So that was it, really, a point of recognition that this clearly does exist, but the way we're talking about it has been unfortunately, I think, deliberately misappropriated by people, and so it was about pressing reset on that. So actually, the most important part of this work is understanding it, because my ACE score, for example, it's so fascinating; for me, my ACE score is 4. So I immediately start going, "Gosh, right, okay. Well firstly, that would have a deleterious effect on my health, and secondly would explain my relentless need to try and succeed and do more". Resilience is the buzzword of the moment. We're told that if we have it, our lives will be happy and successful ones. If we don't, we need to acquire it. If you've got an ACE score of 6, your life is, on average, 20 years shorter than if you've got an ACE score of 0. If you've got an ACE score of 4, you've got 33 times higher likelihood of having educational issues. If you've got an ACE score of 4, your likelihood of getting lung cancer is double, your likelihood of getting heart disease is double. And so, you look at these things and you go, "Wow, firstly we've got an incredible aggregation of data going on here", Mo Farah and, let's say, Linford Christie, Kelly Holmes, Andy Murray, all of these people who've experienced significant trauma and have gone on to be elite athletes; there seems to be something that propels people who've got an incredible gift into what they can accomplish. I got sent on my company’s resilience training and I don’t feel any better,’ one worker at a major technology company told me.

fortitude | Amazing If How to find fortitude | Amazing If

So then, if we're trying to empathise with an athlete, who maybe has taken performance-enhancing drugs, we have to start from a position of thinking, "This was a broken person who did something as an act of self-healing", rather than a nasty person who set out -- This expectation of resilience frequently serves the purpose of making help unnecessary, if a victim proves unable to cope it suggests an additional weakness, maybe they weren’t worth helping in the first place. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. There is a long-held assumption that in groups we lose our sense of self. This misgiving has led many to believe that standing alone is the best route for optimal outcomes and personal success. Bruce Daisley argues that while groups can be capable of acts of cruelty, they can also aid happiness, identity and fortitude. On the reverse, loneliness has remarkable negative consequences on our psyches; our minds interpret isolation as being rejected by our tribe which can become mentally debilitating. The response of the Trust was to invest in a clean up operation by sending their employees on resilience training.So, it helps me understand, when people have said to me, "Burnout doesn't apply to me, I can work as long as I want", it sounds like at least in the short term, that explains it. When we feel like we've got the autonomy to make that decision, it seems to help. The concept of growth mindset and resilience programmes centre around a shared belief that resilience relies on the individual’s ability to mentally frame challenges – and that this is a skill which can be taught and learned. Bruce Daisley views these concepts collectively as a ‘Resilience Orthodoxy’. Although there is still some value in some of these teachings, Bruce Daisley suggests resilience should not be viewed as a personal trait. Instead, it needs to bring community into the focus. Three pillars that define his approach to resilience are Control, Identity and Community. Bruce Daisley: Okay! Well, normally when any of us think about the most meaningful moments that we've experienced, or the most meaningful accomplishments in a job, they're generally not, "I did this on my own". It's normally, they've got a degree of simcha to them. So, it might be the celebration of something big you did, or the recognition you got for something big you did, rather than the mere act of accomplishing it. As soon as you recognise that you go, "Oh, okay, I really recognise that".

Bruce Daisley | Future of Work Speaker | Chartwell Speakers Bruce Daisley | Future of Work Speaker | Chartwell Speakers

With Tom Daley, Andy Murray, Linford Christie and Mo Farrah as examples, he continued: “What you discover is, the vehicle that tends to work there is, people like Kelly Holmes say, ‘Sport became my identity,’ and they channel their energy, sometimes to an excessive extent. They become obsessed with their sport, because it’s about trying to build this new version of themselves.”So, people seek to fill that void that trauma's created, by the actions they take. And I think through all of that, we can see, to your point there, that identity can be this really powerful motivating factor, but it also can be this incredible tinderbox that can really be an explosive combination inside of us. An audacious reframing of responsibility that seems to have acted as a template for big business over the subsequent two decades. Their phone is cluttered with 10 apps with 15 different notifications, and the one day in the week that they come into the office, that's probably this weird day, if you've got something waiting for them there, it just stands out in this remarkable way. If someone invented this today, you'd be going, "I can't believe this thing, and it's not cluttered". So, I think they're probably two quite big questions, but community and fortitude, let's explore that so other people can learn about it. And then, the way that work works now, what do we need to change so that we have the community that we need?

