For years, resilience lived in the same neighborhood as motivational posters featuring mountain climbers and soaring eagles. You know the ones. They suggest that if you just believe in yourself and engage in positive self-talk every morning when you look in the mirror, you’ll somehow enjoy quarterly earnings growth while your supply chain catches fireRead more
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In 1994, when I joined the Navy’s twenty-year follow-up study of the Vietnam prisoners of war and began interviewing former POWs, I expected to hear stories of courage, honor, and survival. What I didn’t expect was laughter. Men who had endured years of torture, isolation, and uncertainty repeatedly described moments of humor that helped themRead more
Most leaders describe resilience as emotional first aid—something applied after damage occurs. That framing misses the point. Resilience functions as leverage, not recovery. Strong leaders don’t rebound; they advance. They expect disruption, prepare for it, and exploit it while others complain about fairness. Adversity doesn’t manufacture victims. Leaders manufacture victimhood when they abdicate responsibility. ResilienceRead more
Posttraumatic growth (PTG) describes the positive change some people experience through sustained struggle with crisis or trauma. This growth does more than restore equilibrium. It propels individuals to levels of functioning they would never have reached without adversity. Research now confirms what practitioners have long observed: humans don’t merely recover from trauma—they can leverage it.Read more
People are always asking me how to become more resilient. Actually, they’re not. They’re usually asking things like, “Where’s the restroom?” or, “Could this meeting have been an email?” But every now and then someone asks, “How can I become more resilient?” The answer is surprisingly simple: stop expecting life to cooperate. Mike Tyson supposedlyRead more
