I throw around words like toughness and resilience a lot on here.
They’re important words. Fundamental words.
Two of the ten most important things I’d like to impart on my kids. (There’s a list)
But as I thought about it, I realized that beyond general thought. There doesn’t exist a fundamental question for toughness. Oh wait, there is.
Resilience is about keeping a level head when things get hard. Whether it’s something not going your way, or a bad flight.
I’ve gotten settled into a new office, and I have stacks of books everywhere.
From books on toughness, to growing businesses, to books about sociology. And through all these books I’ve developed my theory which I’ve taken to calling the resilience equation.
I’m basing this off the mathematical equation to calculate toughness of an object. That looks like this:
As the amount of stress and strain an object handles goes up, so does the amount of toughness.
I’ve taken a slightly different approach to this, here is my graph:
As you can see, there is still strain, but instead of stress, we’re looking at “calmness.”
So, ideally as strain increases so does the amount of calmness you have. This is what creates resilience. Keeping that level head amidst any type of strain.
You’ll have to forgive the rudimentary nature of the design. And the idea. Hopefully I’ll flesh it out a bit over time.
But the thought of it, the thought of calculating how to get tough sounds pretty incredible.
During covid, I decided I wanted to hold my breath for 3 minutes.
Who knows why, I’m dumb.
But I filled up our bathtub every night, and I dunked my head in.
Each time for different amounts of time.
Starting with a minute, then a little longer, doing five rounds of thirty second holds.
I had a program that made sense. I got used to it being underwater and holding my breath.
At one point, I hit two minutes, and I didn’t go any higher than that until I knew I could hit two minutes.
i wasn’t training myself to hold my breath, I was training myself to be comfortable at my limits.
I never did hit the three minute mark, I think my highest was 2:48. But I’m happy with the lesson I learned.
My college roommate, Ben, did find me passed out one time. But that’s another story.
Not really, I just think it’ll serve us better down the road.
If you enjoyed this at all, you should check out my weekly blog post I call the Path to Resilience. It’s essentially my journey to becoming a resilient human being. You can sign up here.
I also tend to tweet funny things sometimes, would love for you to follow me there.
Otherwise, I’ve been asking a question every day. A question that makes you think, preferably much deeper than you normally would. Today’s question, as we approach the fall.
Who do you want to be at the end of the year? What do you want more of in your life? What do you want less of in your life?
Cheers to the never ending fight.