Resilience Through Pain and Reflection

I was very fortunate to attend a talk by Jay Shetty. I loved everything he had to say about resilience. In this article, I try to reconstruct his talking points and put in my own words what I learned.

Shetty’s Definition of Resilience

In his presentation, Jay Shetty defined resilience as the skill to quickly recover from difficult times. He went on to say that resilience means the skill to understand, process, navigate and manage pain effectively. I made note of that fact that he referred to resilience as a skill. In my mind, this means that resilience has to be learned and then practiced, just like any other competency, and strengthened, just like any other muscle.

Shetty also made the point that people think they are resilient when in fact they are not. He explained that research shows that as many as 83% of those questioned responded that they were resilient, but when they took the resilience test, only 57% passed!

The Relationship Between Resilience and Pain

According to Shetty, pain can be our greatest teacher if we know how to learn from it. Although typically we do everything in our power to avoid pain, we all know it happens, just as life happens. Because experiencing pain at some point in our lives is inevitable, the best we can do is develop the skills, just as we develop muscles, so that we can manage, navigate and learn from pain.

In his talk, Shetty referred to Ray Dalio, an American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager who founded Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund. He authored Principles: Life & Work which was published in 2017.  It became a New York Times #1 bestseller and Amazon's #1 business book of 2017.   In one section of the book, Dalio explains that pain + reflection = progress. While pain demands that we pay attention to it, most of us either avoid it, distract ourselves from it or numb ourselves to it.  But, he says, if we choose to reflect, we can rapidly grow and evolve, helping those around us do the same.

Reflecting on Pain

It is hard to be reflective when we are in pain, but we must get to the point that allows us to do so.  Reflection helps us achieve perspective, gratitude, and resilience. Dalio proposes three ways to reflect on pain: learn with drive, lead with humility, and leave a legacy. 

Learn: Ask yourself, “What have I learned that I value more and what have I learned that I value less” from the pain. 

Lead:  A leadership role always plays a part of our lives in some ways, whether it’s in a business or family setting.  As leaders, we shold not forget what our aspirations are, even when we are in pain.  We can still discover ways to learn during pain, and we can find some value or goal that we still want to strive for.  So, we must hold onto the vision that we want to attain to help us push through. Ask yourself, What’s your vision to inspire others?

Legacy: Think about how you want to be remembered and what you want to be remembered for.  How do you want your children and grandchildren remember you?  If you can get through this now, how do you want to make an impact in the future?

Next, we get a perspective on resilience from Sheryl Sandburg. Stay tuned!