THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Habits of Highly Resilient People w/ Dr. Taryn Marie

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

If there's ever been a time when we needed a boost in RESILIENCY, it's now.Let's face it—divorce, health issues, financial crises, and other major challenges can really knock us down, both emotionally and physically. We can't avoid the punches, setbacks, and unexpected losses that leave us feeling devastated for what seems like forever.But here's the smart move: learn how to manage these curveballs with an OPTIMAL RESILIENCE MINDSET.This week, I have the privilege of speaking with the incredible resilience expert, DR. TARYN MARIE. Dr. Marie discovered that resilience was the key to healing and minimizing ongoing trauma. Her work as the founder of the RESILIENCE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE and author of the NY TIMES best-selling book, THE FIVE PRACTICES OF HIGHLY RESILIENT PEOPLE, has made her a sought-after keynote speaker and a favorite among podcast listeners.Get ready to soak up some wisdom as we explore:Unveiling the true essence of resiliencyHow CHALLENGE, CHANGE, and COMPLEXITY are intertwined with resilienceDebunking the 5 Myths of Resilient PeopleThe power of creating a REVERSE BUCKET LISTNavigating the tricky terrain of vulnerability and overcoming SHAME BIASHarnessing the strength of PRODUCTIVE PERSEVERANCEA deep dive into the world of GRITUncovering the habits and characteristics of resilient individualsRituals that cultivate a RESILIENT LIFEBut that's not all—we also delve into crucial conversations about equipping parents with the tools to raise resilient children and reflecting on the messages our older selves should have imparted to our younger selves.Here's the bottom line: When we embrace vulnerability, thoughtfulness, and perseverance, we equip ourselves with the essential tools to lead resilient lives. Get ready to transform your mindset and unleash your resilience!  

This is the end mileage, shall. If there's a time in our culture we need to know more about resiliency, it's right now. I'm a big believer that it's one of the most important personality traits to having a blissful and successful life is the ability to learn to be resilient. And then this lady comes along in my life and I'm like, I've got to expose her work to the world because she's been doing this work for so long. And so my guest today has a new book out called The Five Practices of Highly Resilient People. Why some flourish when others fold. And that is something we really are going to need to know a lot more of during this time. So Dr.

Teran Marie Stayskull, welcome to the show. Finally, it's great to have you here. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor and I'm delighted to be here as your guest. Yeah. Well, you're going to help a lot of people today because there's going to need to be even more resiliency inside people's spirits over the next three or four or five years, just to navigate the world that we're entering right now.

And you have a really interesting story. I think it's probably important when someone's great at something. I always wanted to know why are they great at this? Was there some catalyst? Was there an event that says, this is gonna be part of your life's work? And in your case, resiliency was sort of something that landed on your plate.

And you talk about that in the book like that's actually more common than not. But tell everybody the story of where you had to learn your first lesson about resilience. Cause it's really, it's pretty emotional and something everybody I think will be remembered. Yeah, absolutely. So I think something important to start with here, and this has come out of my work, is this idea that resilience is really the essence of what it means to be human. And that's a powerful place for us to start, I think, Ed, because so often we've talked about

resilience as being something that's outside of ourselves. Something we've got to go find, something we've got to cultivate. For some people, there's this sense of dread around resilience, right? Like it sounds like a nice idea, but then the closer I get, am I going to be found out? Am I like a resilience imposter? Do I not have enough resilience? So there's a sort of an ambivalence, I think, for some people around resilience. So I think we get to start in this place

foundationally of saying, actually, resilience is the essence of what it means to be human. And it lives within all of us. And we don't have to go out and find it, cultivate it. And I know that because for you and for everyone listening, we've lived through every disappointment, every loss, every turn of events, every crisis, every health diagnosis, and we're still here.

Do you think people have a resistance to it because they're like, well, if I have to have resiliency, that means adversity is gonna come my way. And I'd rather just have a life where I live in this space of disbelief that there's actually gonna be adversity come my way regularly and constantly in my life. Mmm, that's, I love that question. So another foundational element of this is this idea that challenge, change, and complexity are the three C's are actually the fabric of what it means to be human. It's not the exception to the rule.

It's part of what it means to live as a human. And I think once we think about resilience as being the essence of who we are, it lives within us. It's not something that we can be wanting or we have to go out and find. And then when we say, okay, the three Cs, are actually the fabric of what it means to be human,

then we get to stop feeling bad. Every time adversity shows up in our lives because we think we should be more strategic, we should be more visionary, we should be more thoughtful, we should make better decisions, right? Yes. Or we think, gosh, I thought I was a good person, but all these bad things are happening, so maybe I'm not, right? But then if we say, ah, this is the fabric of what it means a good person, but all these bad things are happening, so maybe I'm not, right? But then if we say, ah, this is the fabric of what it means to be human, so now I get to move beyond this idea of feeling shame or ushamed and embrace the fact that these things are here to teach us.

What was the first thing that taught you? Because this is, let me answer to you, when I knew you were going to be on the show, I prepped like a psycho for my shows. And I could not get this visual picture of this story of this little girl out of my mind. So even when you walked in here and I met you, the first thing I thought about was how proud I am of you of doing the work you do based on where I know sort of even the notion of it was born out of. Yeah, yeah, I love that you shared that. So, you know, you've written a couple of books. This is my first book.

