I’ve always been a very happy, excitable, and optimistic person.
Like a puppy in a field full of flowers, I’ve spent most of my days naively running around chasing all of the things I love and barking loudly: Isn't this world great?!
And then, over time, life started smacking me around.
In college it was health issues.
In my 20s and 30s it was fertility issues.
And then, more recently, I’ve faced unexpected challenges that I’m not going to get into here – but they’re bigger than I’d expected to face.
And that’s the thing with challenges: they’re always bigger than what we expect. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be challenging. So my life moved beyond easy mode, and my childlike sparkle and wonder were tested.
I’ve been described as relentless, yet I felt powerless. I’ve prided myself on crawling through mud, but I began to wonder if there was anything on the other side. And while I’m not out of it – whatever that means in a world where I’m certain to face countless challenges to come – I’ve learned how to feel emotionally grounded, happy, and fulfilled… and to maintain that through the ups and downs that come my way.
So, I figured I’d share some ideas and tools that have helped me.
Please don’t take these as manna from the heavens. I’m not a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, philosopher, or pastor. I haven’t found God. And I don’t know the meaning of life.
But these ideas have helped me, for whatever that’s worth. Hopefully they help you, too.
Let’s start with the Stockdale Paradox.
There’s a survival concept called the Stockdale Paradox that says:
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
The term was coined by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great, based on James Stockdale, a U.S. Navy admiral who was shot down over North Vietnam and spent nearly eight years as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hỏa Lò Prison – better known as the “Hanoi Hilton”.
Stockdale was tortured over 20 times during his imprisonment, had no set release date, and no certainty on whether he would survive to see his family again. And yet, he shared with Collins: “I never lost faith in the end of the story… I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” But, as the paradox suggests, Stockdale’s experience isn’t simply about belief. It’s also about facing the harsh realities.
When Collins asked Stockdale, “Who didn’t make it out?” the reply was:
“The optimists.”
The optimists “were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go.” And then they’d say Easter – and that, too, would come and go. And then Thanksgiving – and that, similarly, would pass. And then they’d be back at Christmas again. “And they died of a broken heart.”
In an unimaginable situation, Stockdale persevered because of unwavering faith. He maintained an optimistic view that he would survive, while also balancing it with the harsh reality that it would require endurance – and it allowed him to survive, be awarded the Medal of Honor, return home to his family, co-author a book with his wife, lecture on philosophy at Stanford University, run for office as Ross Perot’s vice-presidential candidate in the 1992 election, and live a full life.
Okay… but what if he hadn’t survived Vietnam?
The Stockdale Paradox can feel like an example of survivorship bias: we only hear the lessons from the people who made it out.
The ones who died were labeled overly optimistic, as if they just didn’t have the endurance. But what if some of them had the same mindset as Stockdale… and just happened to die?
I mean, isn’t that possible? Across all of history, in every situation like this, it’s almost certain that someone with Stockdale’s exact same bulletproof mindset still met an unfortunate ending – with no story to share, and no paradox to model.
So if Stockdale hadn’t survived… would the lesson be any less true?
I think it’s fair, at least, to challenge the paradox. So let’s dig a little deeper.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl described a similar experience as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The death rate in his camp spiked in the week between Christmas 1944 and New Year’s. The camp’s chief doctor believed – and Frankl agreed – that many prisoners had pinned their hope on being home by Christmas, and when that didn’t happen, they were too empty to continue forward. The impossible reality crushed any remaining optimism.
And like Stockdale, Frankl survived. The difference for Frankl, though, was that his hope didn’t depend on getting out. Where Stockdale blended optimism for survival with endurance, Frankl’s view was that suffering itself could have meaning – and optimism wasn’t about survival, but rather about purpose, whatever the end turns out to be.
That’s not to say Frankl didn’t imagine the future. At his lowest points, he pictured himself after the war, giving a lecture on the psychology of the camps. But he also said, “the best of us did not return.” Survival didn’t follow decency, or ruthlessness, or even mindset. Often, it came down to luck.
