Bouncing Back

A few years ago, I wrote a book called The Stoic Art of Living, which had the subtitle "Inner Resilience and Outer Results." The more I had read the ancient Roman stoic philosophers on the ups and downs of life, they more I had come to appreciate the quality of resilience as crucial to success in an uncertain world.

In a book called, Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back, author Andrew Zolli defines this quality as “the ability of people, communities, and systems to maintain their core purpose and integrity among unforeseen shocks and surprises.” I see it as a psychological tendency to bounce back from challenges, difficulties, and obstacles. The resilient person absorbs "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," as Hamlet put it, and bounces back with a positive attitude and renewed action toward his or her goals. 

We can cultivate resilience in our lives in many ways. The stoics had mental techniques a couple of thousand years ago that work today as well as they did then. One friend says that when big trees of misfortune fall across his path and block the way forward, he says to himself, "It's time to get out the chainsaw!" A Roman would have thought of his ax. A simple go-to image can make a difference, and turn around your emotions.

One particular ancient image can be helpful here. The debris of difficulty will at times fall like mounds of trash into almost any life. Many will feel smothered and give up. But if your spirit burns brightly enough with the fire of enthusiastic commitment, that debris is just more fuel for the fire. The amount of garbage that could smother a small flame will be consumed by a great one, which will then grow bigger. Difficulty can actually feed your determination. It's most often up to you.

The inertia of resistance typically pushes back against great new things, and creative people. A resilient individual lets this become a badge of honor, and uses it to fuel even greater efforts. So burn brightly, and enjoy the benefits of resilience that can result!

There's hardly anything in this world as satisfying as bouncing back from difficulty, challenge, and adversity, and attaining a level and form of success that can surprise and delight you.

Joy

Joy. It's a big concept bottled up in a little word. It's a big thing available to each of us.

One of the major surprises I had when I was studying the stoic philosophers, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, years ago, in preparation for my book The Stoic Art of Living, was that they were so different from what 'stoic' and 'stoicism' has come to mean in the popular mind. Most people think that being stoic is all about not feeling anything - that it's almost like philosophical anesthesia. But it's not.

The stoics wanted to help us to keep from being disturbed by fleeting emotions so that our natural joy could rise to the surface and be experienced and lived. Negative emotions like resentment, and bitterness, and anger can obviously prevent an experience of joy. But the additional insight of the stoics was that unreasonably strong positive emotions could, too, like that "irrational exuberance" that can come from hearing what we think is great good news. When we get too worried, or too excited, we can become unhinged from reality and our own inner poise and healthiness. The stoics seemed to think that if we could avoid such unsettling emotions, negative or positive, we could become peaceful enough in our surface consciousness as to allow a deep joy that is our birthright to bubble up into our souls and truly bless us.

Joy is not the same thing as happiness. It's not giddiness. It's not mere pleasantness. It's deeper and higher and more abiding. Most of us have felt it, at some time, if only in a momentarily taste or touch of it. But some seem to live it enduringly. Do you have it in your life right now? If not, why not? What's getting in the way? What obstacle to your joy could be removed or eliminated?

At its best, therapy removes obstacles to joy. At its best, self examination prepares the soil for joy.

What gives you joy? Can you integrate more of that into your life this week? Or even today?

It's meant to be yours. And it can enhance everything else you feel, and do.

The Next Steve Jobs

Since I was first asked a few years ago to speak about Apple founder Steve Jobs and his extraordinary success, I've had several occasions to give that presentation and to further reflect on his life and work. In connection with these events, I've often been asked the question, "Who'll be the next Steve Jobs?" or "Where's the next world changer, and universe-denter, now?"

I think one such person just may be Elizabeth Holmes, who as a 19 year old Stanford University undergraduate, decided to drop out and start a business that may just change the world on the scale of a Steve Jobs. Her vision is for revamping healthcare for the better, and she has amazingly innovative and practical ways of doing so. One of the best articles about her is here, in Fortune Magazine.

It made me smile to see in the Fortune piece the little factoid that when Elizabeth went off to college, her dad gave her a copy of one of my favorite practical philosophy books, the Meditations by stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Explaining the gift, he said, "I wanted it to reinforce the message of a purposeful life," and added, "I think it really affected her." The stoics like Marcus, and Seneca, and even the most austere Epictetus, do tend to have that affect. They teach us the inner conditions for outer greatness, as I relay in my own little book, The Stoic Art of Living. The young Ms Holmes clearly got the message and has launched an entrepreneurial adventure that is likely to change the world in very positive ways. 

Let me give you an example. Do you dislike having a large needle inserted into your arm to take your blood into large vials several days before your annual physical, or any other sort of doctor visit? She's discovered a way to replace the dreaded needle in the arm with a painless finger prick, get all the blood needed in one drop, and do pretty much any test in four hours, and at a fraction of the cost of traditional lab work, which can often take many days. Because of her numerous inventions, we'll be able to monitor our health at a fundamental level and in an ongoing way, and catch problems before they develop into terminal difficulties. Medication delivery systems will also likely be revolutionized by her company, Theranos, with doses constantly tailored to patients and their particular responses, changing as alterations are needed, and with information being instantly sent out to both patients and doctors. The large scale shift from her small but powerful innovations will be amazing, over the years,

Elizabeth is described by people who know her the best as having "pure" motivations, wanting to do great good, and as being basically uninterested in the personal financial boon that her inventions and creations will inevitably bring her. What's made her so different? What's set her apart? Well, the pure heart was a great start. But she also combined this with a powerful approach to business. She's a young woman with great curiosity about how things work, and how they could work, instead. She's paid attention to common problems, thought about them creatively, and come up with innovative solutions that bring together divergent perspectives in a unique way.

That's a formula we can all aspire to emulate. Will it make you or me the next Steve Jobs, too? Hey, I'd be content to be the next Steve Wozniak! But, actually, I really just want to be the best TomVMorris that I can be. A strong purpose, pure motivations, a desire to do good, great curiosity, and a proclivity to take innovative approaches to common problems can position any of us to be the best that we can be, and to put our own small dents in the universe.

Finally here, a shout out to the universe-denter and game-changer Tanya Maslach, Chief of the Tribe at www.GoTribal.com, where healthy lifestyles are being encouraged in new and innovative ways, through the power of relationships. It was Tanya who just recently introduced me to the work being done by Elizabeth, whom I consider to be her kindred spirit. Go visit GoTribal and find out why.