And so this process actually taught me where resilience started. So if you would ask me a year ago, you know, when did this start? I would have talked about my graduate training, you know, my fellowships, the people that I worked with. And in writing this book, I realized that, resilience found me a decade earlier than I had thought. It already lived within me as my essence of being human. And so this all started in essence,

one morning when I was getting dressed before school and and I was a 14-year-old girl, I was in high school, and I had a ground floor bedroom with two windows, and I had my stereo on. I was, you know, playing music. It was dark in the morning in the Midwest. For those of you who don't know what a stereo is, you can see us after. We'll talk to you about VCRs and butter churns. I was even thinking about that. Yeah, we didn't always play music from our phones, just, you know, side note. So I had my stereo playing and it was like the fall. So I had my window cracked and I went over to turn off my stereo and there was this face at the bottom of my window. And so in my 14-year-old mind, I'm like flipping through all of my kind of my experience

rolodex, if you will, like, how do I make sense of what's happening right now? And I thought about this experience with my dad where he'd been outside playing a trick on my brother and I. So I was like, dad? And he was like, take off your clothes, you're beautiful. And I was like, not dead. Not dead. So I had this experience, like, if you watch a horror movie, and it feels like everything's sort of like closing in, right? So I like, bolt from my room and I'm calling from my parents. We make a police report, and the police officer says to us, you know, essentially Probably nothing to worry about here. Just someone passing through the neighborhood of fluke, right?

So I'm feeling Afraid about this right but every time I feel afraid I remind myself what the police officer said So fast forward about eight months my parents are now out of town. I keep this window where I saw this man in this face like shut tight. There's another window on the other side of my room that faces the back of the house. And so I just tried on some new clothes that I got at the mall, standing in my bedroom naked, and I hear his voice again. And he said, I've been waiting a long time for this.

And that was the moment where three things happened for me. The first thing was my childhood bedroom, which should have been the safest place for me became profoundly unsafe. I was naked in front of a man for the first time. And three, I realized this wasn't a fluke. This was someone who was tracking me, who was targeting me.

So I start to call for help again, right? Because I'm naked. And we had some babysitters staying with us that had two little kids. And for anyone who has little kids, know that the bedtime routine can be kind of crazy. So they were upstairs doing the bedtime routine with their kids, and they couldn't hear me calling for help. And so from outside the window, he says, no one's going to come and help you. And you know what, Ed? He was not wrong.

He was right. So I had this phone in my room, not a cell phone. It was a telephone line. And so I picked up the phone and I called the police myself. And so we went through a few more series of experiences like that. And then when I was a freshman or a sophomore in college, my mom called me and a neighbor of ours had been arrested for brutally assaulting and raping a woman,

another woman in our neighborhood. And while it was never proved out in the court of law that this was the same person, he lived four houses away. And faced across the park, my parents house, the court of law that this was the same person. He lived four houses away. And you know, faced, you know, across the park, my parents house, he came all the times that he came. There were a few more, you know, my parents weren't home. And, you know, I went, I went on and went to graduate school. And in my training as a marriage and family therapist, I was reading the diagnostic criteria

for post-traumatic stress disorder. And I realized, I meet the diagnostic criteria for this. This is me. Hmm. Who would have thought that that moment of some resilience when you're this little girl, really still a young girl, would lead to like what's gonna be a New York Times best selling book,

it's led to you coaching all these different people in the corporate space on leadership and being more functional in these different things. When I'm wondering, when I see somebody, sometimes, I always go, man, they're one of the most resilient people I've ever met. But based on what you said, you're saying this resilience lies within all of us.

This is important for someone to hear. I think so. And so this person isn't necessarily more resilient than somebody else, but what you're suggesting, because this is really awesome, if it's true, is that what they've done is they just tapped into their resiliency to an extent greater than another person that I know. Meaning there's they don't have a superhuman trait about them. They've been able to tap into it or access something that exists within all of us to an extent better than other people. True. True. Okay. That should give everybody hope as they go through difficulties in their life.

And there's a lot of these myths about resilient people. In the chapter two of the book, I'm not going to give away the whole book, but it's a beefy enough book that we can cover a lot today. I still need to get the book. You say there's five myths and truths about resilient people. What are those? Well, I'm glad that you asked that. I mean, there's a number of them, right? I think one of the first myths that's incredibly profound. And I think for a lot of people like this can be worth the price of admission, right? Like if you just grab this from the book or from our conversation today, it can change your whole life. Because the way that we've thought about resilience in the past is we have thought that resilience means for us to be unchanged, right, for us to be tough on and away, to not allow things

in. And so what we've done linguistically, at least in the English language, is we've made resilience synonymous with bouncing back, with going back to a prior state, right? Now, I'm reading your book, right? The power of one more. And you've got such great neuroscience in your book, and you talk about neuroplasticity, right? So I would imagine that your listeners are familiar with this. For people who have read even one article on neuroplasticity, we know that our brains are constantly regenerating,

rewiring, regrouping relative to our neural connections, based on every experience we have. So if we are fundamentally and forever changed by every experience, just you and I having this interview, why would we ever think that when something so big and so magnificent, exactly, as challenged that we would go back? Now that's profound.

Now you really got me thinking, because that's exactly what you think. You're going to go back. Okay, give me a truth about resilient people. Sure. So the myth there is that we bounce back. Yeah. The truth is that we bounce forward. You know, the definition that I've cultivated around resilience, it's simple, right? It's facing the three C's, challenge change and complexity, and allowing ourselves to be enhanced ultimately by those experiences versus being diminished, right? And then, you know, that definition is also powerful because of what we don't see or read there, right? The first thing is like quickly recover. So often we think about

like the first person who's back to work after a tragedy or the first kind of store that reopens after a catastrophic weather event or the first person who's going back, quote unquote, to their normal lives. And in fact, some of the most resilient people that I interviewed in my work were the people that took longer to integrate what actually happened. Yeah, I read that. This is so good. Yeah.

