Adversity and Recovery
On Taboos and Mindset
“The more challenging or threatening the situation or context to be assimilated and affirmed, the greater the stature of the person who can achieve it. The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.” — Joseph Campbell
To hear a deeper discussion on the following topics, listen to:
The Mission Daily Episode 35: Adversity is the Human Condition
If the lessons of trauma and adversity throughout history have taught us anything, it’s this: trauma is horrible — but it’s an opportunity to become something more.
The Power Behind Adversity
Every adversity that we face — every struggle, challenge, or attack from an enemy — holds the key to an equivalent advantage. Sometimes the disruption and pain of adversity is so great that it’s only after years, and with the help of a coach, that we’re able to fully realize the value and scope of the equivalent advantage.
In extreme cases of growth following adversity, psychologists coined the term “post traumatic growth.” What psychologists missed was that all of life that evolves and chooses to be mission-driven has endured trauma. We’re all proof of some type of post traumatic growth. In many ways, this type of growth after adversity is more accurately called, “accelerated learning.” Struggle in life is guaranteed. This article is about arming you with a new mindset about growth after trauma.
“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile.” –Nassim Taleb
There are many techniques to speed up our own learning and growth. Among the three most powerful are coaching, meditation, and mindfulness. Coaching doesn’t refer to therapy or an outside person. The type of coaching I’m talking about is becoming a positive coach for ourselves. It’s about becoming a voice inside our own heads that is relentlessly positive. The same goes for meditation and mindfulness. We don’t have to look outside for guidance. In order to gain a mission-driven life, we must explore and experiment in all three areas of our own lives.
Coaching: It’s Not Therapy, It’s Becoming Our Own Best Friend
In business, technology, and entrepreneurship, there is a code word for therapists; they’re called coaches. Top performers hire coaches for help in every aspect of their lives. We should never let any negative associations around therapy or coaching stop us from reaching out to experts. If we think of this as “getting help,” it can be debilitating psychologically. It’s not getting help as much as it is investing in ourselves. It’s not admitting weakness to seek out an expert.
The most important thing about this is that it’s completely accepted in the top echelons of the business world. Silicon Valley has made finding a coach (instead of a therapist) just a part of the weekly routine.
There’s no shame in becoming the best version of ourselves, by any means possible, which includes hiring and firing coaches as we see fit. But the most important shift we can make is by becoming our own coach. If we can lovingly guide, talk, and encourage ourselves, we never have to look outside to an external source of approval. Sometimes we may have to get started outside ourselves, but we should always be working to become our own best friend.
To become a better coach to yourself, write out the three most negative things you’ve thought to or about yourself. Now, write the opposite statement. Find ways that the opposite statement is either true or false. List out ways you could make the opposite (positive) statement true. The next time a negative thought about yourself comes up, acknowledge it, and then repeat the positive one several times. We’re often most forgiving and patient with others. By becoming a better coach to ourselves, we’ll begin to see and benefit from the constant companionship.
Mindfulness
“But let me explain to you that it’s the culture that teaches us that we have no control.” –Dr. Ellen Langer
The oldest and most widely used way to transform stress into benefit is through mindfulness. This simply means watching our thoughts as they arise. Try to feel detached from those thoughts and don’t identify with them. They are just thoughts. They are not you. Watch them arrive, and acknowledge each one, let them go, and select the ones you want. This is a simple practice, but like every positive habit, it can be challenging to implement.
Great teachers and leaders have referred to mindfulness as “being present” or being “in prayer and worship at every moment.” What they are all talking about is simply noticing what goes on in our minds and recognizing the difference between useful and not useful thoughts. The thoughts, which rise and flood over us second by second, are not us. They are just thoughts and possibilities. When we step back to observe them, we get the power which comes from recognizing entrenched mental habits and patterns. If we don’t seek awareness and practice mindfulness, our brains repetitively churn out worry, stress, and fear.
Mindfulness begins when we take each thought and worry which arises and watch it. Then, label it as useful or not useful. That’s it. No teacher or guru needed.
Meditation
When I first considered meditating, I imagined sitting down and humming or chanting. Of course, this isn’t what meditation is. Mediation can be guided, but it’s really just sitting or lying down, being quiet, observing our thoughts, and focusing on our breathing. Ultimately, like coaching or mindfulness meditation can be whatever you decide for yourself! In my own experience, people who say there is a right or wrong way miss the point. Meditation, like finding your mission, is a personal journey.
More and more CEOs and incredibly successful people–people who have overcome adversity like Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Rupert Murdoch, Mark Bertolini, John Mackey, Rick Rubin, Jeff Weiner, Soledad O’Brian, Russell Simmons, and Arianna Huffington–cite meditation as the primary thing that allowed them to maintain the mindset necessary to push past every obstacle to get what they wanted.
To get started, consider just sitting down for 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes at night. Breathe deeply, and filter thoughts from useful to not useful.
Tools, Apps, and Hardware for Better Meditation
Apps to use to begin meditation and mindfulness practice:
- Headspace: “Meditation made simple”
- Lift: a habit-tracking app. Great for finding a community of others to “lift” us up to meditate or practicing mindfulness.
- Muse: For more guidance, tracking, and proof that we’re doing meditation “right,” I highly recommend the Muse headband. The headband combines with the Muse app to help us monitor, measure, and quantify our meditation.
- Old Faithful: This is one of my favorites. Get a year-long calendar where we can check off every day we’ve meditated. We can use it to track whatever we’re going for, whether it’s getting enough sleep, meditating, eating right, or exercising. It works great when we simply know what we want to accomplish each day. Once we accomplish it, place a little check mark on the day. I use a simple, 365 day calendar from a small design shop called BBT.1
To learn more about overcoming adversity, tune in to:
The Mission Daily Episode 35: Adversity is the Human Condition
