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In this light an expectation of resilience is no longer the spellbinding final act of a story, it is something akin to victim blaming. Entertaining. Engaging. Educating.' Professor Damian Hughes, co-host of the 'High Performance' podcast
Bruce Daisley Collection 2 Books Set (Fortitude [Hardcover Bruce Daisley Collection 2 Books Set (Fortitude [Hardcover
Bruce Daisley: Yeah, and I think we can see how identity is definitely a conflicted part of this, because for some of the people concerned, channelling everything into accomplishment for identity can prove enriching, but also incredibly endangering. From quotations that we see, Simone Biles, the American Gymnast, during the course of the Olympics, she was probably expected to win at least four gold medals, she end up winning, I think, one silver medal and maybe a bronze as well; she said, during the course of what was effectively quite a public breakdown, she said she was very grateful for the praise she received by coming clean on mental health issues, because until now, she'd seen herself merely in the fact that she was an accomplished athlete. Offering empirically tested advice, Fortitude sets out a practical path to greater self-confidence and courage for us all. So, that was it for me. It's like, okay, so firstly let's recognise that resilience does exist, or fortitude, or whatever you want to call it, it does exist; and we can see that, because we can see it manifested in like the people in Ukraine. Who could doubt that these people who were office workers on a Friday, and they're taking arms on a Monday, who could doubt that they've been filled with some inspirational level of bravery, that all of us consider to be almost inconceivable? We can't imagine that we would somehow do that. So, they seem to be imbued with something that is admirable and beautiful. But using the resilience word for it I felt was tired and weary. This is a truly refreshing, captivating and important book that shifted my perception on a topic I thought I knew! A must read.' Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur and host of 'The Diary of a CEO' What you get then, you get into stories of, okay, right, so here's an interesting profile, that all of these people who won gold medals, and I'm not pointing this specifically at British athletes, but people who won gold medals were trying to resurrect a shattered sense of self. And we also know that people who've had a shattered sense of self might consider that they will restore their sense of self-belief at all costs.
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If something goes wrong, we’re ready and waiting for a resilient response. Anticipating adversity to be followed by a fighting response certainly has a storybook thrill to it but perhaps there’s reason to reflect on the mechanics of this expectation. But the actual experience of a trauma, an adversity, is an incredibly harmful one. And through those two things, I think you can see a path to understanding where our response to adversity comes from. For me, all of that is about identity, because all of that -- if you hear Kelly Holmes, Kelly Holmes will say, "Sport became my identity". She was adopted, she had parental abandonment, she was very severely bullied at school, I think latterly we clearly learned that she's been wrestling with issues with her own sexual identity and feeling ashamed about that. And so, you look at all of those things and you go, "Well actually, her then channelling all of her interest into sporting excellence, now you recognise that redemptive power of that power of identity, I think". Resilience is the buzzword of the moment. We're told that if we have it, our lives will be happy and successful ones. If we don't, we need to acquire it.
Bruce Daisley - Penguin Books UK Bruce Daisley - Penguin Books UK
Bruce Daisley: It might make our skin feel better and look better, but there is nothing whatsoever that reverses the impact of aging. In a very similar way, marketing as an industry has responded to a need, and tried to synthesise a product that answers the need, and you can see it very clearly. Martin Seligman, who's probably the most eminent psychologist in the world, he's the Robert De Niro of psychology, in the sense that he did some really good work at the start of his career, and he's done some not so good work at the end of his career, and he reports in his own book how he'd written some very lovely, popular psychology books, and the US Army and pretty much education authorities came to him and said, "If we gave you money, will you solve our issue?" Increasingly a boss might get on the phone to commission resilience training, but the weary workforce sees corporate gaslighting. We sort of recognise this, you can feel part of your family or you can feel part of a friendship group, or you might have friends from university, where you've stayed together. And if you feel like the relationship's been respected, if you feel like, "Actually, I feel like this relationship still exists and I'm participating in it", it doesn't necessarily matter how often you see people, but more the sense that everyone's servicing the relationships. I think we've lost sight of that, to some extent. Fortitude explores and validates what most of us who work with people feel in our gut when it comes to debunking doctrine about resilience and singular toughness. A fantastic contribution. Dr Pippa Grange, author of 'Fearless', former Head of People & Team Development at The Football Association Together with the section on the importance of the feeling of belonging it’s not hard to see why the past few years as we’ve gone from crisis of trust in authority and ‘experts’ to health crisis to financial crisis have potentially left people feeling low on resilience. It also shows why teaching skills like how to embrace a growth mindset, reflective thinking and investing in wellbeing, while beneficial, may not substantially increase resilience in staff if they don’t also feel respected, listened to, and trusted to deliver or part of a shared effort to achieve a goal.