And so I think that's important too, because there's so much pressure on us to be okay. And to recognize it's okay, not to be okay, you know, and to recognize like it's okay, not to be okay. It's okay to take the time that we need to integrate whether it's a loss or something shocking or catastrophic to be able to integrate those things into our lives. So one of the myths, right, is that we bounce back, that we're unaffected, right? The truth is we bounce forward. We take the wisdom, we take the empathy, we take the experience, the knowledge, the strength,

and we go forward and we create a new version of ourselves. Really profound. Thank you. I'll tell you why. Regularly in my work or just friends, maybe they've gone through a divorce. And they're like, I really lost myself in this relationship. I'm gonna go back to who I was before. And it's really your work proves that's really not what should happen. What should happen is you should grow from this experience

forward into an even better and different version of you. And this, I think sometimes the reason people say go back, or even if they've had a business that's failed, you know what, I'm just gonna go back to what I was doing before. And the reason is is that they can hide back there. And they really haven't taken from the experience. God gave you this experience to teach you a new lesson, a new insight, a new emotion, a new breakthrough. To go backwards is to defeat the entire purpose for having the event take place in your life in the first place. And I got to tell you

something, you're going to really help me with the work that I do with other people because I've never really, I know you're right, but I've never seen it stated that way. And this notion of getting back quickly, you talk about that too in the book. I just want to acknowledge things that are just brilliant when I hear them. But sometimes it's our, we think the extent of our resiliency is how quickly we reply to something or respond to something or theoretically recover and not always is that necessarily the most important thing to do. And I want to acknowledge that. So I'm driving out here this morning. I told

my daughter I was interviewing you. I have a couple interviews today. And so we she's just picking my brain on different stuff that I was fascinated by. And I said, one of the coolest things I've listened to are read about in a long time is this notion of a reverse bucket list. And it's a good book, and it's your work. I love that you love this. I do love it.

I love work that's unique and thought-provoking and creates real positive change in people's lives. That's why you're sitting on that seat. And I told my daughter today about the reverse bucket list and I want you to tell everybody else about it. So. Amazing. Well, is this the daughter that did the one more job interview in your book? Yes, that's the same daughter.

Okay, beautiful, beautiful. So I love, I love that. You know that. Yeah, I love that story about her going to the Pizzeria and she got turned down and then she calls you and she's upset and then she doesn't come home and then she calls you again and she's like, well, but I went to the cafe next door and I got hired. And actually she exhibited resilience.

She sure did. She sure did. She tapped into her resilience. I love that. I love that. Okay. So the question is, what's the question again? Reverse bucket list.

Reverse bucket list, there it is. Okay. So reverse bucket list. So when we talked, what's the question again? Reverse bucket list. Reverse bucket list, there it is. Okay. So reverse bucket list. So when we talked about normalizing the experience of challenge change, the three C's complexity earlier, I wanted to think about, how could I create something that would help us normalize challenge, accept challenge, see challenge is more of an opportunity, fuel less ashamed by challenge, write challenge is more of an opportunity, fuel less ashamed by challenge, right, all the things.

And so I got to thinking about in my life, how I started going on some of these bucket list experiences and trips, right? We're all familiar with the bucket list, the pleasurable things that we want to do here, well, we exist on the planet. And I was thinking, these trips are great. Having a lot of fun, I'm doing things that I always wanted to do here, well, we exist on the planet. And I was thinking, you know, these trips are great. Having a lot of fun, I'm doing things

that I always wanted to do, but I didn't feel dramatically enhanced or changed or that I had a bunch of new insights or aha moments after these experiences. And I got to thinking, you know, I learned so much more in the tough times than I did in the Successful or the happy times right on the bucket list trips So I got to thinking well, I bet those challenges would be sort of like a reverse bucket list the opposite right and

So what I began talking with people about is to identify So what I began talking with people about is to identify the challenges, the changes, and the complexities that have happened in our lives, but then to take it one step further with the reverse bucket list and to say, how has this challenge shaped me for the better? How has this challenged, challenged made me into the person that I am today. And to start to be able to connect up this idea of the three C's with being able to be not only fundamentally and forever changed, but for the good. For the good. You know, the reason it some matters and a reason on my daughter to know this young in her life was it reframes adversity in your life. It's what it does. It reframes it. So if

if everything is framed that adversity is somehow a negative thing, then you get anxiety, then you get worried, and then you fear future adversity. You fear these things. Whereas if it's a reverse bucket list thing, it's almost like you embrace it when it appears and you know what it is when you see it. And for me, you know, here I'm at 52 years old, I look back on my life and buy a mile. The things that have shaped and formed who I am are the more difficult and trying times in my life, but maybe more importantly,

what might take a ways were from them. In other words, it's not the events of our life that define us, it's the meaning we take from these events that ultimately define our life. I want everybody to hear that again. It's not the events of your life, it's the meaning you take. And what if when adversity started to hit, you're like, oh, this is just a reverse bucket list item right here. And the meaning begins to mean something.

This is a chance to be curious to learn, to grow, to tap into my resiliency in a way that is a gift almost in my life. If you use that adversity for the greater good, and that's where it goes to the next part of your book, I feel like I could help do this book with you. Like, I wish I could do the audio book. Wait, are we are we going on tour together? We should. This is be real. Are we taking the show on the road? Well, this is going to go on lots of roads. And by the way, as people are listening, there's lots of roads being driven and they're sharing it already. I can tell you that because the other thing that you talk about that's brilliant is I want to let you just attack this at the same time. The practice of vulnerability combined with what you would call shame bias and why sometimes

there isn't vulnerability because there's a shame bias in our life. And so when adversity hits, you know, I've been, I've lost my job. I had a business at failed. I embarrassed myself over here. My bankruptcy divorce, whatever that thing may be. Or even sometimes even an assault, something sometimes people in their life think I brought this on or whatever it might be, there's the shame attached with it. And one of the things you talk about is the practice of

vulnerability. So it actually makes this event for the greater good and everybody can grow from the adversity that you face. So I'll let you talk about it. I have so many things to say about this. I love it so much. Well, let me connect it up with something that I heard in your book first, that I have also said publicly. I think it's a really powerful element. And I think it moves us out of being,

I think it moves us out of feeling victimized by challenge, and into an actor with agency. And so the thing that you say in your book is you talk about just changing the narrative, changing the language, and it's one word. It's changing the language from, why is this happening to me? Right? I'm a passive recipient of what's happening. So why is this happening for me?

