There are two types of workplace elites: stone-type elites and glass-type elites. Glass-type is easy to understand: even those with extraordinary performance can be severely damaged by major setbacks or emotional shocks, and then never recover. But stone-type elites are emotionally and mentally resilient, with stable self-discipline. Only those business elites with strong inner strength can continuously navigate the fierce competition inside and outside the company with ease and achieve success. So, what are the essential abilities these elites possess to keep achieving? Mr. Hisashi Kuze, who once served as the head of the cosmetics division at Procter & Gamble Japan, responsible for brand management and product development in Japan and overseas, gives us his answer in the book Resilience (抗压力). As the founder of Japan's first positive psychology school for Japanese professionals, he uses his own experiences and insights to tell us: An important skill we need to learn, and learn as early as possible, is the ability to handle adversity and move forward steadily—resilience. 1 Why is resilience important? He believes that from a young age, one should master the power of resilience, the strength to not be defeated by adversity and to move forward against the current. A career is also a long-term battle for a business professional. Although sometimes you need to sprint hard, it cannot last long. A career should be more like a long-distance race, like a marathon runner, maintaining pace and completing the full course. Therefore, if you do not master the working methods for a long-term battle early in your career, you are likely to encounter physical or psychological problems in middle age, leading to an early exit from the competition. Moreover, the period in your career that brings huge returns is the later stage when personal strength and experience accumulate. Many business people accumulate most of their assets in the last 10 years. To work healthily for a long time and usher in the golden period of your career, it is necessary to master the resilience that cultivates a strong inner self. 2 Why recommend this book? I have read some books, some valuable, some not. It is precisely because I have read many worthless ones that I gradually began to classify and evaluate the value of the books I read. So far, personally, for non-fiction practical books, the value is reflected in two aspects: 1) They can guide us in thinking to shift our perspective on conventional matters
For example, Willpower tells us, "The basis of self-control is giving up complete self-control. You can never control your behavior and your emotions. You can only, and you can, continuously adjust and keep doing more of what you hope to accomplish." For example, Use Time as a Friend tells us, "Patience has a magical power. When you stop being eager for quick results, you will find that while others are stuck in a cycle of repeated dieting and ineffective emotions and life, you have persisted in fitness and exercise for years without panic."
In this book, I think the most valuable part is redefining our perception of stress, failure, and the vicious cycle of emotions caused by failure. First, we need to know our fixed mindsets; second, we need to accept their existence; then we can find ways to improve our current methods. 2) On a theoretical basis, provide practical and actionable suggestions This is my basic principle for judging practical books/articles versus chicken soup. The book gives 7 suggestions on how to improve your ability to respond to the vicious cycle caused by stress and failure, and you can use them at any time. In addition, there is no need to criticize chicken soup; chicken soup can indeed give some uplifting power to those who are emotionally low. The value of chicken soup is enough here. Solving problems has never been the mission of "little chicken soup"; we need to find the real substance ourselves. In fact, emotional lows and stress have always been there. After reading this book, you will know that to have resilience, on the one hand, you need to soothe your emotions, and on the other hand, you need to actually solve problems. The two are like inner beauty and outer beauty; they run in parallel, not a choice between the two, but both are indispensable. So, let's see what the book says. There is a lot of content, so here is a structure diagram. You can pick and choose according to your needs. 3 Building Your Own Resilience 3.1 Thinking Level: How to Correctly View Stress and Failure 1) Stress is always there First, we need to know that it is human nature to be afraid of failure, to be anxious when things don't go smoothly. Feeling stress and having your thoughts and emotions affected by stress is not something wrong; it is a normal reaction. Stress will always be there. The earlier you learn to get along with stress, the more steadily and longer you can go in life and career. No one has a smooth life without ever feeling uneasy. All successful or more mature people have such feelings. What makes them different from us is that they have more rational cognition and more scientific, personal, and effective ways to cope. Therefore, we need to have a correct understanding of stress and negative emotions. We need to face the current situation directly, think about problems scientifically, and avoid being led by the nose into a vicious cycle. 2) Re-understanding failure Like stress, failure is inevitable for everyone. Whether at work, study, sports, or any other aspect, failure follows everyone like a shadow. It is precisely because failure will befall everyone that we need to be mentally prepared in advance. Once we encounter a crisis, we cannot panic or be anxious. We need to understand how our body and mind react after experiencing failure. Only by truly understanding failure, comprehending it, and preparing ourselves for it can we treat the experience of failure in a more rational way. In fact, failure can be divided into three types: predictable failure, unavoidable failure, and valuable failure. Every time we encounter failure, we should learn to stabilize our emotions, identify the type of failure, and then take corresponding measures. 3.2 Skill Level: 7 Skills to Build Resilience Skill 1: Get rid of the vicious cycle of negative emotions After experiencing failure, we usually have a feeling of powerlessness, and this powerless emotional experience will expand and spread. So, pay attention to whether you are trapped in it? In fact, nothing is foolproof. The experience of failure will repeatedly appear throughout our lives and will never stop. Actually, negative emotions are not the key; the key is how we treat, view, and handle these emotions. So, when we have negative emotions, we should first train ourselves to be aware of them, know what kind of adverse reactions they cause in our body and mind, and then we can learn to accept their existence. Then take some other methods to divert our attention, and let these emotions gradually dissipate through other methods. The book introduces four methods: exercise, breathing, listening to music, and writing. The specific benefits need not be elaborated by me. I use each one: running, swimming, fitness, yoga, meditation, music, and writing. Those who use it know it! Skill 2: Tame useless "fixed mindsets"
"There is a distance between stimulus and response, and the key to growth and happiness lies in how we use this distance." When we fail or face difficulties, we receive negative stimuli, which automatically trigger emotional reactions. This is the process of stimulus and response. For example, when encountering a traffic jam, some people become anxious and lose their temper. If someone cuts you off, you may involuntarily become furious and honk in protest. If this anxiety persists, you may even vent your anger on others. Even if you are with family, you probably won't be in the mood to chat. (My dad is like this!!!) Even though you know it's useless to worry, you can't get rid of the anxiety. This is an automatic reaction. In my previous review of The Most Simple and Most Difficult Thing in Life, I also said that this is our default setting. When everyone encounters such things, the sudden appearance of this emotion is the first reaction. This is natural. We don't need to label ourselves as "impatient," "bad-tempered," or "this is just how I am." We need to know that we have the ability, the power, and the freedom to choose our response. Yesterday I read a book called Crucial Conversations, which also mentioned this point, the principle between stimulus and response. For example, "traffic jam or being cut off" is what you see and hear. "This person is so rude / How dare you cut me off, do you think I'm stupid? / Damn, why is there always a traffic jam?" is subjective judgment. Then comes the emotion of "anger, anxiety." Then comes the behavior of losing our temper or cutting back. So, what determines our reaction is actually our "subjective judgment," and the space we can work on is also in the "subjective judgment" part. Often, our fixed mindsets in this area are acquired later in life. Moreover, among the erroneous fixed mindsets that can trigger negative emotions, most are formed and deepened by past painful experiences. When we were children, we often heard our parents nagging, being compared to other people's children. After school, we were often compared to other students. After entering society, we unfortunately experienced failures. These all continuously strengthen our distorted fixed mindsets. You can check yourself: How to deal with fixed mindsets? There are only three methods. The first is removal: if you think what it says is incorrect, remove it.
