Stronger

George Everly Jr., Dr. Douglas Strouse, Dr. Dennis K. McCormack

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780814436059
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Persönlicher Erfolg

Drawing on the unique perspective of a standout team of authors, this book explores the science behind resilience and explains how you can develop this vital trait for yourself.

Resilient people have learned to bounce back from setbacks and do not hesitate to meet adversity head-on. While others breathe huge sighs of relief when they get to avoid a pressure-filled moment, those strong in resilience live for moments like that and always rise to the occasion. Don't think you have what it takes to excel in those moments? Do you believe that some naturally exude that type of inner strength, and some--such as yourself--just weren't built that way?

Recent studies have shown that the resilience we see so often in first responders, military, and others is something that anyone can build within themselves. Stronger shares the five factors that combine to unlock deep reserves of personal power:

• Active optimism--believe that you can change things for the better
• Decisive action--you can't succeed if you don't take the leap
• Moral compass--face any challenge with clear guiding principles
• Relentless tenacity--try, try again
• Interpersonal support--gain strength from those around you

Today's demanding world calls for a special kind of strength. That strength is within you already!

CHAPTER 1

ACTIVE OPTIMISM AND THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

“In times of conflict or uncertainty there is a special person ready to answer the call; a common person, with an uncommon desire to succeed. I am that person. I stand ready to bring the full spectrum of resources to bear in order to achieve my goals. . . . In the worst of conditions . . . I will not fail.” These words, adapted from the U.S. Navy SEAL Ethos, describe the type of person most of us would like to be. They certainly describe the type of person most businesses want to employ—and rapidly promote. But what do these people have that others don’t?

What is the secret of experiencing extreme adversity and bouncing back stronger than you were before? More than 40 years ago, we set out to try to answer that question. Interestingly enough, setbacks, even failure, are a common experience associated with almost all human endeavors.

Everyone reading this book has faced adversity, and each has failed at least once in life. The issue is neither adversity nor failure per se, but what happens in the wake of adversity when you find yourself in the dark abyss of despair. Successful people fail. Happy people fail. The key doesn’t lie in the nature of the adversity. What really matters is the degree of personal resilience you possess in the wake of the adversity.

PERSONAL RESILIENCE DEFINED

Personal resilience, what we sometimes think of as psychological body armor, is your ability to bounce back, to pick yourself up and try again, and again and again, until you either succeed or decide on a more productive direction. Resilience is your ability to see yourself in the dark abyss of failure, humiliation or depression—and bounce back, not only to where you were before, but to even greater heights of success, happiness, and inner strength. Resilience helps you withstand adversity. Think of it as a form of immunity that helps you make good decisions under pressure, motivates you for the achievement of peak performance, and allows you to bounce back quickly and effectively.

Science has shown that not only can you rebound from adversity and trauma, but you can also grow to be better than you ever were. As George Eliot once noted, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

FIVE FACTORS OF PERSONAL RESILIENCE

From our research we concluded that successful people share a set of five core factors that equip them with personal resilience. Just as a suit of physical body armor protects the wearer from physical injury, it seems to us that a suit of psychological body armor can protect you against psychological distress and emotional injury. We believe that our five factors of personal resilience enable people, organizations, and even entire communities to withstand or rebound from adversity. They enable us to see opportunity in crisis. In psychologically toxic environments, they enable us to grow stronger.

Our goal for this book is to share with you the five factors of personal resilience and to show you ways you can develop this psychological body armor for yourself and foster it in others. While we have written about our preliminary findings on this topic in scientific and more readily accessible formats, this book represents our sometimes startling new conclusions, honed through more than four decades of research and experiential refinement.

Our five factors of personal resilience are:

1. Active Optimism. Optimism is more than a belief, it’s a mandate for change. It’s the inclination to move forward when others are retreating. This mandate can be so strong that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But to do so it must lead to . . .

2. Decisive Action. Optimism is not enough. You must be decisive and act in order to rebound. As Clare Boothe Luce observed, “Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.” You must acquire the courage to make difficult decisions. Making hard decisions is easier when it is based upon a . . .

3. Moral Compass. Use honor, integrity, fidelity, and ethical behavior to guide your decisions under challenging circumstances. Once your decisions have been implemented, employ . . .

4. Relentless Tenacity, Determination. Persistence can be omnipotent. As comedian Jonathan Winters once quipped, “If your ship doesn’t come, swim out to meet it!” Be persistent, while at the same time knowing when to quit. To find hidden opportunities and aid in physical and psychological energy, rely upon . . .

5. Interpersonal Support. Who has your back?

BIOLOGICAL BASES OF HUMAN RESILIENCE

In order to appreciate the power of human resilience it might be helpful to understand its foundations. It may surprise you to learn that resilience as we have just defined it has biological foundations as well as psychological ones. So let’s take a quick look at the biology of resilience.

