘sunk cost fallacy’. Often perseverance can be misunderstood as sunk cost fallacy. Let us understand how.

Sunk cost fallacy means that the more you invest in something- your time, energy, money or effort, the harder it is to cut your losses and quit. An example would be a person who forces himself or others to watch a full movie in a theatre, even though it's dull. Such people choose to watch the whole movie because they don’t want to “waste” the ticket. They’d rather waste two hours on a boring movie and fool themselves into thinking that they didn’t lose money on the ticket than lose the money spent on the ticket and gain two hours to do something more enjoyable. It is a kind of psychological trap that we create for ourselves even though our decision or plan doesn’t serve us anymore. Due to sunk cost fallacy, people will incur more losses in their businesses or stocks, by deluding themselves in thinking that they are persevering. Therefore, people should keep their eyes and

mind open at all times to detect and differentiate between persevering and sunk cost fallacy.

Another reason is loss aversion — a tendency to prefer avoiding losses more than acquiring equivalent gains. It is a term used more widely in the field of finance but is pervasive in the life of an individual as well. It thrives on our fear of facing failure even though we have an option of gaining available to us on the other side.

Learning the art of strategic quitting. Many successful business leaders and enterprises have quitted on several initiatives and let many business units die to stay resilient and competitive. For example, Richard Branson is known to have started around five hundred companies and later, shut down two hundred of them that didn’t work up to his expectations.

It’s important to know when to fold and when to hold. But how can you tell the difference between quitting and a sensible decision to cut your losses? The answer is -strategic quitting.

In his book, The Dip - The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit and when to stick, Seth Godin calls the Valley of Disappointment, ‘the Dip’. He suggests that what we need to quit are the things that get in the way of being our very best at what we do. He says, “Strategic quitting is a conscious decision you make based on the choices available to you.”

The author asserted that sometimes a person or a company needs to quit a

particular project and move on to something else that is more profitable and in line with a person's talents and abilities. The reason that this was controversial was simply that so many people have been taught that they should never quit any project. Strategic quitting takes courage or humility because it requires itting previous bad judgment or being suckered or accepting that one has wasted time and resources.

When you start introspecting the things around you and your actions in a certain situation, you get into a position to analyze if you have given your absolute best in that moment or that you could have done better by bringing a transition in the attitude with which you dealt the issue or the challenge. An advantage of talking to yourself is that your needs and emotions come in line with each other and it also gives you a sense of control and awareness all of which assist in determining whether it was the wrong situation or your action or thought that went wrong.

Winners quit the right stuff at the right time. This doesn’t mean that you should quit something where there is long-term potential just because of temporary short-term struggles. You need to apply due diligence to understand when to fold and when to hold.

Dear reader, please note that perseverance does not mean you always win. Instead, it means coping with failures after failures so that you win eventually.



Chapter 7

Humor: Laughing at your misery

“My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.” ― Mizuta Masahide (17th century Japanese poet and samurai)

We can change our neuro-association to the ruminating pain and suffering through the use of humor and laughter. Whenever you change an emotional reference to an event, the experience itself will change. We neuro-associate with pleasure and laughter, which was once associated with pain and hurt.

There will be times when your problems and concerns would be so overwhelming that it might feel silly and disrespectful to laugh. But any time you’re feeling that you can’t find the laughter, that’s exactly when you need to laugh. Just like mourning and grieving are healthy processes for finding order and healing; laughing helps you in alleviating pain and suffering.

Charlie Chaplin once wisely said “To truly laugh you must be able to take your pain and play with it”

There is a great connection between humor and resilience. Taking ourselves less seriously makes us more resilient. A cheerful attitude towards life, in general, makes us more resilient towards negative events which ultimately helps us face adversities in life with a cheerful smile.

There are several studies done on the importance of humor in boosting resilience and especially in dealing with human trauma. Case studies, research, and cognitive appraisal work on humor all converge on the notion that increased humor can often help an individual cope more successfully with traumatic situations.

Humor enhances mental health and self-mockery, a form of poking fun at oneself or having self-deprecating humor that improves our overall psychological well-being. We become less prone to the adverse effects of criticism. We can handle rejections and failures well. And ultimately, selfdeprecating humor helps us ignore provocations and reduces our hypersensitivity to stressful people and events.

Poking fun at oneself acknowledges our human imperfections and we are less likely to be critical and judgmental of others' flaws and vulnerabilities. In forgiving all of your awkward mishaps, you make room so that others can, too. Ultimately, self-mockery should be a way of acknowledging your flaws and limitations through the softer lens of self-comion. Such humor should not be mistaken as a sign of low self-esteem; instead, it’s a sign of self-confidence. Some studies find that increased humor can contribute to the enhancement of positive life experiences, and lead to greater positive affect and psychological well-being.

Many of us are the happiest when we laugh at our past misfortunes. If you look back at your life in retrospect, you can recollect many unfortunate events; but now, you can laugh at it. Because those experiences molded you into becoming somebody better. You can laugh at your past stupid mistakes

and blunders, because you have developed better perspectives to evaluate them now, than ever before. So why wait for years to laugh at your misery? Learn to laugh at them right now.

