Resilience is not just a product of inner strength

livemint.com:

Resilience has become big business. Airport bookstores bristle with paperbacks explaining “why some flourish while others fold" or promising to help you develop “unbeatable" levels of “mental toughness." TED talks, podcasts and social media posts offer the three (or five) traits of resilient people, from optimism to grit to a growth mindset. As the management world has embraced the reality that any success is made up of numerous failures, a booming market has emerged for advice on how to bounce back, often with insights culled from elite military forces or extreme athletes.

I should know; over my nearly 20 years in the world of management thinking, I’ve edited and interviewed scores of such influencers. But I’ve become uncomfortable with two false impressions left by these well-intentioned advice givers: first, that resilience is rare; and second, that it almost entirely stems from within. Neither is true.

Most people recover from what life throws at them, even after experiencing horrific events such as mass shootings or natural disasters, says George Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, and author of The End of Trauma. After a traumatic event, two-thirds will return to their baseline level of well-being, many quickly. What’s more, the emphasis on resilience through mental toughness fails to recognize the importance of external resources, from friends to family to money, in easing the way through difficult situations, says Kimberley T.

Johnson, a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Utah. Try this thought experiment: Imagine you’ve moved to a new city for a job.

Your new CEO is impossibly demanding. The board is rife with clashing egos. Everything is