Adam Markel argues that common notions of resilience emphasizing endurance (exemplified by Rocky) miss a crucial element: recovery rituals. Citing a Harvard Business Review comparison of elite athletes and executives, he claims rituals for recovery—pre-built self-care practices—directly influence capacity to perform in business and life. He stresses developing these rituals before stressors occur.
Chapters
You know what? Rocky wins our hearts. Yes, he wins our hearts, but he loses the fight. And he don't look too good in the end either, does he? He's all banged up. And why I'm sharing Rocky with you is because we've been taught that resilience is about endurance. You know, Rocky gets knocked down, he gets back up, he gets knocked down, he gets back up. He's the model of endurance. Now we all know this one. Rocky 1976. How many Rocky movies have they made so far? Anybody know? Anybody know? Four, Eight? That's the answer. Eight Rocky movies. But for me, for my money, I'll never forget the first time I saw this with my dad. And I got out of the theater just running and jumping and just like, yeah, you know, I was like, this is great. You know what? Rocky wins our hearts. Yes, he wins our hearts, but he loses the fight. And he don't look too good in the end either, does he? He's all banged up. And why I'm sharing Rocky with you is because we've been taught that resilience is about endurance. You know, Rocky gets knocked down, he gets back up, he gets knocked down, he gets back up. He's the model of endurance. That's an element of resilience. But it's not even the most important part. Studies have shown this Harvard Business Review article compared high performance athletes with high performing executives, people in business. What they found was that there was one thing in common between those great athletes and those great executives and business people, and that was their ritual, say that word. Their rituals for recovery. Their rituals to create resilience for themselves. The research is all clear that there's a relationship between your recovery times and your capacity. Capacity to perform. Meaning getting work done, getting stuff done, bringing money in, collecting money. All the stuff that we do in business is directly related to just how much energy you've got, how well you are. I mean, imagine you had to run a marathon tomorrow. Would you have done what you did last night? Maybe, maybe, maybe not. What would you have ensured that you did today? Woke up, had water, had the right breakfast, made sure you got sleep, whatever it is. But taking care of yourself is all about how it is that you show up as that most productive version of yourself. Which it's ironic because when it comes to self care, people think it's what? Selfish? Selfish, exactly. But it's really selfless because the better version of you is the better version of that person that can handle all the stressors that we talked about at the beginning. The key is to develop these things before you need them. We developed our resilience on the beach before we were tested. Not every day was a day when the waves were crazy like that. In the middle of the week, we had a few thousand people on the beach. And in those times, we took care of ourselves. We created rituals for resilience.