Self-deprecating humor is always a plus. The more seriously you take yourself, the more difficult life will get for you. You will tend to take everything personally that constantly feeds your ego. People with self-deprecating humor have their egos under check, and are humble, down to earth and grounded. Often ego gets in your path to resilience. Protecting your ego will not only make you less likely to try again after a failure, it will also bring unnecessary frustration and irritation in life. Self-deprecating humor should not be mistaken as self-defeating humor, which means maladaptive humor. Self-deprecating humor is laughing with yourself and maladaptive or self-defeating humor is laughing at yourself. Those who engage often in maladaptive humor tend to experience greater levels of anxiety and depression.

Therefore, such humor is also a personal development tool that helps you acknowledge your imperfections and flaws so that you can work on improving yourself. What humor does to our mind is that it promotes objectivity. With humor, you tend to see yourself as an observer, which is essential in advancing your resilience. It gives a different perspective to life. That’s why comedians can narrate simple human facts to us in the most humorous way. A humorous perspective helps us see obstacles, tragedies, mistakes, and embarrassing moments differently.

Psychologists call it ‘adaptive humor’ which is a self-enhancing ability to see the humor in negative events. Humor should be your natural defense mechanism because even a little levity holds the capability to alter your perspective to see the positives.

When we take ourselves less seriously, life itself can be a non-threatening gift, which makes episodes in life less intimidating. When we take ourselves less seriously, we’re able to see the humor in situations, find the silver lining when things don’t go the way we want them to and navigate through the ups and downs of life a bit easier. Our terrain becomes easier.

Humor gives us a heightened sense of awareness. Humor simply helps us embrace who we are and gives us the peace to live with it. We learn to accept our flaws. We can accept our blunders and laugh at it, learn from them and move on. The moment you start laughing in the face of even your greatest fear, you instantly shift into a higher state of awareness. Moreover, this heightened state of awareness leads us to acceptance.

Adding humor to situations can improve our state of consciousness. It can open our eyes; help us wake up from the trance of self-defeating thoughts and feelings of helplessness. Humor enables us to see through fear. We become more aware of our powers to handle challenges objectively. It's all possible because humor can elevate ease and comfort within ourselves, bringing a shift in our tensed state of mind to a more relaxed and serene state.

If we allow fear in any situation to determine the choices we make, terror always wins. No matter what form it takes, whether it’s an internal fear or an uncontrollable outside force. Hence, to thrive in challenging times, we need a strong foundation to stand on and humor is that strong foundation. We can conquer fear through humor. We should embrace uncertainties that are fearful through humor. Humor helps us adapt to the new normal of life; whenever our situations of life change. We should be able to laugh at

adversity and this would in turn give us the inner strength to conquer our challenges.

Humor doesn’t ignore the difficulties; it makes them more tolerable. The moment you start laughing in the face of fear, you instantly shift into a higher state of awareness or consciousness, which allows you to tap into your inner strength. You are not helpless. You can access the power within you to silence your inner critic, your inner skeptic. Your capability to awaken the solution provider within you increases. You don’t need to make choices based on your insecurities and fears; instead, you can make courageous and gutsy decisions. , whenever you laugh in the face of any problem or fear, you create a shift in your awareness from problem to solution. You can see challenges and solutions differently. That’s why, even in the most challenging of times, people can be resilient and can use humor to find peace and clarity.

Make failing less stressful. Very few people truly understand how important failure is for a person to grow in life. They forget that it teaches them what success could never be to try again, to feel the urge to want something, different perspectives, and whatnot. When optimistic people fail, they naturally tend to find more creative ways of solving their failure and the next time, bounce back even harder. Moreover, the insights that failure gives you about yourself and the world around you can never be provided by an experience where you succeeded in just one go. You see, that 'In Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl summarized it best when he wrote about surviving Nazi concentration camps: “Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human makeup, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.’'

Humor makes failing less stressful, terrifying, and less embarrassing. It promotes a symbiotic relationship with the failure you encounter. But humor is not a softener for making excuses or avoiding responsibilities; it’s a way of persevering despite setbacks with hope and optimism. It is a great coping mechanism. It allows us to see our situations differently and provide relief. By taking away momentary frustrations that get in the way of solving challenging issues, humor weakens negative emotions. This helps you stay resilient and generate positive feelings when you need them the most.

Laughter is the best medicine. It's not just humor, even the habit of laughter can strengthen your resilience. Evidence shows that highly resilient people manage to experience positive emotions even in the middle of stressful and challenging situations. Studies link these positive emotions with their ability to rebound from negative emotional experiences.

You must learn how to make a conscious effort to find humor in all the challenging situations that you encounter. Learning how to laugh at your problems is the first step towards resiliency. Some people don’t allow themselves to enjoy life when times are tough because they feel guilty or that they don’t have the right to do so in such a situation. For example, a person who might be recently diagnosed with cancer would often say, “how can I find laughter in my life when i was just diagnosed with a disease like cancer?’’. Well, if we carefully see, that is exactly when you’re supposed to do so. People say, “how can you expect me to laugh and enjoy my life when the economy is falling apart and I constantly live in the fear of losing my job anytime?” well, my friend, that's when you’re supposed to.