In 1975, neurologist Paul MacLean coined the term triune brain to describe its three functional levels: The neocortex is the most sophisticated component of the human brain, representing its highest functioning level. Not only does the neocortex interpret sensory signals, communications, and gross proprioceptive-based control of motor (musculoskeletal) behaviors, but part of it—the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)—presides over imagination, logic, decision making, problem solving, planning, apprehension, and, most important, the interpretation of experience. It is the vmPFC that labels an experience (real or imagined) as threatening, punishing, or rewarding. It finds solutions to problems, it sees the opportunity in danger, and it sees the glass as half full rather than half empty. Based on the nature of the interpretation of experience, the vmPFC then activates the second level of the triune brain: the limbic system.

The limbic system is relevant in any discussion of stress and resilience because of its role as the human brain’s emotional control center. The limbic system is believed to be just that, a system, consisting of numerous highly connected neural structures, for example, the hypothalamus, hippocampus, septum, cingulate gyrus, and the amygdala. The amygdala is the primary anatomic center for fear, anger, trauma, and aggression. It’s also the center of the fight-or-flight response, a term coined by psychologist Walter Cannon in 1915. The amygdala serves as the primary survival mechanism in the human body. Thus, it’s a key anatomic component in the biology of resilience.

The brain stem and spinal cord represent the lowest level of the triune brain. The major functions of this level are the maintenance of so-called vegetative roles such as heartbeat, respiration, vasomotor activity, and the conduction of impulses to many higher levels of the brain. The spinal cord represents the central pathway for neurons as they conduct signals to and from the brain. The brain stem is the basic engine that drives the machinery of the human body.

Human resilience represents a most elegant and ongoing dance between the vmPFC and the amygdala. When faced with danger, the vmPFC activates the amygdala so as to prepare you to fight, flee, or otherwise resolve the threat. Highly resilient people appear to be able to effectively regulate the amygdala so as to benefit from its activation but then allow it to quickly recover its baseline activity. This process of recovery to a steady state is what Cannon called “the reestablishment of homeostasis.”

Consequently, the bodies of resilient people are supercharged with moderate increases in hormones such as adrenalin, noradrenalin, gamma-Aminobutyric acid, neuropeptide Y and cortisol, which allow you to do “superhuman” things for short periods of time. When these hormones surge, your strength and perception increase, your memory improves, your eyesight may get better, your tolerance for pain increases, and you react to stimuli faster. In other words, you’re better prepared to meet any challenge successfully.

The person who is not resilient experiences homeostatic failure, during which the vmPFC interpretations either overstimulate or understimulate the limbic system. The result of overstimulation can be anxiety, panic attacks, confusion, reduced problem-solving capacity, irritability, anger, even violence (for example, road rage, airline rage), and seizures. The result of understimulation may be hopelessness, depression, resentment, and a lack of motivation. With highly frequent or chronic overstimulation the amygdala can develop a state of chronic hypersensitivity at the cellular level. Amygdaloid nerve cells literally become highly irritable and will overrespond to experiences that would have not otherwise caused excitation. It’s like having 10 cups of coffee.

So the key to developing resilience at the biological level is to train your brain to regulate its downstream physiology and to interpret experience in such a manner that activation occurs so as to increase performance, but also allows for rapid homeostasis. Research has shown that neuropeptide Y, a neurotransmitter, can be enhanced by resilience training. Changing psychological attitudes is the key. The most powerful attitude of all may be optimism.

SELF-ASSESSMENTS

Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military strategist, wrote, “He who knows the enemy and himself will never in a hundred battles be at risk.” So let’s start by getting to know you a little better. In each chapter of this book, we have included a simple resilience self-assessment so you can assess just how many elements of personal resilience (psychological body armor) you already have. These self-assessments can serve several purposes:

• They will give you a quick snapshot of the current status of each of our five factors of resilience.

• They can serve as a resilience monitor that can help you assess the impact of stressful life events that might occur.

• They will help you see what impact your efforts have had in increasing your personal resilience as you begin to implement the prescriptions in this book.

SELF-ASSESSMENT #1

Directions: Circle the answer that best describes how strongly you agree with the following statements.

1. I am truly thankful for the positive things in life.

1—Strongly disagree

2—Disagree

3—Agree

4—Strongly agree

2. I hope that my life will be happy and rewarding.

1—Strongly disagree

2—Disagree

3—Agree

4—Strongly agree

3. I expect life to be positive and rewarding.

1—Strongly disagree

2—Disagree

3—Agree

4—Strongly agree

4. I do not wait for good things to happen, I make them happen.

1—Strongly disagree

2—Disagree

3—Agree

4—Strongly agree

5. When I encounter challenges and even failures, I know I will be successful in time.

1—Strongly disagree

2—Disagree

3—Agree

4—Strongly agree

This self-assessment is not a clinical diagnostic tool. It is simply a survey designed to motivate you to think about your attitudes concerning optimism. When you’ve completed the survey, add up the numbers next to the answers you have circled. The lowest possible score is 5, and the highest is 20. The higher your score, the more actively optimistic you are likely to be. There will be more on thi...