Resilience: The Hidden Superpower We All Need

A few years ago my Grandma and I started writing a book together. Every week she would receive an email with a question about her life and then she would record her answer and have my cousin Shawn email the recording to me. I transcribed over 50 answers to a variety of questions to create a quasi-autobiography about her life.

I learned a lot about my Grandmother, her life, and our country over the past nine decades. As the weeks went by and I heard more stories about her life, I began to see patterns. She lived a joyous life and experienced many incredible things, but what I learned most is that my Grandmother's life required an immense amount of resilience. In other words, she was constantly proving her ability to bounce back from setbacks.

At nine years old she lost her older sister who died of a head injury while playing in the street with other kids. She told me she went to school the very next day and that she had to grow up fairly quickly to help take care of the rest of her siblings after that.

When she was 17, she found out her brother had passed away storming the beaches of Normandy in World War 2. Her father took it particularly hard, and again, she stepped up to help fill in when his grief seemed to overwhelm him.

Later in life, an employee of their poultry operation falsified paperwork with the EPA which led the failure of their business. Stressed, angry, and depressed, she started baking bread and pies at home. People began buying these goods and eventually it blossomed into a full-blown commercial bakery.

As I recorded these stories, I was astonished at the sheer resilience Grandma demonstrated. At one point I asked her, "How did you muster the ability to keep going after all of these tragedies?"

She paused a moment and then said, "I'm not sure it's an ability, but a community. I never had to go through any of that alone."

Most of us are taught resilience is an internal skill that we call upon when life's hardships strike, but we know now that theory is incomplete. Harvard Business Review's has new research tells us that resilience is also heavily enabled by strong relationships and community.

A strong community can remind us of our purpose, help us laugh at ourselves and see levity in heavy situations, provide us self-confidence to advocate for ourselves, and give us the courage to keep moving forward.

Resilience is less about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and more about reaching a hand out knowing our community will help us up.

We can't be sure when we'll need resilience, but we can be sure we will need it. Don't wait until tragedy strikes to start building a network of people that will pick you up when life gets you down.

Fact

There is evidence that resilience can protect us from physical illness.

Action

Expand your community by welcoming someone new in this month.

Question

Who is your top source of resilience?

Quote

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tzu