Forging Strength in Resilience and Anti-fragility

Chapter 9 - Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America

Normalizing Failure

"You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It's a muscle. You can build it up, and then draw on it when you need it." - Sheryl Sandberg

There is nothing more appealing to a refugee than the idea of rising to success despite humble beginnings and against all odds.

The American ethos of transforming failure into strength has made resilience a national hallmark and, through the magic of popular culture, resonated with me since my teenage years living in one of the poorest countries on earth, Mozambique, and then an oppressive dictatorship in the USSR.  While resilience involves bouncing back, anti-fragility describes how people recover and grow stronger when exposed to challenges. In the narrative of American mythology, tales of overcoming multiple failures en route to Success are ever-present. We tell the stories of icons like Steve Jobs, who was ousted from Apple, the very company he founded, only to return and resurrect it; Oprah Winfrey, who overcame childhood trauma and professional setbacks to become a towering figure in American media; Walt Disney, who persisted through numerous business failures and bankruptcy; and Thomas Edison, who famously described his failed attempts as the discovery of 10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb before finally succeeding.

In contrast, cultures prioritizing societal hierarchies and adherence to established norms avoid embracing failure. They tend to stigmatize it, discouraging unconventional paths and emphasizing stability and conformity over risk and innovation. This leads to limiting cultural traits such as fear of social disapproval and the shame of losing face.

The mindset of "failing forward" and "failing fast" has propelled the U.S. to the forefront of innovation. By embracing trial and error, American entrepreneurs refine visions and transform industries. This cycle of continuous improvement, rooted in a cultural acceptance of failure, highlights how resilience and anti-fragility drive technological advancements in America.

As a student of American culture, I drew much inspiration from it to reframe my own stories into healthier and truer narratives.

Reframing Our Stories

We become the stories we tell. As someone whose first childhood memories were ones of a refugee and exile, this tends to occasionally still color my view of reality. When in a negative headspace, the story playing in my mind is that I don't fit in anywhere and, therefore, will not be accepted or belong. When this happens, I reframe it into a more accurate story of anti-fragility that changes how I think and act.

I remind myself that much of what those around me see as my strengths was forged in suffering. I don't fear much because I have seen danger, political instability, and poverty firsthand. I can start a new endeavor without getting paralyzed by the possibility of failure. I can visit Ukraine during a war with the calculated optimism that I can do more good in person without being reckless. I will take my chances and go deep into a drug-lord-controlled favela in Brazil or a neighborhood in Mexico because I know the perceived risk is higher than the actual risk. I can use my past failures in relationships to fuel my passion and build a strong family. I can write this book, unusual as it is, to offer a distinct perspective and help my readers see what I see: an extraordinary country and people amid an identity crisis. Much like myself, in desperate need of reframing their story into a more anti-fragile one.

This reframing is an animating force behind how I build my life and work. As a child, I had to move to four countries on three continents and learn four languages by age nine. Confusion is a mild way to describe my memories of these abrupt transitions. This difficult time also gave me the ability to adapt and assimilate into vastly different environments quickly, learn cultural nuances, and read body language. Deep immersion in multiple cultures gave me a deeper love for humanity and a lifelong curiosity about what helps people thrive. As a third-culture kid, I dealt with things most people don't. It also gave me tremendous advantages and a competitive edge. I can trace the line between my difficult experiences and starting a new company, creating an award-winning video, writing a hit song, or helping the disadvantaged escape poverty.

Reframing our stories to find strength and Anti-fragility is much more than a mindset shift; it is a well-researched phenomenon anyone can learn from. Dan MacAdams of Northwestern University authored an influential study calling this phenomenon "redemptive narrative." Another study by Tim Wilson at the University of Virginia involved an exercise called "story editing." Immediate and lasting improvements in mental health could be traced back to reframing suffering as a source of increased strength. If we take my multi-country childhood as an example, studies show that people who speak multiple languages have more cognitive flexibility, advanced problem-solving capabilities, and higher creativity. Multi-cultural experiences also deepen empathy and enhance communication skills.

Anti-fragility can be learned and is a robust way of being forged in chaos and suffering. Every human being has this gift as dormant potential that can be activated through embracing suffering as a source of future strength. I see this shift happen with my coaching clients. As they lean into the reframing of their stories, they tap into this dormant potential as rocket fuel for their journey.

Another exciting advantage to learning anti-fragility is reframing present experiences and creating constructive suffering in the future by taking bold action in the face of fear and adversity. The best way to develop anti-fragility is to experience its benefits repeatedly, breaking through perceived ceilings and enjoying the compounding effect of going from strength to strength.

Even as the American ethos extraordinarily accepts failure as a stepping stone to success, it is not immune to the weakening of resilience produced by the fruit of success.

Good Times Create Weak People

"Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." — Michael Hopf

Like other prosperous Western countries, America has to deal with the inevitable problem of weakened generational resilience after decades of growth uninterrupted by major cataclysmic events. Some studies and my personal observations seem to point to a sense of relative fragility of Millennials and Gen-Zs with a general lack of coping skills and higher levels of mental health issues. Painfully and perhaps providentially, we seem to be in the midst of a season where both geopolitical and economic shifts will shake things up, providing the deep disruptions needed to forge Anti-fragility in a new generation of Americans. Much of this is beyond our control. What is under our control are the stories we tell ourselves and our youth about the world around us and our role in it.

My three daughters are each gifted in their own way, and all three have faced suffering and wrestled with the world's harsh realities. As parents, our contribution to their vitality and strength has been about vulnerably sharing our struggles with them along the way, providing lifelong exposure to human suffering as we travel together and not saving them from their own mistakes while catching them when they fall. They have not been sheltered, given participation prizes, or raised to feel entitled to anything other than our unwavering love. As a result, all three of my daughters are decidedly Anti-fragile, and I do not worry about their future. My wife Deb does every once in a while, but that's what mothers do.

As we face various challenges we have never faced before, personally and as a nation, may we keep telling the stories of anti-fragile men and women who persevered, overcoming rejection and failure to build the most prosperous civilization the world has ever seen. Contrary to much of the negative talk, the American story has propelled humanity forward in ways unparalleled by any nation in history. Our mistakes and national sins have caused tremendous dysfunction and suffering. May we acknowledge them, repent of them, and be transformed by them into a stronger nation without losing our sense of optimism and self-worth.

"I'm convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance." Steve Jobs

"Turn your wounds into wisdom." Oprah Winfrey

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." Maya Angelou

"I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying." Jeff Bezos

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." Eleanor Roosevelt

"You have to be able to accept failure to get better." LeBron James

"The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become." Ronald Reagan

"Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. Certainly, we can say that no people have pursued these ideals more vigorously than Americans." Colin Powell

"Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history." Hillary Clinton