The argument in brief
- The question
- Is being tough and resilient the right way to think about overcoming adversity?
- The claim
- Resilience frames us by our breaking point. A better frame is antifragility, getting stronger the more adversity we face, and the way to get there is to make learning the value we pay most attention to: asking questions, being okay with being wrong and training the ego to listen. Confidence: A personal reflection. No studies cited.
- The evidence
- My own reasoning about how we respond to challenge, criticism and failure.
- The idea of antifragility, which I borrow from Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book Antifragile.
- The best counter
- Not all adversity makes us stronger. Some of it simply harms, and a frame that promises growth from every setback can make people blame themselves when they don't recover, or stay in situations they should leave.
- What would change my mind
- Evidence that people who treat criticism and failure as learning cope no better, or grow no more, than people who simply build toughness and endure.
The question: Is being tough and resilient the right way to think about overcoming adversity?Sometimes you think that in order to overcome adversity, you need to be tough and resilient. The problem is that this frames it in terms of fragility. Everything that is deemed unbreakable is merely stated to be not fragile, able to withstand a high threshold. However, this is saying that it’s still breakable, it just has a high breaking point. You do not want your mindset to be defined by a breaking point.
The way to overcome this is to frame things in terms of antifragility.Source: The term comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s 2012 book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. He distinguishes the fragile, harmed by disorder, the robust, little harmed, and the antifragile, which benefits from it. I use the idea loosely, for a mindset.Antifragile (book), Wikipedia This is something that is not defined by its breaking point, but by getting stronger the more adversity you face.
Learning is antifragile
Becoming a learner is an act of antifragility. When something challenges you, learn from it. When someone tears you down, learn from it. When you fail, learn from it.
You learn by asking questions that help your understanding. If someone criticises you, ask them to tell you more. Own the conversation from the point of learning, not from a point of proving you’re right.
A competing explanation: Not every setback makes us stronger. Some adversity simply harms, and a frame that promises growth from all of it can leave people blaming themselves when they don’t recover, or staying where they should leave. Taleb’s own idea concerns stressors a system can gain from, not every harm.With all the other values that build your self-esteem, Claim, confidence:a personal view, offered without evidence: the only value that you should pay attention to is the value to learn. This is the gateway to everything.
Be okay being wrong
It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to be right. You may tend to seek agreement from others and turn defensive when someone disagrees.
There will be times when you are wrong. Be okay with this and be the first to admit it. That is how you learn. Failure is a path to learning, and being wrong is no different.
Other people will have better ideas than you. Give them credit. Celebrate their success. It’s humbling. You will learn how to regulate your emotions, and this will help you seek the truth about who you are and what you’re capable of.
Your ego
What would change my mind?: Evidence that people who treat criticism and failure as learning cope no better, or grow no more, than people who simply build toughness and endure.Your ego is the version of you that has wants and desires and acts before you get to think. Train your ego to be a learner. This means listening and asking for clarity, all while staying calm and focused on the goal of learning.
Sources
- Antifragile (book), Wikipedia
Books behind this essay
Not sources for any claim here. These are books I have finished that shaped how I think about this question. Where I rely on evidence, it is cited in the text.
Mindset (opens audible.co.uk, external site)
Shaped how I think about meeting challenge and criticism as chances to learn rather than threats to who we are.
Black Box Thinking (opens audible.co.uk, external site)
Shaped how I think about failure and being wrong as information to learn from.
The Scout Mindset (opens audible.co.uk, external site)
Shaped how I think about wanting to find out what is true more than wanting to be right.