Meaning what am I meant to learn? What is this meant to teach me? So I love that you share that. One of the things that I've talked about, you're welcome. One of the things that I've talked about is this idea of story and narrative, right? So our story is the series of events that have happened to us over time, right? The narrative is the story that we tell about the story. Very good. Yeah.

This is good. So I can look on, you know, just, we'll use me for an example, right? I can look on that experience with the stalker and the events that happened and the development of PTSD and the interplay with my parents and how supported or unsupported, you know, that I felt in that moment. And I can tell myself a lot of different narratives about what happens. And I think real power, you know, real sense of self-efficacy comes from being intentional about the narrative that we write, right? So we

can't change the things that happen to us. We're not responsible for the things that happen to us. I'm not responsible for this experience with the stalker. Healing is my responsibility. It's not my fault what happened. Healing is my responsibility, right? And so part of healing is looking at the story, looking at that series of events and saying, what narrative, what story about the story do I want to tell myself about that? And so I have, I can't change the events that happened, but I can tell myself a story that becomes my narrative, that becomes true about my own sense of strength, my own sense of resilience, how I was able to thwart him breaking into the house or coming any further, how I was able

to take care of myself in a moment when I didn't feel like anyone else was showing up for me and how I sought treatment and help for the PTSD that I had developed as a result. So good. And the reason it matters is that once you've created this, by the way, I love the distinction between story and narrative, the reason it matters is that

this narrative drives your perspective. So in your life, the particular activating system, which I talk about in the book, once you have, you believe something deeply, your mind is going to go to prove you right. It's going to find the people, places and things and circumstances that prove you to be right. You will literally begin to see here and feel these things. And so that narrative really matters. And by the way, I think you'd agree with this.

There may be circumstances in your life where you are responsible. And part of the narrative you need to tell yourself is you are responsible for the results in your life. It's important to tell a true story, but the meanings that matter. In other words, if you've consistently had relationships fail, perhaps it's time to look at the narrative and say,

who's the common character in all of these stories? Me. I'm responsible for my parts of these relationships. And so that story, you got to be really, your word is so powerful, I think, is intentional about it. Because one has got to serve you, it's got to empower you, but it's also got to be something that helps grow you. And if you constantly, like in your case, you clearly were not responsible in that situation. But we do have events of our lives where we are responsible and to not accept that as part of our narrative that we never take responsibility.

The business failure wasn't my fault, the relationship with failure wasn't my fault, the fact that I've gained weight isn't my, nothing's my fault, I'm not responsible for anything. That's a narrative a lot of people go through life and they find proof of it to prove their right. A belief is like a table with no legs under it once you have a belief.

And what your mind does is it goes to find the legs under the table to build references so that that table becomes more and more stable. And if you're not careful, eventually that thing can't move. And so that's why this narrative really matters so much. So productive perseverance, I only get to ask you like two more things for the book because I want everybody to get

the book. But productive perseverance is a powerful, powerful concept. So I want you to share that with them. Mm. Thank you for that. So productive perseverance is the intelligent pursuit of a goal. And this is really important for us. Ah, thank you. This is really important for us because I think we've gotten a lot of different messages about this in our society, right? So a lot of people ask me, is resilience the same as grit? Yeah. Yeah. Angela Duckworth's concept of grit. And it isn't, right? Grit is about putting our head down, right, and sort of throwing ourselves head long into creating an outcome and just simply not giving up by dint of our own determination, right?

Productive perseverance is about the art and the science of the intelligent pursuit of a goal. It's knowing when to persist, even when we face challenges, when to be critical, and when in the face of diminishing returns and markers in our environment that we should pivot in a new direction, or even fold up the tent and quit, right?

And something important to mention here about grit, is that grit works really well, like putting our head down in environments that don't substantially change. So if you wanna become a Navy SEAL, if you wanna win the national spelling bee, if you wanna graduate from the Naval Academy, right? It's really great to be gritty,

because you're gonna follow sort of a formulaic series of tests and then come to your outcome at the end. But we also know a lot of companies that were super gritty and still failed. Sure. Right? I mean, even the, you know, examples that I think come to mind for everyone, Blockbuster and Blackberry. Right, they were super gritty. They were in it for the long haul. It's just that the environment moved and changed around them. And so the opposite side of this is looking at how our environment is shifting and changing around us.

What are the disruptors? What's the volatility that's occurring? And to be able to kind of balance our goals and our determination and our grittiness with what's happening externally and to continue to check in and be in this constant moment of balance. By the way, that's brilliant because there is this, I think we're in a culture that really emphasizes grit all the time. It's really the thing, hostile culture, grind culture, grit culture, which by the way, without you're probably not gonna become very successful.

So it's super critical. But I think often like I've got a chance to play a lot of golf or previously with Wayne Gretzky over the years, he's definitely the different sports you can debate who the goat is and hockey. There's really no debate. It's really not. It's really Wayne.

And one of the things. He's the only person we quote. Wait, right. He's going to be the one. He's going to be the one. He's going to be the one. That's exactly right. And that's the exact point the only person we quote, we're right. Right. Right. He's going to where the puck is going. That's exactly right. And that's, that's the exact point you're making. Mm hmm. Is that you can get so gritty. There's a lot of gritty players. But only one was great at skating to where the puck was going. And that's because

he was doing it in an intelligent way. He wasn't just grinding just gritty. And you're a million percent right as who I was thinking of initially and that exact quote. It's amazing that you read my mind on that. So what are some practices, habits, rituals, practices that people who tap into the resilient? I think I need to stop saying resilient people because you're saying people are resilient. It's people that tap into it that express that part of themselves better. What are some of their normal habits or routines or rituals do you think? Yeah, overall. Yeah.