So what should we make of this?
Is the purpose of endurance to overcome hardships and reach the other side? Or is it, instead, to live a life of purpose no matter what hardships we face, or how long they last, or whether we ever reach the other side?
Frankl’s most famous quote summarizes it this way:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Choosing your perspective.
We all know that different people have different perspectives.
You know, the glass is half full vs half empty type of thing. Or how we can eat the same food, listen to the same bands, or go to the same cities and experience them very differently.
The parable of the blind men and an elephant is a fun illustration – where they’re all trying to describe the animal by touching it, but explaining it differently.
It’s a fan, says the one shaking the ear.
It’s a rope, says the one pulling the tail.
It’s a spear, says the one holding a tusk.
It’s a snake, says the one feeling the trunk.
It’s a tree, says the one wrapping their arms around the leg.
Usually we leave it there: We experience things differently. And a lot of the time, that’s fine. One person likes loud music, another person hates loud music. There’s no right or wrong.
But the real point of the parable is that every one of them is right about the piece they’re holding, and wrong about the whole elephant.
And I think hard times do the same thing to us. We grab one piece – the diagnosis, the loss, the setback, the bad year – and we believe that’s the whole animal.
Sometimes there’s more to it than we can see. And sometimes it really is a snake.
Either way, the goal isn’t to pretend. That’s the “out by Christmas” trap. The goal is to see clearly what’s in your hands and still choose what you do with it. Not because it guarantees a better ending, but because it’s a better way to live in the meantime.
So when it comes to how we react in different situations, I believe there’s an objectively better way to train your brain to experience the world:
Your ability to re-frame negative experiences towards contentment, positivity, or purpose is the most valuable tool you can acquire for your mental wellness and personal fulfillment.
Well, that sure sounds easy!
I know, telling someone who is struggling with their mindset to re-frame negative experiences is like telling somebody who is starving to eat food.
It’s not helpful – and worse, it suggests the answer is easily accessible despite the world of effort, desire, and misery that’s been spent trying to acquire it.
So I’ll jump back a bit.
I’m writing this because I’ve struggled – and I know people who struggle – and I’ve found some ideas to be helpful. Out of the things I share, it’s possible that most ideas are useless and maybe one is useful: I’d consider that a win. Or it’s possible that, to you, all of the things are entirely useless, but one thing is helpful for somebody else: I’d still consider that a win.
I’m not trying to speak to every scenario as though I’ve got the answers. I’m just sharing some thoughts. (And if they don’t land – well, it’s my birthday, so you gotta think I’m great anyways.)
10 mental models for endurance.
None of these require knowing how the story ends. They’re just ideas and tools that have helped me face various challenges, big and small.
1. Gratitude
The classic. An attitude of gratitude. I practice this daily and double down on it when I’m feeling overwhelmed.
Everybody will say: think of all the things you’re thankful for and write them down. Even if it’s one thing: awesome!
But honestly, I hardly ever write this stuff down. I just like to think about it. I like to come home and be like HEY there’s a person who chose to spend their life with me, cool! Or WOW I HAVE KIDS. And I get to go play Rocket League if I want!
(Some friends call me a golden retriever.)
Or when I go to sleep, I’ll just think of things I like. Try to feel good when you close your eyes, even if there are big, big things that would make you not feel good.
And if you can’t find anything to be grateful for… well, shit. That sucks and I’m sorry you’re feeling that way. Please skip to point number 2.
2. Positivity
Positivity is like gratitude, except you can totally make things up.
Like, one of the things I do to create a positive mindset is exaggerate how awesome everything is. Here’s one thing I’ll somehow always come back to:
It’s almost impossible to even be born. Like, being alive is an extremely rare gift that I’m super lucky to have compared to existing as a rock, or a leaf, or not existing at all.