A good laugh is also capable of stimulating many organs. Our oxygen intake increases along with a higher level of endorphin released by the brain

thereby ensuring that not only does our mental stress decrease, but our physical health improves too.

We all must understand that there is a difference between laughing at something serious and laughing off the fear that it represents. I believe that this is the number one reason why we are blessed with the gift of laughterto laugh in the face of fear. Because when you do, your perception changes, negativity shifts, and fear keep at bay. When times are rough or even severe, we must at some point, find the courage within ourselves to laugh off the fear. This not only makes us a more pleasant person but also gives a sense of hope and happiness to the people around us stuck in a similar position. So, my friend, learn to laugh whenever you can. Initially, it might feel a little forced, but once you get into a habit of finding the good in all stressful situations, things would become easier for you!

Add self-care habits to your daily routine. The key to self-comion is to turn your inner critic into an inner coach. It's about having faith in yourself that you will rise and prevail. You need to believe in yourself that you will stand tall amidst adversities, losses, and tragedies, because deep within, you believe that you just can. And my friend, without difficult times, you cannot sharpen your skills of resilience. The more difficult times we face, the more resilient we learn to become. Think about it.

Several studies prove that people who have self-comion respond strongly to negative events in life. They manage losses, cope better with difficult situations like divorce, experience less fear of failure, and have greater overall life satisfaction.

There are several ways you can practice self-care. One person’s coping mechanism may not be helpful for everyone else. Therefore, we all need to find our ways and things that help us feel happy and connected with life. The first step towards taking care of yourself is eating healthy and having a fixed schedule. Apart from that, make sure that you exercise every day. , a sound body creates a sound mind. Skin-care routines, playing a musical instrument, or simply taking a morning walk in the park with your friends or dog are some of the ways through which you can cultivate self-care. While you laugh with your troubles and tribulations as an observer, don't forget to take good care of yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Treat yourself with some comion whenever you make a mistake. Don’t judge yourself too soon, because you failed at something. Be kind and self-nurturing to yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, then who will?



Chapter 8

Managing Crisis

“Expect the best but be prepared for the worst” - The C.I.A

Optimism is good, but excess of anything is bad. Any kind of optimism that creates a false sense of control can cloud our minds and lead us to miscalculate risks and make unsound decisions.

Sometimes, excessive optimism can make people overestimate the possibility of getting to experience good things while simultaneously avoiding the bad things. Psychologists call this ‘the optimism bias’ – i.e. the inclination to overestimate the likelihood of encountering positive events in the future and to underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events.

Most people overestimate their prospect of professional achievement; expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted; miscalculate their likely lifespan (sometimes by twenty years or more); expect themselves to be healthier than the average person and more successful than their peers. Such people also hugely underestimate their likelihood of facing a divorce, health issues, and unemployment; and are overconfident that their future lives will be better than those that their parents had to put up with.

A natural outcome of ‘optimism bias’ is that we begin to think that we have more control over the outcomes of events than we have. We underestimate

the likelihood of a crisis that can turn our way of life upside down. This does not mean that all crises are bad. There are good crises and bad crises, depending on the nature in which they impact us. A good crisis is often a blessing in disguise whereas a bad one is a warning sign before a disaster strikes.

Good crisis Vs Bad crisis. A good crisis is a challenge and an opportunity to uncover what we value, to rediscover what we need, and redefine what gives us pleasure to re-create a meaningful life and reconfigure the inner workings of yourself. Such a crisis has the power to awaken our hidden qualities and talents that were previously unknown to us. It unfolds possibilities out of unfavorable circumstances that can help us reinvent our lives. It gives us the courage to let go of things that we are trying to hold on to. By helping in shedding the skin of the old self to give way to the new self, a crisis forces us to break down the barriers and entertain new possibilities that push us from our comfort zone to the growth zone. A crisis can shake up our status quo, spurring us to reevaluate the people and situations in our life and make the corrections that lead to joy and success in life. Crisis not only helps us evolve into becoming a better person but also makes us wonder ‘who we are’ and gives us utmost clarity on ‘where we want to go’. In other words, a crisis is our way of evolving when we lack the courage to do so on our own volition. When an animal is wounded, it gets more aggressive. Likewise, when we face a crisis, we are driven to climb higher above the pile of our past experiences into the newer, stronger, more brilliant, joyful, and wonderful selves which we are meant to be.

But some crises are losses that can never be replaced. Some of these losses are predictable and are the organic culmination of growth. At other times, our life as we know it is snatched from us with the death of a spouse, a crime against us, or a loss of our health or livelihood. Crisis can turn bad too. It can be chaotic, mentally and emotionally draining, uncertain,

stressful, and quite traumatic. Sometimes it’s just a downward spiral that sticks us to a disaster or tragedy. But we are not completely powerless in the face of any crisis. We can handle even the worst of crises. , nothing is permanent, pervasive, or personal. Even when you are confronted with an illness, loss, or with something that you think will define you always, you will still definitely get an opportunity to change your focus once you learn how to manage the crisis.