So if we go back to the practice of vulnerability for a moment and just kind of unpack that and the vulnerability bias associated with that. So when I realized, when I was interviewing hundreds of people about how they had effectively faced challenge change and complexity and created a more productive outcome. I was incredibly convicted by the fact that one of those practices emerged as vulnerability. Because I had thought going through something traumatic and difficult,

like I'm just going to be invulnerable, right? I've got this like full layer of shellac and I'm just going to like engage andnerable, right? I've got this like full layer of shellac and I'm just going to like engage and I know we don't like this word. I'm going to engage in perfection and nobody's going to see any flaws and like that's how I was living my life. And then when I realized that vulnerability was really the foundation to resilience, I thought, oh my gosh, I get to change the way that I'm living. And so after sort of the word resilience, which you and I have delved into, I think vulnerability is the next most misunderstood kind of concept here. Because so often we think that vulnerability is like putting it all out there, you know, showing everybody everything, being completely transparent, maybe even being self-deprecating or putting ourselves down, like, you know, I'm in middle school again, and I'm going to point out all the things that I'm uncomfortable with before anybody else does. Okay. Vulnerability is about allowing our inside self,

our thoughts, our feelings, our experience to as closely as possible match the outside self that we share with the world. Mm. Right? That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. So, you know what we call that in psychology, right? We call that congruence, yeah? Because when our inside self, our thoughts, feelings, and experiences is dramatically dissimilar from the outside self that we're sharing with the world, there's two things that are happening in that moment of challenge that are really detrimental.

The first one is we're really running two different operating systems at the same time, right? Inside our human body. I've got what's really going on for me, vulnerably, honestly. And then I've got the facade that I'm trying to keep up and share with the world, you know. So now in a moment of challenge where we need our resilience, we're actually burning energy, energetic capital twice as fast, because because we got one self running in parallel to another self that we're sharing with the world. So bringing those

two selves together as closely as we can into a sense of congruence, that's not only going to save energy. The second part of that is when we're able to be vulnerable, and we don't have to be vulnerable with everyone, right? But with the people and in the circumstances that we believe will be safe to express at that next level, when people really know what's going on with us, then we get the support, the information, the resources that we most need in those moments of adversity. You know what? That's a really interesting point. When I'm doing the show, I always reflect on myself and one of the things I always get a lot of credit for,

and I don't know that I should, is vulnerability. Like, well, you're really vulnerable. Like, I'm surprised that you share the things you share because you don't have to or whatever. But there's another part of me that thinks, as I've gotten older, I'd like to have more authentic vulnerability, which is what you just described. And I don gotten older, I'd like to have more authentic vulnerability, which is what you just described. And I don't know that I exhibit that enough, meaning I think

a lot of times as people, we just sort of play a character a little bit. Like there's the one that we want everybody to think we are. And then there's the one that we are. And as I get closer to whatever part of my life and whether I'm in the middle or the third or fourth quarter, I don't know. I could just tell you all, like I don't wanna get off this planet having nobody really known who I was.

And the more that you're willing to express who you really are, I believe the more you get to know who you really are. This game we play of hiding from people are real emotions or experience or thoughts or desires or just our real emotions or experience or thoughts or desires or just our real personality, the further we move away from knowing ourself, and one of the real gifts of vulnerability

with other people is I think you become more understanding of you internally. I think that's one of the secret, quiet, invisible gifts of a vulnerability is much more knowledge of oneself. And that's really, now we're getting deep, but that's really the journey here. That's why faith matters.

That's why vulnerability matters. That's why having adversity and tapping into your resilience matters. Like this life is about self-expression, but it's also becoming about self-awareness and self-under. Who am I? Why do I matter?

What does this mean? What do I mean? What's my purpose? And the more you, if you have the symptoms of, I'm struggling with what my purpose is. I'm struggling with the emotions I want. I'm struggling with knowing what I want to do with my life or finding my dream or being happy.

Those are symptoms probably of the disease of not truly living who you are. You can't love yourself if you're not being yourself. And you can't expect other people to love you if you don't love you. And so the first step is to begin to truly be yourself and get to know you a little bit better. And I know that maybe off the topic of resilience,

but it's not off the topic of life. And I think you're tap. You're not off topic at all. Thank you. I'm really glad to hear that because you make me think when you speak and when I read You're writing and I want people when they listen to the show ask yourself. Are you really being yourself? Like day-to-day? Are you really being yourself? And if you're not

That's the disease. What are the symptoms? The symptoms are I don't love myself enough. I don't have close enough relationships I'm not sure about my path, my purpose or my passions or I've got procrastination in my life or whatever it might be, a lack of joy. That's because you're not being yourself. Get to know you better. Start to be you. Stop hiding you. The shame, this idea, this shame bias that you talk about, this lack of vulnerability is a real thing. Now, I'm gonna pronounce it probably wrong, but what is grat theocity? That's it, right? You did, you said it great.

You said it great. This is the only way, I only get to ask two more things in the book because I don't wanna ask you all, you'd let me ask everything. But grat theocity is a concept that's the second thing that I shared with my daughter this morning, those were my two, my two takeaways. So I want you to share it with them. Awesome. Okay, I wanna share the concept of's the second thing that I shared with my daughter this morning. Those are my two. My two take away. So I want you to share it with them.

Awesome. Okay. I want to share the concept of gradiosity. And I wonder if it would be okay if I also responded to what you just said about getting to know yourself. A billion percent, yes. Awesome. You both. Yay. So you talked about this idea of like getting to know ourselves, to love, you know, love ourselves. I want say a couple of things about that. So in the book, I talk about the integration of self, right? And how we can reject or parse out parts of ourselves that we don't accept, right? Kind of wall off these parts of ourselves.

And so I think part of self-love and self-acceptance is about loving and integrating all parts of our selves, right? And you met my boyfriend right before this interview. Mike. Yes. Boston Mike. Boston Mike. And I asked him permission if I could share the story. And we were talking about, should I say it's a client?