The second is acceptance: if you think what it says is correct, accept it.
The third is training. And this is the method we use most often. When what it says is neither 100% correct nor 100% wrong, we should ask ourselves how to tame it and live in harmony with it.
Finally, I hope friends remember that being able to notice the fixed mindset entrenched inside you is already a big step forward. Most people, because they don't notice the existence of the fixed mindset, mistake its voice for their own inner voice. In fact, those are just emotions caused by concepts arising from thinking patterns. We can also make cards with the content of the fixed mindset and place them in visible places. When we feel stressed or in a bad mood, we can easily check whether we are being led by the nose by the fixed mindset. Skill 3: Scientifically cultivate self-confidence The book introduces the concept of "Self-Efficacy," which specifically refers to our confidence in the success rate of implementing a certain goal and behavior. It has four dimensions, as shown in the figure. But the most important thing is to experience it yourself in the realization of every small thing and every small goal, accumulating trust in yourself bit by bit. No one can replace what we should do for ourselves in accumulating self-confidence. Skill 4: Leverage your strengths Actually, finding and leveraging your strengths is something we have been exploring since our youth. It cannot be determined by just a few things or a few attempts. We need to search, determine, and even dig for a long time based on our experiences and feelings. So, the book does not expand too much, but it mentions a very valuable tool: the Gallup StrengthsFinder. This book is a tool strongly recommended by our company's HR for campus recruitment and internal training. I learned about it through the HR who recruited me. Some people know very early where their strengths lie, what they should do, and where they want to go. But many people don't. I used to think that not finding a sense of direction and goals was a bad thing, but now I think it's normal, and there's no need to label myself. A book I read recently said, direction does not come out of thin air. If you grew up in a very ordinary environment, surrounded by ordinary people living similar lives, besides having a similar sense of direction as everyone else, where can you get direction out of thin air? Everyone goes through this process. Some people get guidance from others in their growth environment, some get definite feedback through their own experiences or preferences, and thus find a general direction. Some people haven't been able to get it yet. The important thing is, don't give up. Like other resilience skills, this is a long-term endeavor. Skill 5: Build a mental support system The intimacy between people is the driving force of our happiness and the secret to enriching life. Being able to realize that "others are important to my own happiness" is a very important thing. It doesn't mean that attention should be entirely on the outside world, nor does it mean we should sacrifice ourselves. It just means objectively viewing the happiness we feel, and our relationship with ourselves and others. In a good state, there must be both yourself and important others, right? So, elites always spend time on "the most important things." And the people who make you feel happiness are definitely one of your "most important things." No matter how busy work is, don't completely forget them. Skill 6: Always be grateful In such a fast-paced era where everyone is busy acquiring, talking about the power of gratitude might be the most overlooked of these 7 skills. In fact, the power of gratitude can be greater than we imagine. If people are divided into takers, matchers, and givers, the takers might be more admired and recognized because they are the ones who most obviously show their value creation in the short term. But in the long run, that may not be the case. Being grateful often can improve people's happiness, neutralize some negative emotions, and promote physical health. People with gratitude are also often more proactive and altruistic. Humans are emotional animals. If we think from another perspective and take a longer view, what kind of people would you rather maintain relationships with? So, I have also listed the key points separately. Try it. Most things, only when you do them and keep doing them, can you feel their value. Skill 7: Draw wisdom from pain Every time we take a new step, there are successes and failures. The lessons learned from failure experiences often come with mental pain, which makes them extra memorable, truly take root in a person, and become their own strength. At the same time, if a person can learn with the sense of crisis that this is necessary for my success, they will absorb knowledge like a sponge absorbing water. Whether failure or success, sadness or joy, they are all parts of one's life. If you can comprehend these from various experiences, you can master the ability to maintain a calm and composed mindset. This ability will crystallize in you and form lifelong wisdom. - Author: Hisashi Kuze This passage is very powerful, so let's end with it. This is the book! About the author of this article: Reading and writing, running and fitness, learning French and painting. Life is interesting only when you keep trying new things. 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