There are many ways to handle crises and turn them into opportunities. The CIA has a strategic dictum that says, “Expect the best but be prepared for the worst”

Be prepared for the worst at all times. Even though you think that your plan is the most effective and is efficiently crafted to meet any obstacle, it is still possible that something might go wrong. The uncertainty that life brings with itself is something that we all should learn to live with. We cannot just assume that it will always go according to what we want, or that the outcome would always be in our favor. The solution to this is nothing but preparing ourselves mentally for facing the challenges that might come our way. Again, this preparation is not always about doing something or being in action, it is more about our mindset, and how we can bring ourselves up after hitting a low.

Crisis can be overwhelming for the unprepared minds that never have spent time thinking about negative possibilities, which can lead to a negative outcome. Have you ever imagined scenarios where you can lose everything? Now, this is not anxiety or catastrophizing; but looking at negative possibilities that can derail your plans for a positive future.

Ask yourself what you’d do if you lose your job today or your means of earnings. What step would you take if something bad ever happens with you, to your health, or your loved ones? By mentally planning for the worst in advance, you’ll be able to take out the scary parts of your life. You’ll also learn to come up with proactive solutions that can bring positive changes. The answer may even be the key to your peace of mind.

One of the ways you can achieve this outcome of being prepared for the worst is to visualize how you can handle future failures. Positive thinking is good but if it’s not grounded in reality, it can become merely wishful thinking. Such thinking should not be only about positive outcomes but also about how you handle the roadblocks like momentary failures and rejections.

How do you endure a loss, a shipwreck, a deserted island, an earthquake or being lost in the wild? The way you handle these imaginary scenarios helps your mind to prepare for different types of scenarios that can play out in life.

Preparedness is defined as a state of readiness, and this is something we do to reach our goal. Preparedness is a part of resilience.

Stoics understood that everything in life is temporary. You can be in a relationship today and be single tomorrow. You can drive an expensive car and live in a mansion today and rent a small room and use your feet as a means of transport a year from now. You can be perfectly healthy now, and bedridden next week. No situation in life is permanent. That’s why sometimes it's too early to celebrate and too early to mourn.

Imagine the worst-case scenario. Imagining the worst-case scenario each time you’re faced with difficulties isn’t exactly a pleasant strategy. there is a thin line of difference between catastrophizing and imagining the worst case scenario. Catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion that prompts people to jump to the worst possible conclusion, usually with very limited information or objective reason to despair. This is more like overthinking when a situation is upsetting, but not necessarily catastrophic. Catastrophizing takes an emotional toll on people because it stems from helplessness, while scenario planning comes from resourcefulness. Worst case scenario planning , if it is done occasionally, it can prove to be a powerful exercise to gain better control over your emotions.

The goal should be to visualize the worst thing that might happen, but instead of doing it out of fear or pessimism, you should start doing it to plan for the future or as a reminder that what you have today might disappear tomorrow. This will also help you become a more grateful person in life which in turn is the key to kindness.

Thinking about losing your job and imagining how bad it would be allowing you to prepare for the unexpected while you’re still in a secure position. What specifically would you have done if you had lost your job? How much time would you take to find a new source of income if they fired you today? What actions could you immediately take to bounce back as quickly as possible? Asking such questions from yourself would help you get an idea about how prepared you are in life.

Even the worst circumstances can be temporary, as long as you maintain a tight grip on what you can control - your thoughts and actions. After the storm hits home, you will always find yourself moving towards the path which would take you where the sunshine lies. You just never have to stop walking on the path for this.

Embrace Plan B. Plan A need not be the best solution always. Murphy’s law says ‘Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Of all the things that can go wrong, the worst possible thing will go wrong at the worst possible time and cost the most amount of money’. You can’t put all the eggs in one basket. If plan A fails, then you need plan B. Sometimes it can come out to be even more effective than Plan A. When Steven Spielberg’s mechanical shark malfunctioned on the set of Jaws, he used music as a stand-in, creating a lurking underwater menace that was even more terrifying than the shark we could see then.

Sometimes our plans fail and later we realize that it was all for good. Having more alternatives helps us negotiate better with life especially in adverse conditions. Therefore, having more backup plans is always good, especially when things don’t go according to your first few plans. This does not mean you move away from your end objective. It only means that you will find newer ways to meet your objectives.

Make yourself uncomfortable. Consider these quotes:

“A ship is safe in the harbor. But that is not what it’s made for. A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. Only dead fish swim with the flow of the river.

Comfort is the enemy of achievement.”

You need to get uncomfortable with your comfort zones and routines to grow. Try things that you have never tried before like food, fashion, music, or genre of cinema to begin with. Order something you have never tried before at a restaurant. Say hello to strangers in an elevator or respond differently to situations and people. Take a different approach.

Research has shown that the brain craves novelty and doing things that don’t feel automatic has a positive effect on neurological activity. It can keep you sharp and can make you more creative as well. When you voluntarily break your pattern, what probably happens as an unpleasant surprise has a lesser impact on you because you have trained yourself to embrace changes.

Problem-solving skills. Most of our crises can be solved through the right problem-solving methods. Great achievers are also great problem solvers. The career or job you are holding currently has disguised itself as a problem solver. Every professional call themselves a solution provider.