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Helen Tupper: So, let's talk about the word "fortitude" for a moment, because this is a book all about resilience, what it is, what it isn't, and what you might need to develop instead, and you've chosen deliberately to call it Fortitude. So, what's the distinction between resilience and fortitude; and why is it an important distinction to make? You mentioned a researcher called Ericsson, who talks about how important our sense of identity is in terms of providing us with our ability to see ourselves in the same way with continuity, but something that's separate to the work that we do, or maybe the family that we're part of; we have this own sense of self. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how that helps us to be resilient and to have that fortitude, and I think probably the killer question, and it might be an impossible one is, if you don't feel like you've got that, what do we do about it? Talking with Chris about the subject of coming through trauma, Bruce spoke about a study regarding UK Sport, the organisation that puts Team GB competitors at the Olympics. He said: “They identified a group of gold-winning, retired British olympians… These are household names…. They compared them to people who went to the Olympics with Team GB but won a bronze, and what they found was, these super-elites, these gold medal-winners, 100 percent of them had experienced a significant moment of childhood trauma. Comparing to those who won the bronze, only a quarter of those had had the same.” Why are we so enchanted by the concept of resilience, the capacity to recover from adversity? It certainly has a fairytale like quality, sweeping away tragedy to make way for triumph is a satisfying story arc. If you mention resilience round here you’ll get thumped,’ a doctor at a busy NHS hospital in north London told me.
Fortitude: Unpicking the Myth of Resilience: A Sunday Times
The response of the Trust was to invest in a clean up operation by sending their employees on resilience training. I think sometimes we have the freedom, hopefully, to be able to do that, because we're a small company, but I do think there are levels of that. And even in really big companies, you have that ability as a manager to make a real difference in that area of choice and control.An audacious reframing of responsibility that seems to have acted as a template for big business over the subsequent two decades. The explosion, only superseded by those that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was powerful enough to shake the windows in Cyprus, 150 miles across the Mediterranean. Helen Tupper: I was scared by that when I read that, that they go home and they kind of take that need into their home and into their family. Now, thinking specifically about the moment we're in with work, there's this one common thing that runs across this sense of community, and it's a sense that we're all in it together. When we feel a sense that we're all in it together, it seems to be incredibly enriching. In fact, you can witness examples in society. When it looks like, during COVID we're all in it together, the Queen's sitting on her own at her husband's funeral; when we're all in it together, it seems like this is a collective effort. When we start seeing people who don't look like they're in it together with us, that's when we get affronted, when we get annoyed, frustrated that, "Why are they not doing it? Why is that family not doing it?" We feel it breaks this bond, the affinity we've got. In March 2023, Bruce was made a Honorary Visiting Professor at Bayes Business School of City University in London.
Fortitude - Apple Podcasts - Apple Rory Sutherland explores Fortitude - Apple Podcasts - Apple
Helen Tupper: It's actually really interesting listening to you saying that, because I had in my mind, "Is there a bit of a tension between control and community in the workplace?" So, control might mean I get to work in a way that works for me. But if you are doing that and Sarah's doing that, then when are we coming together as a community? But actually, your point is, you can still work in a way that works for you, but what we need is, community is not just being in the same room together, it's having a reason to be in the same room together that's worth it and better because of that.Surprising and challenging. Fortitude encouraged me to re-think not only my work but how I live my life.' Sarah Ellis, co-author of The Squiggly Career
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