#091 - The Gift of Adversity | 52 Life Lessons – Lesson 15

[00:00:03] Welcome back to the Working Well Podcast. I'm Tim Boras. This is episode 15 in our Life Lessons series. And today we're diving into something that we say we all want. Growth, resilience, strength. We admire these qualities, we talk about them, and we claim to want to pursue them. But here's the truth. They're almost always forged in adversity.

[00:00:26] In this episode, we'll explore why hardship is not just something to survive, but something that we can leverage and even train for to build the capacity we need for what I like to call the sport of life. Now, to state the obvious, very few people wake up in the morning hoping for adversity. Sure, we want progress, momentum, we want wins, but in the easiest way possible.

[00:00:52] And yet, if you look back honestly, the moments that shaped you most were probably not the smoothest ones. I would imagine they're some of the hardest ones in your life. And that's because adversity, it's not comfortable. It's definitely not convenient, but it's one of the most powerful growth accelerators that's available to us. And here's the simple thing that most people overlook.

[00:01:16] Look, you don't have to wait for life to punch you in the face before you can benefit from adversity. You can train for it. Now, I've talked about it on previous episodes, but there was a season in my life when I lost a parent, my business, my health, and a significant portion of my financial foundation, all in a very short period of time.

[00:01:40] On paper, I was the mindset guy with a background in psychology, elite athlete, performance coach, author, entrepreneur. I had read the books. I had successfully coached thousands of clients in this area. I knew the frameworks and strategies for success. But apparently, my brain missed the memo.

[00:02:01] On the inside, I was stuck in what I later called a doom loop. Negative thought patterns, negative perception, desperate actions, poor outcomes, rapidly eroding belief systems. This cycle, it was on repeat for close to two years. Yet on the outside, few people knew because I didn't say anything. I pretended everything was okay.

[00:02:24] Now, living with a growth mindset sounds inspiring and even easy. Yet, despite having all this knowledge and background, I was consistently showing up with embarrassment, fear, and panic, trying to put on a nice facade and pretend everything was okay. But again, with all this experience in elite performance, I couldn't see anything positive. My mental blinders were firmly locked in place.

[00:02:52] Sure, I could spout research on emotional regulation that shows that suppressing your emotions increases stress and reduces cognitive flexibility. That when we avoid what we feel, we shrink our capacity to respond wisely. Once I was able to admit to myself that I wasn't all right, I was able to express it, to stop pretending that I was fine. And at that point, I was able to begin finding what I called small stabilizers inside the chaos.

[00:03:20] These weren't silver linings, but they were small, simple anchors that I could latch onto. And they were enough to help me start rebuilding. Part of those anchors were admitting what I was going through to other people and getting their help. And here's what I see clearly now. That if just one or two of those challenges had happened, I probably would have powered through, stayed in denial, and kept grinding. But everything collapsing all at once, it forced me to stop.

[00:03:49] It forced me to recognize that my mindset had been eroding quietly for years. The adversity didn't create the cracks. It exposed them. Now, the awareness of that fact was one of the biggest gifts that I took away from this entire experience. From what I've seen with myself and with thousands of clients over the years, we love the idea of growth. We would just prefer it without discomfort. But that's not reality.

[00:04:18] And if you're familiar with Carol Dweck's research, it shows that when we believe abilities can be developed, growth mindset, we respond to setbacks with learning and strategy. And in a fixed mindset, adversity feels like proof that we're not enough. Throughout that season of challenge that I had, I had drifted into a fixed mindset without realizing it. Once I was able to admit it to myself and to others, I could start to change it.

[00:04:47] Here's the part that I care deeply about. We don't have to wait for catastrophic adversity in order to grow. We can purposely and progressively introduce adversity into our lives. Challenging ourselves with exercise can be a great form of adversity. Now, I'm not saying if you've never exercised in your life, you need to go do the 240-mile Death Valley ultramarathon.