Fortitude | Journey Further Fortitude | Journey Further

This is a truly refreshing, captivating and important book that shifted my perception on a topic I thought I knew! A must read. Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur and host of 'The Diary of a CEO' Increasingly a boss might get on the phone to commission resilience training, but the weary workforce sees corporate gaslighting.A correspondent for the New York Times concurred: ‘ Anyone who knows Lebanon has heard this: The Lebanese are resilient.’ Helen Tupper: It's actually really interesting listening to you saying that, because I had in my mind, "Is there a bit of a tension between control and community in the workplace?" So, control might mean I get to work in a way that works for me. But if you are doing that and Sarah's doing that, then when are we coming together as a community? But actually, your point is, you can still work in a way that works for you, but what we need is, community is not just being in the same room together, it's having a reason to be in the same room together that's worth it and better because of that. Surprising and challenging. Fortitude encouraged me to re-think not only my work but how I live my life. Sarah Ellis, co-author of 'The Squiggly Career' Bruce Daisley: There's a wonderful guy who passed away a couple of years ago, called Enrico Quarantelli, and Enrico Quarantelli was obsessed with natural disasters and when things went wrong. It's almost like, if you've got an earthquake or people flying out of somewhere, he was the lone car driving in the other direction. He was obsessed with going to see when things went wrong.

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What you discover is that UK Sport did this remarkable piece of work, and this is what I couldn't get out of my head, that studied 16 British super-elite athletes, and they say all of them household names. All of them, of the ones they studied, all of them had a significant moment of childhood trauma. To just emphasise that that's not universal, the ones that they compared them to, who were the silver medallists, the bronze medallists, the people who did well but not quite win gold, only one in four of them had a moment of significant trauma. Helen Tupper: I something think that you find the books that you need to read, you know, when you've got those insights and it really speaks to you, and the early bit of the book, you talk a lot about the relationship between adversity, particularly adversity earlier on in life, and its relationship with resilience and success in later life. And I was reading this through and reading about some things called ACE scores, and all kinds of things, and reflecting on my own life and thinking, "Oh gosh, there are definitely moments of adversity in my younger life", and thinking, "Is what I do now, and how much energy and commitment and relentless I do now, how much of that is related to early life adversity?" In the US Army, the issue was PTSD is off the scale. You're significantly more likely to die from suicide if you're a combat soldier during the course of your life, than you are to be killed by an enemy combatant. So, as a result of that, there was a need for it. The skincare regime, there was a demand for it, and so people created a product. And the interesting thing, what catalysed that exploration for me, is that so many people I know who've done resilience courses have said to me, "It didn't work, I don't feel any different". Okay, that's really interesting, because like a skincare product, it's a charming, lovely idea, we build a routine around it, we've created something that seems in service of self-care; but if it doesn't work, there are fair questions to ask about that. Sarah Ellis: So, Bruce, thank you. It's been a fascinating conversation today, as I knew it would be, and a challenging one, as we also knew it would be. But we always finish these conversations with the same question, which we're really interested to know, what's the most useful piece of career advice that you would like to share with our listeners and leave our listeners with? This could be a useful piece of career advice that you've been given and that you want to pass on and share what you know, so that we can all succeed; or perhaps just some words of wisdom for you.We're endlessly being told that if we want to be successful in life we have to be tough and stubborn. If we struggle, it's because we're weak and uncertain. Bruce Daisley thinks this is simply untrue, and in his new book the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Joy of Work takes the notion of resilience apart, explains how it really works, and puts forward a new programme for building self-confidence and tenacity. He calls it Fortitude. Simultaneously, Vincent Felitti said something which is just astonishing. He was dealing in a weight loss clinic, and he had patients who were 300 lbs, 400 lbs, you know, people really struggling with obesity, and he found himself accidentally asking a question of one of them, which was related to her sexual history. And effectively, he discovered firstly that this patient had been abused by her grandfather, but then he started asking other patients. He found 55% of his patients had experienced sexual abuse as children. Then you're like, "Okay, what are the little steps along the way doing that that aren't that?" and that's why these people who do the illustrations in their book, or they're often simple things. And the moment you see it, you go, "Oh yeah, of course, that's obvious". None of these things feel like someone's invented the iPhone, they're not genius flashes of inspiration. So, all I would think is, are there little things that you could do that probably are your strength, or something that's a bit more you, that might enable you to show you as a real person. In this light an expectation of resilience is no longer the spellbinding final act of a story, it is something akin to victim blaming.