Should I, you know, but I'm gonna say that's, you know, he's put on this tremendous fitness journey, right? And as anyone knows who's been on a transformative fitness journey, the gains and the changes that we see on the outside are really nothing compared to the gains and the changes that happen on the inside, right?

And what it means to really change and transform our lives. And so he was showing me the side by side comparison, right? And he told me that he didn't like that guy from the past, right? And he said some things that were unkind about himself. And I said, you can't do that. You can't say those things about that guy. Because four months ago, that was the guy that made the changes that got you here. That was the guy who believed in what was possible for your life. You know, to borrow your language who believed in trying something one more time, who believed in going to the gym,

who believed in creating a life that was dramatically different than what existed. There was no evidence that the life that he dreamed of and wanted to create four months ago existed. That's beautiful. But yet here it is today. And I said, you can't shame that guy. You got to love that guy.

You get to love that guy because that guy started you on the journey. Had the courage to say, I'm going to do this. That brought you here. What a huge lesson for everybody to listen to. Yeah, not shaming your form or self. Yeah. So why don't we love that guy? Yeah.

We should love that guy. Why don't I made that decision? That woman made that decision. That's a beautiful point. Really, really good. I'm really glad you out of that. Thank you. Really glad. Yeah. Now, let's put a cap around this with gratiosity. Let's do it. Okay. So what is it? So gratiosity. So when I was interviewing people, right, there's qualitative research. And so qualitative research for people that aren't familiar with it, it's not about me sort of listening to what people are saying and then making sense of it, right? It's trying to make sense of what I think people are trying to tell me about how they've effectively faced challenges, right? So, when I asked people to tell me about how they'd effectively face challenges, which is an essence resilience,

I was hearing from people two things. I was hearing from people that after some time, not typically right away, they would look on that experience and they would be able to see the good in it. They would be able to be grateful for what happened, even if they wouldn't have chosen that circumstance. So they would say, you know, look, I didn't want to get diagnosed with this disease, with this illness. And yet, looking back now, I'm so grateful for how it's changed me. Yeah. You know? Yep.

And then I was hearing this idea of generosity, right? This is the second part, the OCD part, which is about building on that platform, on that foundation of vulnerability, to then share our stories of resilience generously with others. And two things happen when we share our resilience stories. First of all, if people aren't sure, if they have a resilient story, I'm glad to tell you that as humans we all have a resilient story, at least one, many. And oftentimes our resilient stories, and you probably heard this in my TED Talk, it's often the story that we most don't want to tell, and yet most needs to be told. Right? And so generously

sharing our resilient stories does two things. The first thing is it solidifies for us, right? Instead of the story, the events of what happened, it's the narrative, right? The story we're telling about the story. It solidifies that experience for us and how we showed up and grew and demonstrated resilience. And the second part is it reaches other people in our lives, whether we know it or not. Our stories then become part of someone else's survival guide. They're a light that we shine for other people that are farther back on the path that encourages them on their journey.

And so this fourth practice of highly resilient people is the practice of gradiosity, the ability to find gratitude in our experience, even if we wouldn't have chosen it, and then to build on our vulnerability to share our resilient stories generously with the world. I'm a million percent of all the work I've done, I've been trying to help people in life and business and every spirituality, whatever area of their life for 30 years. And I think I did pretty good work, but it wasn't until I shared about my dad and that I came out of an alcoholic home. And I didn't want to share that because I didn't want to shame my dad. I didn't want to shame me, they're shame from coming from that. And at the time, I didn't want to share that because I didn't want to shame my dad. I didn't want to shame me. They're shame from coming from that.

And at the time, I didn't really realize the significance of sharing that, but my ability to reach people, connect with people, then believe I'm not any better or different than them, take their excuses away. Whatever you might want to call it. Infinitely expanded when I finally told the real vulnerable story of my life. And I think what a lot of people do

is they discount. There's like, well, I haven't become worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So there's no redemptive part of my story. There's no redemption yet in my story. You in and of yourself are a redemption. The fact that you're willing to share the story is redemptive. It shows something amazing about you. And so there doesn't have to be this. And the part at the end of the rainbow is I might now want a bodybuilding contest. That's not necessarily have to be the case. Yeah. It the point is that people are inspired by watching people overcome difficulties in their lives because to your point, that's the process of life. And so anything that you've had to overcome or shown resiliency and And so anything that you've had to overcome or shown resilience in Somehow helps some other human being when you're vulnerable and willing to share it. I'm curious. This is a hard one And I hesitated to ask this but like is there anything different you would tell a young you or a child? So if someone has a child that listening to this or they're a young person listening to us or if you could go back to you at 14

Anything you would share with them about life or resiliency, that maybe is more appropriate or better to be known young than to figure out later in life, would have saved us all a lot of time, or pain or angst in life. And I know it's a difficult question, so it's not really out of the book, but is there something to write when I said

that came to your mind? Yeah, for me, there's kind of two questions in that question, right? There's the question about How does this work inform parenting and there's also the question of like what would I go back and tell my younger self? Right So you just received the book today and There's actually in the third section There's a series of chapters on specific experiences. There's a chapter on women and leadership, and there's a chapter on resilient parenting.

Yes. Right? And so the one thing that I'd say about parenting, and then I'll also share what I'd go back and tell my 14-year-old self, I think one of the most powerful things, and it's simple that we can do as parents, is we can be the big person that we wanted to have when we were a little person. And you know, we don't all grow up with great role models. We don't all have great experiences. We remember, we all remember what it was like to be a kid.