Problem-solving is a skill. This skill is often developed through the right questioning method. Very often, people ask the question ‘why me?’ and such a question can only rationalize the existence of the problem. The rationalization can grow to an extent for the mind to conclude that the problem cannot be solved at all. Not many people ask themselves while being in the eye of the storm or even once things have settled down entirely, 'what am I supposed to learn from this?’ or ‘how can I turn things around right now?’

The right question for problem-solving begins with 'how can I’? instead of ‘why me?'. Whenever you face a problem, ask yourself- ‘how can I turn this around?’, ‘what good outcome can come out of this particular event?’ or ‘what would be the simplest solution to the problem at hand?’ What could be the positive outcome, if we do this? ‘What if’ is also a magic word that stimulates your creativity in the problem-solving process.

No disappointment, setback, trauma, or tragedy becomes so devastating that you cannot glean something of value to take with yourself to the next experience. Successful people learn from everything that happens to them. They become victorious in situations where others see themselves helpless like victims. Benjamin Franklin rightly said “Those things that hurt, instruct.”

Possibility thinking. Possibility thinking is a manner and nature in which you think in of possibilities and opportunities rather than as difficulties, dead ends or problems. Such thinking emerges from Asset Based Thinking. Once you acknowledge the resources you have; you can take notice of the possibilities that were previously unnoticed. It stems from a deep faith that there is a solution to every problem.

Possibility thinking accesses your imaginative mind instead of your stressed mind. A stressed mind is overwhelmed and often shut away from the possibility of a solution. When you are stressed, you go into a state of blindness (or scotoma means a blind spot in Latin) where nothing seems like a solution. Problems look like an endless loop, but possibility thinkers turn the problem into a challenge. Challenge is something conquerable and solvable to the human mind. The mere reframing of a problem, from a

problem to a challenge perspective opens up several possibilities. Moreover, we become more mindful to take notice of all resources available to us, including seeking help when we need it the most.

, we can manage situations like crises using the right frame of mind. Very often the crises are not real. They could be mere projections of the mind like fearful thoughts, anxiety, or worry. When you take control of your state of mind and think like a solution provider and an advisor, you gain perspectives to handle most of life's challenges. This means that resilience lies in having a different perspective to see things differently and act accordingly.



Chapter 9

Pressure is your ally, and stress- an unwelcome enemy

“You must bear losses like a soldier, the voice told me, bravely and without complaint, and just when the day seems lost, grab your shield for another stand, another thrust forward. That is the juncture that separates heroes from the merely strong.”

― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

A major part of resilience is about how we handle stress in our everyday lives. We are presented with challenges every day, and how we respond to them determines whether we are resilient or not. These can be minor or major obstacles, depending on the way we perceive them.

I have seen people around me sometimes struggling to get a task done within the deadline due to their brain being occupied with stress so much that they find it hard to divert their attention from it. For some, a challenge can be about being stuck in a situation where they need to choose between two situations that seem equally hard to tolerate. My point is that it doesn’t matter what is the nature of your challenge, but it does largely matter that how you decide to deal with the situation, i.e. if you’re willing to let the stress scatter all over the place thereby undermining your ability to think rationally or you want to get out of the state you’re stuck in by making efforts to decrease the amount of stress you carry in your mind.

Stress in general can reduce the capacity for resilience. But not all stress is bad for us. There are two types of stress that we face at one time or another: eustress and distress. Eustress is good stress and it occurs when the gap between what we want and what we have is slightly pushed, but not in ways that lead us into feeling overwhelmed. While distress is the opposite of eustress and is bad for resilience.

To gain control over our emotions and the situations around us, let me now tell you more about these two types of stress so that you’re not only able to differentiate between the two, but also understand what kind of impact and influence both of these are capable of having on us.

Why is Eustress your friend? Temporary suffering can help us reach the successful path because pressure has the capability of building diamonds. Stress can be perceived as a healthy process or an unhealthy process based on how our mind interprets them. Let us consider an example that would give us more insight into the way stress functions:

Maybe you’re someone who is preparing for a government job exam and the fact that there are so many candidates out there with such vast potential is stressing you out. It is only natural to feel a bit scared for an exam on which depends your entire career. But what’s the catch here? You must necessarily understand that this stress is capable of either helping you reach the top of the success ladder, or it will push you down hard. Here’s how: If you’re someone who carries an optimistic outlook in life, and knows that it is just a temporary challenge that you’re facing, you will perceive it as healthy competition that would, in turn, motivate you to work even harder than ever before to crack that specific exam. This way, not only will you get

more prepared for the same, but you will also get to know about how much capability you carry within yourself, which would ultimately help you crack the exam.

Now, let’s look at the flip side of the same situation. Maybe you are someone who gets uneasy when encountered with a challenging and stressful situation. Instead of practicing more, you spend more time pondering over what might happen in the future; whether you’ll get the job, or if you’re prepared enough. In this case, the amount of stress you’re taking is barring you from functioning at your highest potential. This way, the same situation handled in two separate ways, is capable of changing the outcome.

In California, wine growers stress grapes by providing less sunlight and water. The stressing process is intentional because it keeps the grapes between the border of survival and death, and the grapes that survive make the finest wine. This is how Eustress works.

