Don’t just bounce back. Adopt an attitude whereby you accept that work is going to stretch your capabilities to the limit and that you have the ability to not just cope but also flourish. Bouncing forward to the future requires that we cultivate ways to manage the inexorably accelerating pace of change. We need more than just the internal resources to recover quickly from setbacks. Patience, along with the ability to anticipate the future, helps us to maintain momentum. Developing this kind of energy force keeps us from feeling devastated or judging ourselves too harshly when setbacks occur. In order to persevere in the pursuit of your dreams, it’s optimum to have a reflexive ability to recover from setbacks while having the stamina to keep going in good times and bad. However, in order to be prepared for the future, you will need an understanding of grit, resilience, and motivation and the ways in which they combine to create the multiplier effect you need to succeed. Grit Extraordinary achievement, as psychologist Martin Seligman describes it, is very rare. He found that, while bell-shaped or normal distributions held true for ordinary things like school grades and height, they totally failed in describing achievement. When measuring achievement of top performers in a wide range of fields, those considered geniuses far outdistanced excellent performers, and left above-average in the dust. The only way to achieve true genius in a field is to dedicate to the mastery of it. This is the underlying rationale for grit: a never-yielding commitment to self-discipline. As Seligman explains, the more time you spend on the task, the more all those hours multiply your progress. Angela Lee Duckworth is a graduate of the highly competitive Ph.D. program in psychology at The University of Pennsylvania, where Seligman is a professor. Duckworth discovered that the more education a person has, the more grit they have as well. It’s impossible to tell whether education results in the mental fortitude seen in grit or if, as a result of failures, people with grit use learning as a response to overcome a challenge. What is also of interest is her discovery that older people have more grit than younger people. Reprinted by permission of the Publisher, Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com. As Heraclitus of Ephesus, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, said several millennia ago, “The only thing that is constant is change.” In general, the older we are the more willing we are to accept that the world changes. As we age, experience teaches us that change is inevitable. Heraclitus also said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” The upshot is that experiencing changes prepares us for more change, and we learn that different isn’t better or worse, but just different. Our endurance for staying the course can increase even as the challenges and changes keep coming, or as new ideas distract us. Fostering grit is about developing that endurance. Not to be confused with motivation, which is merely the willingness to do something; grit is the determination to do whatever it takes over time. Your grittiness increases achievement by acting as a multiplier of skills and knowledge, at the same time increasing skills and knowledge, which results in increased chances of success. Resilience A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t. —Jack Dempsey Ask anyone to tell you a story of survival and you are bound to hear heart-rending tales of wars and disasters, untimely deaths, acts of courage, incurable illnesses, and the strength of the human spirit. In the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Into each life some rain must fall.” Longfellow assured us that we all would experience adversity. How people respond to adversity has fed literary traditions throughout time, because, while there is no one standard response, there is a definite archetype of a hero. The hero’s most defining trait? Resilience. Why are some people resilient and others not? Harvard journalist Diane Coutu says resilience is “one of the great puzzles of human nature.” Coutu explored how Holocaust victims were able to develop a “plastic shield”—an inner psychological space that protected them from the intrusions of abuse. Combined with an ability to form attachments to others and maintain some semblance of a sense of humor, they were able to hold onto a critical sense of perspective. Coutu reports that resilience is not just genetic, as people can become more resilient over their lifetimes. Of the many stories we have shared, perhaps the one that best exemplifies the incredible importance of resiliency is Melody Gardot. Her life story inspires us with the ways in which optimism, hardiness, a positive view of the future, and the ability to make the best of a situation can be used to master extreme resiliency challenges. Melody’s difficulties began when she was hit by an SUV that had ignored a red traffic light and smashed into her while she rode her bicycle. Her pelvis was broken in two places and she received serious head and spinal injuries. Her injuries were severe and left her unable to sit up for more than 10 minutes at a time. She was confined to lying flat on her back in her hospital bed for a year. Melody suffers acute sensitivity to light and sound because of the neural injuries, requiring her to wear dark sunglasses and sound-dampening devices at all times. She had to relearn simple tasks such as brushing her teeth and walking. The accident resulted in both long-and short-term memory problems and difficulty with her sense of time. Her doctor suggested that she consider using music as a kind of recovery therapy. She had played the piano before the