Yeah. And in that moment, when we fell down, when we were crying, when we were getting into trouble, when we weren't making a good decision, when we needed to be heard, right? Even if we didn't have a good role model for how our big people responded to us, we know what we would have wanted. It's so true. And so that means in any moment as a parent, to be a resilient parent and to raise resilient

children, all we have to do is tap into what would I would have wanted as a little person and what can I offer now as a big person. And what that also does is it breaks the cycle. It breaks the cycle of negative behavior. It breaks the cycle of negative behavior. It breaks the cycle of reactivity. It breaks the cycle of simply repeating what we saw because that's all we know. You know, many, many, many people can perpetuate a cycle. It only takes one to break it. That's right. I call that person the one. In every family, there's the one. And when you find a really happy

family, we're a very rich family. Somewhere back in their lineage, they weren't. And then the one shows up. And I think a lot of times people think when I say the one that like, Oh, that's the warrior. That's the, that's the strong one. Well, yeah, you're probably going to go through things that other people didn't necessarily go through. But maybe you didn't, and maybe you just had the courage to share it. Maybe it was your vulnerability. It's not a warrior or a grit thing. It's a deciding in your family that you're going to be the one.

It's a deciding in your life that I'm going to change my family generationally forever. And those curses or behaviors or patterns better said in a family can be changed by one person and you're 100% right about're a hundred percent right about that a hundred percent Right about that. So the last chapter 12 by the way You have resilient living rituals for a resilient life and I'm into that stuff. I like rituals I like I think it under pressure human beings Operate back to their habits and rituals when they're put under pressure. It's just a reflexive thing to do.

We operate reflexively when pressure happens. And so sometimes adversity can create pressure. And so what are some rituals for a resilient life that someone can have? And we haven't covered because we've covered a lot of them. We have covered a lot of things. Haven't we? Yeah. And I'll just say before I transition to rituals, what I'd go back and tell my 14-year-old self.

Yeah. That's okay. In case anyone was waiting for us to touch on that. No, in addition, by the way, when she said that I got the book, I got the hard copy of the book. But the reason I know so much about the book is because I had a digital copy. Yes, yes. Yeah. So, I'm a big believer in things happening for a reason. And not in the like, we tell someone in a hard time like, everything happens for a reason. And not in the like, we tell someone in a hard time, like everything happens for a reason, because I think that invites people to look outside of themselves for a reason, rather than to look inside of ourselves for the meaning that we want to

make and how we want to answer those hard, why questions. Yeah. And so, just as we talked about, you know, around loving, you know, our journey, loving ourselves and really integrating, you know, that sense of self-love for all parts, for all experiences, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change anything, right? Because that brought me to the person that I am today. That brought us to sitting right here across each other. And I love my life. And I love the person that I'm that I've become and that I am becoming. And that 14 year old girl could have used some encouragement because she was scared. And she didn't know how to make sense of what was happening to her. So I would simply go back and I would say to her, it gets better.

It gets better. Hang in there. That's beautiful. And you know what, if I could go back and grab the young me, I would have loved someone to have said that to me too. I actually, it leads to that question too about rituals because one of the rituals I've tried to establish in my own life is to encourage people, is to believe in people. And I feel like anybody listening to this,

like if there's, when you're feeling helpless, get helpful. And one of the ways you can be helpful in people's lives is to truly believe in them and to encourage them. And it's amazing that of all the things you could have answered that you could go back to. You basically said that you wish you could go back and encourage her.

And most people, if I asked you, if you could go back at any point when you were a young person, you wish someone could come back and tell you, it's gonna get better. Everything's gonna be okay. I believe in you. You're amazing to encourage people. So if that's the one thing you all wish,

you could have had more of when you were young, or you would go back and wish for yourself now, how powerful would it be to be that be the way you are with human beings right now? If it's the one, and I think if I asked a hundred people that question, one hundred would give a very similar answer. I'd go back and say, everything's going to be okay. It's going to get better. You're amazing. I don't think there's a human that wouldn't answer that way, which is incredible because human beings are so diverse and so different. And so why not behave as that type of a person in people's lives day to day? Because I know that's what I needed, but I was young. When I was so insecure and so shy and so ashamed of what was going on in my house, and just like

insecure and not that big of a guy and not that smart of a guy and man, I wish I could go back and hug that little dude and go man, you're awesome. Everything's going to be okay. It's going to get better, right? So I just sort of decided with sincerity and truth to be that person in people's lives as often as I can be. And so I just feel like our whole world would be a whole lot better. I agree. If that were the case. So that is a ritual of mine. Yeah.

So one of some of those rituals that you talk about in the book. I love that. I love that. Well, you know, I think one of the issues that I've had with other work on resilience in general, right, is that sometimes the other work that I've seen glosses over the real gritty parts

of challenge change and complexity. It's almost like you start watching a movie at the beginning fast forward the last five minutes and then everything's good again. Right, but it's like, well, what happened? And that expands. And so some of this work on resilience, I think can feel like, well, we're all baking cupcakes,

right? And like, look, do you want sprinkles? And folks are like, yeah, this whole resilience thing, like don't normally resonate with me, because it's not real, right? And it's really about like getting into the belly of it. And so, you know, when we are going to change something about the way that we're living our lives, I think it's helpful to ritualize that, or to create a new routine, or a new habit, right?

And one of the things I really tried to do with this book was to not only give the practices, and to not only do the inspirational storytelling, and to not only tell some stories about my own life, but to really have people walk away with a lot of practical information around, if I'm going to do one thing different, what can I do? So I think the first ritual is people actually asking themselves, right? Just me asking myself, you asking yourself, what is the highest value?

One thing different I can do in my life. Biggest needle mover. Biggest needle mover. And that can be different for each person, right? For one person, it might be I am going to drink a full glass of water before I have breakfast or drink my coffee in the morning. Right? It's really small. And as you know, when we continue to do the things that we say we're going to do, like you talk in your book about not giving up on yourself, right? And there's also a sense of self abandonment there

that happens when we don't keep promises to ourselves, right? So learning not to abandon ourselves and to make a promise to ourselves that I'm going to do one high value, one biggest needle mover, thing different. And again, the word biggest is in quotation marks, because that's going to be different for different people. And then decide and stick to that. And don't give up on yourself. And don't abandon yourself. And just stick with that thing, right? And so some of those practices, right, in the book,

like if we look at vulnerability, right, vulnerability can be about saying, where am I going to go deeper in my relationships? The vulnerability bias tells me, if I share who I am to a greater degree, if I allow people to know me and to see me, the three elves will occur. People won't like me, they won't love me, and they might leave. And that is an incredible fear that blocks our vulnerability. So when we look at the vulnerability bias, square in the eyes, and say, you know what?

