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1-Page Summary of Resilience
Overview
Why do we feel pain and doubt? How can we overcome all the obstacles in life? The bottom line is that hardship is a part of life, but only by facing up to it and learning how to tackle our challenges will we achieve our full potential. So how do you do that? With resilience.
Author Eric Greitens, in his correspondence with fellow Navy SEAL veteran Zach, tries to find the qualities needed to become resilient against the harder parts of life. He looked at history and philosophy and found that there is an ancient solution for this problem.
In these key points, you will learn how resilience helped create the first modern novel, Don Quixote; that people failing to take responsibility for their actions led to Nazi Germany; and how Ancient Greeks used repetitions in both mind and body.
Resilience, responsibility and repetition are all important concepts in learning about history.
Big Idea #1: You need resilience to courageously overcome life’s challenges.
Are you living up to your full potential? It’s unfortunate that many people fail to access their energy, intelligence and compassion because they get bogged down in disappointment and failure.
But we can learn to overcome hardship by harnessing the power of resilience. Because here’s the thing: none of us can escape fear, pain or doubts. But we can refuse to let difficult experiences bring us down! The trick is to see them in a different light and realize that overcoming obstacles makes you stronger. Simply put, pain builds courage. You just have to be resilient.
The author learned that after spending many years working with veterans. These brave men and women lost both limbs and friends, but they were able to turn their pain into something positive.
Consider a story of Redmon Ramos. After losing his leg to a landmine, he could have either felt sorry for himself or challenged himself. He chose the latter option and became much stronger than before. With the help of prosthetics, he entered the US Paralympic Warrior Games and brought home several medals.
There’s a lesson here: the goal isn’t to bounce back from a hardship, but rather to move through it. History is full of similar stories—people faced with challenges and managing to use their misery to their advantage.
Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish man who was imprisoned in 1602. He used his time to write about Don Quixote, an old man who thought he was a knight and eventually became the first modern novel, which is still beloved today.
We can all learn from Cervantes and be brave in the face of adversity.
Big Idea #2: Anything worth having is worth struggling for.
We all want to be fulfilled in our work and have happy relationships. However, it’s difficult to get those things because they require lots of hard work. But how do you know what is worth working for? Well, it comes down to having a purpose. And that’s not something you can just find casually; rather, you have to forge your purpose by taking action and trying new things.
For example, if you move to a new town where you don’t know anyone or travel abroad for the first time, it can be scary.