Eustress is a healthy form of pressure that functions as the competitive and ambitious driver inside each of us. Pressure can stretch our comfort zone. And when we are stretched, we expand simultaneously. Expansion is growth because it brings out the best in us. It pushes us to go beyond our average and ordinary performance to do our best.

It is important to note that the body cannot discern stress from eustress because the variation between the two is quite thin. It is the mind that consciously differentiates between the two. Without this differentiation, a eustress situation can exact the same toll as a distressful situation on the body.

Bradley Hatfield, a sports scientist working at the University of Maryland,

has done an extensive study of comparison between the brain signals of expert athletes with those who had just begun learning the skill. He concluded that an expert’s brain is way calmer and cooler than that of a novice. Under a normal circumstances, Hatfield found that a beginner’s brain mostly tries to fire all over the place. On the other hand, experts look cooler.

Professional athletes train themselves by practicing under stressful conditions. By practicing under the exact conditions you will learn to perform better when the stress is on. But it is a fact that when an extreme amount of pressure is inflicted, even the best of the athletes can be severely impacted. At the University of Texas in Austin, a group of psychologists obtained gaming transcripts from all NBA regular seasons and the playoff games from the years 2003-04, 2004-05, and 2005-06. The purpose was to examine the player's free throw shots in the final minutes of the game. After conducting the study, the experts found out that the players tend to shoot worse than their entire career’s free-throw shooting average when their team was behind by only a point, i.e. when the pressure was at its highest; because a make or a miss was capable of shifting the whole outcome of the game.

How you handle pressure or stress determines your everyday resilience; whether you’re an athlete who is performing or a person pursuing daily goals at work or in life. To turn stress into healthy pressure, athletes often engage in deliberate practice sessions and undergo intense training sessions to get better at their craft. This is also a form of training that assists the brain constantly in staying resilient. If writing a daily journal helps you in getting relief from your stress, do it regularly. Learn to hold on to anything that helps you stay cheerful during hard times. It can be art, meditation, or merely spending time with your friends.

A study that was carried out on jugglers explained how our brain adapts to learning something new; and that when we stop doing it, in what ways does it impact the brain. Several months of practicing juggling daily increases grey matter (the place where the cell bodies of neurons are housed), which usually facilitates a greater communication amongst the brain cells- in parts of the brain that’s involved in understanding motion. An interesting thing to notice was that when people stopped their intensive schedule of practice, the motion-understanding parts of the brain that had previously changed their density, went back to become less dense again.

We can train our brain to be resilient by using our daily intake of pressure to ultimately enhance our performance and outcome. Just like lifting weights helps us in developing bicep muscles, practice helps in shaping our brain.

But most people are not equipped to handle everyday stress. They feel stressed when they are presented with a situation, which they do not have the experience necessary to manage.

Dealing with distress and extracting strength out of it. The medical definition of stress is, “the perception of a real or imagined threat to your body or your ego.”

At work, stress is not necessarily the outcome of a huge workload, lack of response, interruptions, or a result of traffic jam of unfinished projects and overextended commitments. Stress occurs when the demands of a certain situation exceed our perceived ability to control that situation. The key solution is that the more you perceive that you can control a situation, the lower you get stressed and vice versa.

The perception of control lies in a person’s coping skills along with competence and confidence in dealing with complexities. Functioning at a high-stress level hampers the mind’s well-being and physical health too. Hence, it becomes essential that we learn how to extract strength out of the situations that seem to be made up for breaking us.

There are many ways you can learn to manage stress. It involves making small changes in your mental, emotional and physical habits and routines.

Managing mental stress. Let us begin by bringing a few changes in the mental aspects associated with stress. If you cannot change the stressor, change yourself. It involves shifting your mindset and perspective so that you’re able to adapt to stressful situations and regain the lost sense of control by turning around your expectations and attitude.

Another important step is that you take out time to identify the various sources of stress in your life. After doing so, analyze if it lies within your power range to overcome. If the evening news makes you anxious, turn off the TV. It is good to avoid the consumption of mindless television. If traffic brings you unwelcomed stress, then resort to taking a longer but lesstraveled route. Choosing grocery shopping over going to the market if the physical mode is an unpleasant chore for you.

The bottom line is that you need to learn to accept the things you can’t change and change the things you can accept.

Earlier, I spoke about acceptance, reframing, and locus of control. Now, let us understand what assertiveness is. You must know that most of the stress can be avoided by simply saying NO. It's necessary to know your limits- to be aware of how much you can bite and chew so that you don’t bite more than you can chew. Whether it’s your personal or professional life, taking on more than you can handle is a surefire recipe that would result in stress. Learn to distinguish between the ‘should's' and the 'musts'. Whenever you get the opportunity to, say “no” to taking on taking too much on your plate.

Teach yourself problem-solving skills. Problems are stressors, and resolving them helps eliminate the stress triggered by them. Effective problem-solvers identify problems, generate alternative solutions, select the optimal solutions, and evaluate outcomes after implementation.