That one thing that I'm going to do, I'm going to share one thing each day that feels vulnerable to me, that's going to allow people to see and know me to a greater degree. And every interview, if it's a great one, something stands out to me that I didn't think would when I was reading the work to get in, and I just got it from you, which is not to abandon yourself.

I've never heard that said before. Don't abandon yourself. Breaking those promises you make to yourself is abandoning yourself. Not being vulnerable with people is abandoning yourself. Not tapping into your resiliency is abandoning yourself. Not creating new habits and rituals that serve you as abandoning yourself.

That is, that's a wow right there. Do you think of the three C's, anyone is more difficult, is change the most difficult one? Complexity change, you know, I'm just thinking through them like Change is a biggie for people. I just like all three Cs are major, right? That's why you call them the big three Cs But if any one of them more difficult, do you think the others are they all just depending on the human being difficult? Yeah, I love that question. I really believe based on my experience that it's contextually driven and that it's driven by the human. So sometimes in our lives we might

say, you know what, this would be, I would be fine with this if it just wasn't so darn complex. Right? Like I think about like a health, a health diagnosis, right? It's like, okay, I got it. I've integrated, this is my diagnosis, but darn it if it's not difficult to navigate the healthcare system and to know what to do next, how I wait, like that's just the complexities the hardest part, right?

Then we think about losing someone that we love, and that change of that person being here, versus moving on to another place, depending on what people believe about that, you know, that change is tremendously difficult. So I think it depends on the human and I think it also depends on the context. Tell him about Nelson really quick in the book. I want them to finish with a really example of resiliency that they can remember that maybe they're all kind of, you know, you may know this, but you may not know this.

So do you mind covering that really quick? Yeah, I'd love to. And I think this really goes back to what you were also saying about your own vulnerability and continuing to be on that journey, because I think so often, we look at people that have achieved great things. And we think, well, they never had to go through what I went through.

Their path was paved, their spoon was silver. And then that can become a reason for why we don't persist. That can become a reason for why we don't try one more time. And I think something that's really powerful, and this is gonna pertain to the story, is that success is an answer, failure is an answer. Not trying is a lifetime of not knowing. And so when we think about the story of Nelson, right,

he was the one in his family. He grew up in a rural area. His family was largely illiterate. He had sort of a standoffish relationship with his father, very close with his mother. Then she passed away unexpectedly, which left a huge hole in his heart. He showed a flare for education where no one else in his family had, so he continued to advance, and ultimately went to university. But then he sort of fell in with this crowd, right, that wasn't much approved of, and they were about social action, and they were about social action and they were about social change.

And so he was expelled from school. And on his way back to his family's home, he got wind or he got word that his father wanted to straighten the boy out. And so his father came up with, I don't know how you feel about this ed, but I think this is really what we should be doing with children that are having difficulties as he was going to get the boy married, right? Because that solves everything, doesn't it? Right? Not where I would go. Right.

So he finds out that he's to be married. And he's like, heck no. So he doesn't go home. He goes to a neighboring town where he has no resources, no community. And he starts living on the streets. And he becomes an on-again, off-again night watchman. You know, he's got no health insurance. You know, he doesn't have any contacts. He doesn't have any money to his name. So if we just sort of pause that story right there, and I were to say like, Ed, how hopeful are you feeling about Nelson's prospects?

Probably nobody's gonna know who Nelson is. Right? You know, but we said he was the one. We said he was the one. And what this is is the lesser well-known story of Nelson Mandela. That's awesome. Right? And this is so powerful, right?

Because, and I talk about this on my podcast, like Flourish or Fold, and it's about the well-known store or the lesser well-known stories of well-known people, right? And I think it's, I love that you ask this question because I think it's so important for us to share the behind the scenes, right? Because otherwise, we look at Nelson Mandela and we're like, he persevered through prison, he became a global leader, he dismantled apartheid, right? But look at what was happening in the backdrop. And in interviews, he literally points to his difficult childhood and the adversity that he faced as the things that

actually formed him to be able to take on greater and greater challenge over time. And so, you know, if we think about wrapping up with this story, I think it's important. It's been important for me to remember if I speak from my experience, right, that nobody has a paved path. And that behind the scenes, we never really know what's going on. Right. Most importantly was that you've created your right narrative and Nelson took that story

of his life and turned it into a narrative that served him. That's why your work is so profound. Really glad we finished on that. It ties everything together. It's been a great conversation. Really great conversation. And you're great. And even in your case,

let's see this woman who's got a great relationship with Mike over there, beautiful woman. She's a doctor. She's achieved all these things. She's worked in all these environments. She's got this book out now. She's helped all these different companies and people. And to know where you come from

and we started out with your story. And that it's turned into this beautiful narrative of your life. I'm really honored to be a little page in one of the chapters of the narrative of this story because it's gonna be really, really a big podcast when this is out. People are gonna share this everywhere.

So thank you for today, very much. Thank you so much. I'm so deeply honored to now have you be part of the story and part of the journey. And thank you for having me here today. It was wonderful. This flew by, by the way. Okay, remember this guy is the five practices

of highly resilient people. Go get the book and share this podcast with people. We're the number one podcast in the world. You wanna know why? Because we change and improve people's lives every single week here. And I'm honored when I get to sit here, when I know we're doing it.

And I know we did that together. Today, actually I know you did and I got to sit and participate with you. So thank you so much. God bless you everybody. Have a great week. you