[00:05:13] But challenging ourselves above our limits right now is a great way to do it. Heavy squats are adversity. Hill sprints are adversity. Cold mornings, when you get up to exercise, when you don't feel like training, that's adversity. When we want the confidence, we want the clarity, we want the resilience, we often don't want the hill sprints that will help create that. Yes, everyone wants resilience, but nobody wants the training program that goes along with it. But that training program is gold.

[00:05:43] Research on stress inoculation shows that small, manageable stressors strengthen our system. Just as muscles grow through progressive overload, psychological resilience grows through progressive challenge. Think of it this way. Discomfort isn't the bug in the system. It is the system. When you lift something heavy, you practice strain and the recovery that goes along with it. You experience failure repeatedly. That's one of the reasons I love exercise so much.

[00:06:13] And I'll talk about it in a bit. But when we forget that in our life, we lose the training ability for it. When you learn a new instrument, your fingers hurt, but often your ego hurts more. When you learn a language, you'll stumble, you'll forget, and even state something confidently, and then realize that you probably said something extremely inappropriate. Progress is usually disguised as frustration. And that's curated adversity.

[00:06:40] Practicing it trains your emotional regulation, your cognitive flexibility, your persistence, your grit. Now, as we've discussed, for most people, personal development sounds great until it involves the discomfort and failure of actual development. And when I look back over my experience over the past number of years, it became clear that I had fallen out of the habit of training myself for adversity.

[00:07:10] For the previous few years, I hadn't been challenging myself as much physically. Sure, I'd been going to the gym, but it had all been pretty standard. I hadn't been seeking new challenges, consciously looking for ways to get outside my comfort zone. In other words, I'd been complacent, doing the basics, but not really growing. Now, I can't say that doing these things would have allowed me to sail through my challenges,

[00:07:36] but I'm extremely confident that the depth and the length of my challenges would have been much less. Now, perhaps I'm more tuned into it, but I've also noticed this with many of my coaching clients. Those that are consciously curating adversity in their lives are often in the best position to manage those unexpected curveballs that life throws at them. Whether it's the loss of a loved one, losing your job, injuries or acute health challenges.

[00:08:02] They're not stressors that we volunteer for, but if you've spent years practicing discomfort, you're not starting from zero. You've practiced staying calm when your body wants to quit. You've practiced focusing under fatigue. You've practiced getting back up after a missed rep, a fall, a failure in practice. For growth, development and success, the gym's optional, but adversity is not.

[00:08:32] For decades, elite sport, entrepreneurship and physical training have been my laboratory for this. Now, that training didn't prevent hardship, but it absolutely strengthened my ability to navigate it. Failure is feedback. It just doesn't feel polite at the time. It's important to remind ourselves of that from time to time. As I mentioned before, when we stop doing the training, we stop building the resilience,

[00:09:00] and we're more likely to feel greater impacts from those unexpected adverse situations that come into our life. Now, here's something that is also important to remember. Adversity itself is not the gift. The learning, the growth, and the wisdom that come from adversity, and the experience that you have throughout that adversity, are a gift. And growth is available in two ways. One is when life hands you hardship.

[00:09:30] Unexpected things pop up, and you've got to deal with it. Second is when you choose to curate adversity on purpose. Keep in mind that if you don't choose your adversity, life will eventually choose it for you. Things are going to happen to us, so we may as well try and prepare the best we can so we have the tools at our disposal when it comes up. And the thing about life choosing adversity for you, life doesn't send calendar invites.

[00:10:00] So ask yourself, where am I avoiding discomfort that would actually strengthen me? What small, deliberate challenge could I introduce, say, this week? Today even? Because here's the truth. You probably want strength. You probably want resilience. You want to build character. But you're probably hoping that it arrives gently, and you don't have to do much work. And that's rarely the case. If you want to hear other topics, please reach out. I'd love to hear what's on your mind.

[00:10:31] Thank you so much for listening. Think, live, and be well. And I'll see you soon. That wraps up another episode of the Working Well podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Now, which guests or topics would you like to see featured on the show? Message me through LinkedIn or on the contact page of timboris.com with your ideas. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Tim Boris with Fresh Wellness Group,

[00:11:00] and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. And to see you on the right side of the story like you should. You should mind when Happy Heart