One of the reasons why most people feel they are stressed out is that they over-work like they are burning out. Relaxation and sleep are equally important because it refuels, replenishes and re-energizes a person to work again. Mindfulness and meditation are proven to be great practices to reduce stress levels. Athletes like Tiger Woods have used ‘nonreactive awareness’ to handle stressors and distractions from the fans and press all around them. His father Earl Wood trained him to manage with ease especially stressful scenarios and player situations that can take away Tiger Wood’s focus.

Meditation will help your nervous system get rid of the distinct set of stresses you’ve accumulated throughout your highly individualized lifetime, leaving you better rested, more intuitive, physically healthier, and in a better state where you’ll be able to access energy so that you can use your unique expertise to create innovative responses to the specific demands in your life.

When you’re more balanced mentally, you can handle stressful situations better. Having faith in something outside of ourselves makes our life worth fighting for and s us in recovering from stress and trauma. It also encourages social connections, giving and receiving love, gratitude, acting with comion and empathy- all of which circle back to resilience.

Sound emotional health is the key. Something that most people forget while being in the process of achieving their dream is to give due importance to their emotional and mental health as well. I have seen people around me completely dismissing the fact that emotional health is as important as physical health. Moreover, if you talk to a health specialist, they will tell you that both of these are so deeply interconnected (psychosomatic) with each other that an imbalance between them can cause harm to our minds and bodies.

Stress often springs from stressful situations that you may find difficult to handle emotionally. Emotional resilience comes from emotional intelligence. You can healthily handle your emotions. Most negative emotional experiences spring from the undercurrents of resentment, shame, guilt, hurt, and regrets. If you are unable to handle resentment, it results in recurring emotional expressions of anger, fear, self-hatred, and bitterness. Shame and guilt can lead to self-loathing and depression. Regrets in life can express themselves as sadness and bitterness because the hurt will always find its nastiest emotional expressions through anger, bitterness, or jealousy. When you learn to forgive, you let go of anger and resentments. Through dealing with shame, regrets, hurt, and guilt, you will learn to move on with emotional energy that is directed towards the advancement of your goals rather than the distractions of your life.

Becoming more resilient also means that you are in control of your

emotions. When you lack control over your emotions, you are likely to make permanent decisions based on the temporary spur of emotions in you. While you’re stressed, you cannot think straight. Any hasty decision rarely brings the best results. Therefore, to be more resilient, you have to keep calm, gauge, and evaluate things logically, so that you can make a plan and put it into action.

You need to start making efforts to replenish your emotional energy. We are emotional beings that need connection, love, empathy, and comion to survive. Make friends, socialize and connect with people. There is nothing more calming than spending quality time with another human being who makes you feel safe and understood during challenging times. At the same time, avoid people who stress you out. If someone consistently causes stress in your life, limit the amount of time you spend with that person or end the relationship.

The habit of journaling- an emotional catharsis. Journaling is not a magic technique that would help you in completely brushing off the stress you carry. But it would surely help in getting into a lighter state of mind as it requires you to maintain a daily record of your thoughts which helps in evoking mindfulness. It is more than just writing down on a piece of paper. People who journal every day are calmer and carry with themselves a sense of control over their emotions and thoughts. It’s more like a mind management tool that you employ in your life to handle stress better.

A study carried out by a group of specialists proved that a person who journals daily for four months possesses a lower blood pressure and even better liver functionality. Start by noting down your favorite moments of the day in your diary initially, after some time, allow yourself to express how a certain thing made you feel an emotion, what triggered your memories to

flash in front of you again at some point- basically all the major events of your day that hold even the tiniest impact on your brain or perspective. Through journaling, your brain’s retention power increases rapidly and your overall mood improves.

Venting to your friends and loved ones is always appreciated but sometimes the need of the hour is for you to listen and talk with your self. Until and unless you do that, no other conversation would make you feel lighter. When you stay in with your feelings consistently, you get hold of your actions. You get a sense of hope that you can be the shoulder you need to cry upon when there’s no one around.

How does stress influence our physical well-being?

Health is everything. But it’s one of those fundamental traits of resilience that people often forget about. To have a sound mind, you also need a sound body. This is a major reason why some people despite understanding various aspects of resilience fail to achieve what they desire because they focus their entire mind around the hard work that is required and hence forget to pay attention to their health which results in stress despite the maximum efforts to prevent it.

Resilience relies on our health to function at its best. Otherwise, stress eats us away, and we break down, literally and figuratively.

Resilient people take good care of their bodies and preserve them. Healthy food, well- earned rest and regular exercise is the key to their physical wellbeing. This pays off as it helps in reducing the pressure on them.

Well-nourished bodies are better equipped to handle stress. It is necessary to eat a healthy and balanced diet to optimize your energy. Our body has a way of dealing with our mental state. Therefore, the fastest and the most efficient way to overcome stress is to work out and do regular exercise. It's true that when someone is stressed, the last thing that they might want to feel like doing is getting out of bed and exercising. But indulging in physical activity is a huge stress reliever. You don't need to be an athlete or spend hours at the gym to experience the benefits that your body might get through physical activity. The sole purpose of doing so is that when you exercise, your body releases endorphins that make you feel good and serves as a valuable distraction from your daily troubles.