accident, but since she now couldn’t sit comfortably at the piano, she picked up the guitar, and the focus of her music making evolved. She found jazz. Now a professional musician with a full-length album called Worrisome Heart, she uses her resiliency as a springboard for her musical success. Melody’s lyrics tell her story: “Some lessons we learn the hard way. Some lessons don’t come easy, and that’s the price we have to pay.” Through it all she hasn’t forgotten her good fortune. Melody says, “I forgot a lot of things, but I don’t forget that.” Melody Gardot’s unswerving ability to look forward and embrace new realities is consistent with what we heard from others when they told us stories of overcoming adversity. Above all, they didn’t perceive their situations as misfortunes. They accepted hard times with a steady hand. Rather than feeling despair, they accepted the new normal and looked for ways to make the best of it. Looking back at Melody’s story, you can see that she does not specifically say “Life is meaningful” or “I’m going to make the best of this situation,” but rather she shows us in her recovery her ability to make meaning out of a difficult time. She epitomizes resilience. She never looks back to blame the driver of the vehicle that hit her. She is not a victim. Rather, had it not been for the accident, she might never have discovered her true passion in life. Resilient people invest a lot of effort in what Coutu calls an uncanny ability to improvise in seeking solutions. They understand that, when searching for answers in difficult situations, the more realistically they grasped the true situation, the more quickly they were able to move into a problem-solving mode. Motivation What motivated you to read this book? Chances are the first answer that pops into your mind is not about money. We’d speculate that the more likely answer is your intrinsic desire to be better at what you do. You are reading this for yourself, not for others. Sure, you want to be more employable. But even more than that, you want to be the best you can be. Many companies are still focused on compensation as a primary motivator. However, extensive research substantiates that money is not the answer. Ironically, financial incentives can actually have a negative impact on intrinsic motivation, when tasks are especially interesting or enjoyable. The consequence is that rewards may help you accomplish the things you don’t enjoy doing but for the things you love, intrinsic motivation is a stronger predictor in inspiring performance. Money matters, but it’s not all about money for most of us. You might think of what defines your motivation as what gets you up in the morning or the things that keep you going at work, even when progress is difficult. Perhaps you like the community-building aspects of your job or knowing that it has an impact on society, or maybe you are becoming better at something that matters to you. These factors take the focus off money. In our research and experience, tapping into our intrinsic motivation provides grounding between resilience and grit. Your self-directed desire or intrinsic motivation is the compass that keeps you looking forward to tomorrow. What does a person who is intrinsically motivated look like? Perhaps like Jack Ma, one of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet. His e-commerce company, Alibaba, attracts 100 million shoppers a day. He is now the richest person in China. But before he started Alibaba, he often had to call on his inner reserves. His frustrations and setbacks included failing his college entrance exams three times. He applied to the police academy and was told “You’re no good.” He applied for 30 different jobs and was rejected for every one. He says the most discouraging was when Kentucky Fried Chicken opened in his hometown in China, and of the 24 people who applied for jobs, 23 were accepted. He was not. When he started Alibaba, there were more obstacles. No bank would work with him to process payments. But Ma was determined to succeed, so he started Alipay, his own online payment system. Many people told him that “this is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had.” Today over 800 million people use Alipay, which transfers payments in different currencies between international buyers and sellers. How did Ma do it? We’d say it was the combination of grit, resilience, and intrinsic motivation. He exhibited a tremendous determination that wasn’t swayed when someone called his ideas stupid. His drive, combined with enthusiasm and ambition, helped him find new goals to strive for until he finally found success. To facilitate your own intrinsic motivation, consider the five sources of meaning for humans at work: the impact of your work on society, the customer, the company, the team, and “me.” According to McKinsey, connecting to one or more of these five sources of meaning can help you tap into your enthusiasm. Mental Strategies to Help You Bounce Forward Now that you’ve learned the three fundamental components of bouncing forward, it’s time to consider the practical strategies to deploy them. The very heart of bouncing forward is acknowledging that jobs are fluid and not perfect. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have more happy days at work. Cindi Leive, editor in chief of Glamour magazine, says, “The idea that your job is going to make your heart sing on a daily basis is just not true.” Some days are going to inevitably test your spirit. But, as Leive notes, “You can aim for a pretty good heart-singing-to-bummed-out ratio.” Your grit, motivation, and determination can see you through. Here are some mental strategies that can help you persevere toward more happy days at work.