A doctor and educator breaks down resilience into three steps: identify a problem, generate solutions, and iterate based on feedback. She uses James Dyson's 5,200 product iterations and color-coded charger labels as examples of how an entrepreneurial mindset builds a flexible, adaptable brain.
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Hi there. You know, on this podcast that we always come back to resilience, mental and physical resilience, aka the ability to bounce back from setbacks, small or big, because we all have setbacks, right? Whether it's imagined, whether it's subjective or objective, things happen in life. Like we think something didn't go well, or it could be objective, like we got our car towed. And resilience is the ability to bounce back from it, not to just where you were before, but even above where you were before. And in order to come back to a place that's beyond where you were, that means that there was some sort of learning involved. So even if something bad happens to us subjectively or objectively, we can really turn it around by the way we look at it, the way we package it inside our brain. These setbacks are also known as stressors, and these stressors have an effect on our mind and our body, our physiology. So our chemistry changes with stressors. You know by now that stress is responsible for many illnesses and diseases. So the question is, when you have a stress, and it's a normal human thing to be stressed, how fast can you bounce back from that stress state? Now, I've always been drawn to this topic of entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs. One of my favorite podcasts is How I Built This with Guy Raz, and, uh, he goes into depth and interviews entrepreneurs. Of course, they've all made it by the time they're on his podcast. Anyway, they go through stories of times where they hit rock bottom and they bounce back for whatever reason, whatever they're pursuing, and they're incredible stories. But you don't have to be a massively successful company to be an entrepreneur. In fact, I think every kid should learn the skills of entrepreneurship, especially nowadays with the advent of AI and the future of work. It's more important than ever to be a creative thinker and a problem solver. So entrepreneurs have traits that make them very resilient. Entrepreneurship to me has always been about seeing a problem in the world or seeing a need in the world. And wanting to solve it. And because I love the topic so much and I identify as an entrepreneur, I took this class at MIT. It's called Discipline Entrepreneurship with Bill Aulet. It's a famous course. Um, and I also took Paul Cheek's course, Startup Tactics. It's part 2 of Discipline Entrepreneurship. And they also talked about how entrepreneurs are really bringing things into the world that haven't existed before because they wanna solve problems in the world. So this is a great mindset to have, and it's a skillset that every kid should learn. And in fact, moms are very entrepreneurial. When you think about it, you're always solving problems. You're always trying to make things better for your kids and your family. You're a born entrepreneur. So I've distilled entrepreneurship into sort of an everyday mindset for you today, and it takes really 3 steps. Okay? So, and these 3 steps happen to be something that is awesome for your brain because the brain likes to learn. The brain loves to solve problems. That's what human brains are for. That's why we have the biggest cortex-to-body ratio of all mammals, because that higher-level thinking is for problem solving. But unfortunately, we're trying to solve problems that can't be solved a lot of times. That leads to anxiety. So if you're constantly thinking about something you can't control or do anything about, that can lead to anxiety, like trying to guess the future, for example. So instead of that, let's use our brain for what it was meant for. To solve problems and at the same time learn the basic mindset of an entrepreneur. So first of all, number one is to identify a problem. Um, it could be your own problem. And as moms, we know that there's tons of problems that come up all throughout the day. I could list hundreds of them for you. When you hear people complaining about something, kick in that problem solving gear and think, what is the problem here and what could solve this problem? Number 1 is identify a problem. Maybe you have it, maybe other people have it. And the way you think of a solution is to break it down. Okay, so let's think of a common example of a problem that you might run into. So let's say everybody's stealing each other's phone chargers. What is the problem you can solve? Of course, you could get into the deeper, uh, problem of why are people taking things that aren't theirs, right? But for now, let's solve the superficial problem. Of people are taking each other's chargers, claiming that they don't know, they thought it was theirs. So the solution is color-coded charger labels. Maybe you can even make a little business out of it. With this method, you could turn complaints into fun problems to solve. I know, not always, but just try it. Figure out the problem, irritations, complaints, and then break it down into why that problem exists. And then come up with solutions. So those are the 3 steps. And then the most important thing I learned all year at Harvard and MIT Sloan Business School is one word: iterate. Iterate. That just means that you come up with new prototypes every single time. You're always improving on something. So you make the little charger, uh, label and maybe it doesn't work. Maybe you color code it first and then everybody says, oh, I forgot which color. So then you have to iterate again. Maybe it has to have A certain icon on it so people will remember not just the color, but the icon too. So with feedback, you iterate on the product or whatever the solution is and make it better every single time. The most extreme example of iteration that I've ever heard of was, uh, James Dyson. He's the founder of Dyson vacuum cleaners. Supposedly he went through about 5,200 iterations, give or take. Before he came up with the Dyson vacuum. Of course, now he's using similar technology to make his amazing hair dryer too. So it's a pretty incredible story. And James Dyson has a How I Built This podcast episode where he's interviewed, and he's truly a problem solver. He was just so curious about how to solve this problem. One of my favorite episodes. So remember, resilience doesn't mean that you just bounce back. We also build forward. We go higher than we were before by learning. And iterating on ourselves or our products or whatever it is we're working on. So every time you're doing this exercise with yourself or your kids, you are learning how to problem solve creatively. You're experimenting, adapting, and strengthening those neural pathways in our cortical brain for flexible thinking, for problem solving, for goal-directed behavior. All of those things that help us to become successful in life and also makes life so much more enjoyable. You know, our brains are meant to create things, not just to absorb things constantly. You have to make your own thing. You have to create and put it out into the world. And that's where happiness lies for the brain. An adaptable, problem-solving brain is a resilient brain. So go ahead and ask yourself, if you could solve any problem at home, work, personal life, whatever it is, what would it be? And you can ask your kids the same thing too. It doesn't have to be big. It could be a small problem. And then research what the problem is, break it down step by step, and then research what the solutions could be. The solutions don't have to make sense all the time. And this is something I regret. I remember trying to solve problems with my daughter sometimes, and she would have these wild ideas of like, we could build a robot to help with this. And, and I would say, oh, that's just too much. And that's not realistic, but. You know, what I learned is that you allow your brain to go there, to go to the impossible, and then bring it back in. So allow that imagination to flow, make it insanely wild, um, unrealistic even, and then hone it down into something more realistic. That is a creative process of like expansion and contraction, and it trains you cognitively how to build confidence to be creative and to be resilient in solving problems. So if you haven't listened to the episode with Dr. Jenny Wu last week, go and listen. It's a great one. She really tells us all of the behind the scenes, uh, actions that she took to build a 7-figure business while raising 3 kids. Subscribe and come join me next week when Jenny flips the chair to ask me questions about how I raised my resilient kids and how my kids went to the top schools, Harvard and Princeton, without burning out by pursuing their passions, but really learning how to work hard at them and while staying true to themselves. Don't forget to check out our upcoming courses on resilient youth, and you can head on over to mindbodyspace.com/podcast. We sign up for our newsletter to find out about our new courses coming up. This is the year where I want to scale to reach as many kids as possible so that they can have that edge to increase resilience by understanding their own brains. Look out for Brain Bun and books for kids of all ages coming up to teach them about their brains so that they can be resilient Thrive. You can always reach out to me and ask questions at info@mindbodyspace.com.