Breathing is the key to distressing and healing when it comes to your physical and mental health. A person’s usual breathing is often shallow which starves the body and the brain of oxygen, ultimately affecting the immune and cardiopulmonary systems. Therefore, you must develop the practice of taking several deep diaphragmatic breaths in a tense moment- so that it helps in clearing your mind, body, and soul. To make our breathing healthy in a natural way, we need to put ourselves in a deliberate practice similar to how athletes train themselves. Practice deliberate breathingwhich means slow breathing that is healthy for your body and mind. That’s 5.5-second inhales and 5.5-second exhales. That’s 5.5 breaths a minute, for a total of about 5.5 liters of air. This is the perfect breathing. Make this a practice, a daily ritual and gradually, your breathing will change for the better.

Manage your time better. One of the biggest stressors in modern life is the lack of time management of the problems that arise due to the juggling of tasks at work and home.

When it comes to time management, at its core, it’s more to understand what is priority management. Most people struggle in the decision to choose between important things and urgent things. Often, urgent things get our attention and important things are missed out.

Learn to prioritize tasks. Don’t get caught up in the minors and ignore the majors. Make a list of tasks you have to do, and tackle them in order of their importance. Always do the high-priority items first. If you have something particularly unpleasant to do, get it over with as early as possible. ‘Eat that ugly frog first’ as Brian Tracy said. The longer you’ll let the unpleasant task hang over your head, the more stressed you’ll become. By getting it over within the initial time itself, you clear your way of completing the other tasks more smoothly with lesser mental pressure.

Another thing you must learn to do is to delegate tasks that can be done by others. Multitasking at work can be extremely stressful, so it's necessary to know that you don’t have to do it all yourself, whether at home, school or at your job. If your office team is working on a project, then there’s no need to take responsibility for everyone’s work just because you’re afraid that they won’t do it in the way you expect them to. But if other people can take care of one task, why not let them? Let go of the desire to control or oversee every little step. You’ll be letting go of a lot of unnecessary stress in the process.

Become more assertive People who struggle in areas of assertiveness commit to many activities in their schedule. Sometimes saying NO can be a relief. Don't over-commit yourself. Avoid scheduling things back-to-back or trying to fit too much into one day. All too often, we underestimate how long things might take. If you are handling a big project, break it into smaller steps. If a large project seems overwhelming, make a step-by-step plan. Focus on one manageable

step at a time, rather than trying to focus on everything at once.

Emotional labor Psychologists who work in organizations and study stress in the workplace often use the term ‘emotional labor’ to describe the cost for the workers whose job requires them to “be nice” regardless of how they might be feeling. Being nice is a part of most of the jobs out there, but for some, it's the main requirement. People who work in service occupations have to put on a pleasant demeanor in front of the public, whether it is a waiter at a five-star hotel, an air hostess, a car salesman, or a receptionist.

Workplaces can be quite stressful for people with ‘emotional labor’.

One of the biggest stressors in life is to act like a person who you are not. Staying in denial of your true identity and always making efforts to please others can take a toll on you in the long term. Moreover, living in conflict with yourself can be highly stressful. When you wake up every day and spend your time trying to pretend to maybe please people or just because your job requires you to, you tend to build frustration in yourself that makes you lose interest in things you once enjoyed or desire to do.

Stress also means to emphasize. Stress- either eustress or distress, is not entirely caused by external situations such as job pressure or conflict at home. It is caused as much, or more by how we interpret our situation. , the dictionary meaning of stress is ‘to emphasize.’ Sometimes we need to emphasize so that we focus on the majors in life. We will persist because our eye is on the prize. Still, if

we are experiencing distress, we are not likely happy, healthy, or performing at our best.

Resilience is ultimately about having control over our lives, in the sense that we can make the right decisions, stick to things that we are committed to. It means to persevere till we succeed. Thus, it means that no ghosts from our past, present, or from our coming future should have any power over us. We shall be in charge of not only the present moment but also the future while we make the best use of everything.

We cannot change the challenges or the effects of the traumatic events that we’ve endured. Neither can we change the family we were born into, nor the way we or any other person acted in the past with us? But all we can do today is begin, today itself, to write a brand new ending to our life story. We are truly the authors of our lives. And knowing that, my dear friend, is what will make us resilient in the first place.



Watch RESILIENCE DOCUMENTARY SERIES on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY0i4iB0Rp4&list=PLbIVyP8mpP5vTFx3MPEPI3dPY1ha-OAH

References and books:

1. Learned Helplessness & Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman 2. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl 3. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim C. Collins 4. Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! By Robert Schuller 5. When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner 6. The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them by David Richo 7. The Flipside by Adam J. Jackson 8. Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach 9. Grit: The Power of ion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth 10. The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin 11. Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To by Sian Beilock 12. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

About the Author

Paul Robinson is a prolific author, India’s leading motivational speaker and a business strategist. He has written 14 audio books and books in the field of management and human potential development. He writes, talks and researches on areas like peak performance, leadership, marketing, sales, entrepreneurship and innovation. As a business strategist and consultant Paul develops winning strategies for Small and Medium Enterprises to thrive and succeed in changing times. As a keynote speaker Paul has addressed diverse audience and clientele including several Fortune 500 companies. Many of Paul’s work is made into documentary films. Know more about Paul Robinson www.paulrobinson.in