A short podcast episode by Brian Johnson discussing how to train resilience and develop 'ironclad emotional control'—the seventh quality of elite captains from Sam Walker's The Captain Class. The episode cites Richie Davidson's research on neuroplasticity and meditation (prompted by meeting the Dalai Lama) and concludes that meditation reliably improves recovery from stress, recommending practice for focused attention and resilience.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last several plus ones, we've.
Been spending some time with Sam Walker, mining wisdom from his great book, the Captain Class.
As you may recall, we started by.
Establishing the fact that in his opinion, the number one thing that made the historically great teams great was their captain. Then we talked about the seven qualities of elite captains. Then we talked about the first quality, extreme doggedness.
Today I want to chat about how.
To train resilience and forge the seventh quality of those elite captains, ironclad emotional control.
Let's get straight to work. Sam tells us, and I quote, after.
Meeting with the Dalai Lama In India in 1992, Richie Davidson decided to turn his attention to a more practical question. He wanted to know whether people could train themselves to be more resilient. Over the years, Davidson had become a strong believer in the concept of neuroplasticity, the idea that people's brains change over time and that those changes can depend on their life's circumstances. For most of us, this transformation happens unwittingly at a level below consciousness. What Davidson wanted to know was whether people could make positive changes intentionally. He continues by saying he set out to explore a theory he'd long suspected to be true, that meditation, especially the long grueling kind that Buddhist monks engaged in, might cause this kind of brain rewiring to occur. Are people who meditate better at recovering from adversity?
That's from a chapter called the Kill Regulating emotion. As you may know, Richie Davidson is.
One of the world's leading neuroscientists. In fact, he founded two fields that have greatly shaped our understanding of what it means to live. Affective neuroscience with an A. Affective neuroscience, the study of the brain, basis of human emotion. And contemplative neuroscience, the study of the effects of meditation on the brain.
As we discuss in our notes on his great book, the emotional life of your brain. Check those out.
Ritchie is the guy who first approached the Dalai Lama about studying the brains of experienced meditators. And fun fact, Matthew Ricard's brain was first studied in his lab.
Check out our notes on his great book called why Meditate?
Now, here's the very short story on what you need to know. Meditation absolutely helps you cultivate resilience. People who don't meditate tend to respond more significantly to life stressors and recover less quickly.
Therefore, if you would like to forge some ironclad emotional control to go along.
With your antifragile confidence, you'd be very wise to train your ability to put your mind where you want, when you want, for how long you want. In other words, you'd be wise to meditate. P.S.