And out of the things that are born, we are the luckiest. In my opinion, at least. I think it’d be cool to be a dolphin or eagle or cheetah, but overall I’d argue that humans have it good.
And it’s the luckiest time, ever, to be alive. (At least so far, in my opinion, because most of us have awesome access to shelter, heat, food, water, transportation, and communication.)
I know, life’s a grind sometimes and it’s hard to see positives. So one other thing I’ve found helpful is simply trying to be positive for somebody else. If nothing is going my way, or if I’m stuck and feeling undeserving of positivity – then I might as well at least try to help somebody else feel a little better.
(No, that doesn’t mean I’m going to help you move.)
3. Negativity
Okay, a counter-point to positivity – if that’s not really sticking – is negativity. If gratitude and positivity feel too much like sunshine and rainbows… instead, go dark.
Sometimes I’ll imagine how much worse things could be, and then exaggerate until it’s stupid.
Like with a typical bad day, or a nagging injury, or when I’ve really messed something up – well… at least my arm isn’t stuck between rocks where I’ve got to chop it off like that guy in the movie 127 Hours. I’m still breathing, and the world isn’t going to end. And even if it does end, everybody else is going down with me, so it’s not like I’ve got it the worst… right?
It doesn’t make the problem any smaller, or discount the need to face it and solve it. But it helps with the drama, a little. And sometimes that’s enough.
4. Own the little things
I think dumb mistakes are the perfect opportunity to improve accountability and perspective.
Like, if I accidentally knock something over and it breaks – it’s easy to react: who the hell put that THERE?!?! As if my elbow hitting a cup on a counter is somebody else’s fault. Or tripping over some shoes and being upset that somebody left them out.
I just hate the idea of stumbling through life reacting to every little inconvenience as a victim.
So when I find myself reacting to little things like that, I try to correct it fast – ideally in the moment by laughing at myself, and exaggerating “I cannot believe somebody took off their shoes at the door where you normally walk in and take them off!!” and pointing out the absurdity of my initial reaction. But if I don’t catch myself in the moment, I’ll still try to acknowledge it later, apologizing for how stupid my initial response was.
I think it’s normal to distance ourselves from bad outcomes. Just listen to your sentence structure sometimes: “The car ran out of gas” is different from “I ran out of gas.” “My clock was off” is different from “I messed up and I’m sorry I’m late.” “Traffic was crazy” vs. “I’m an idiot and I didn’t leave until the last minute.”
I think it’s way better to just take responsibility, laugh at yourself, and admit that our hardwiring is pretty clumsy most of the time and that’s okay.
Does this help you feel better? I don’t know, but at least it gives you some sense of agency around your role within any environment. The more you own your actions, the more you can control your outcomes. So even the little things, like how you react when you mess up, are a training ground that will prepare you for when the big things show up.
5. Stop obsessing
Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, introduced an idea called the focusing illusion:
“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.”
The takeaway being: when you’re celebrating a big WIN, that’s the most important it’ll ever feel. And when you’re super frustrated with steam coming out of your ears – it feels way bigger than it actually is. Or in the words of Bob Marley – don’t worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright.
I think this is mostly useful for reactive emotions like frustration and anger. When it comes to sadness, or trauma, or loss – I think you should spend some time exploring your emotions. And instead of ignoring them, or downplaying them, you should lean in. But you should talk with somebody smarter than me about that.
6. Know yourself
You should know how you feel. Understand yourself. Know what drains you, and know what recharges you. Know when you’re off-center, and how to re-balance. Don’t ignore your feelings. Spend the time to understand yourself, face things straight on, and deal with them.
Go for walks. Play music you love. Put up art that makes you feel happy. Surround yourself with people who make you feel good. Eat food you like. Don’t do things you don’t like, unless they lead to something you like more. (A little sacrifice is okay once in a while, right?)
7. You can do whatever you want
If life isn’t working for you, change it.
This admittedly doesn’t solve many things. But it DOES solve many things, too.
I think it’s easy for us to feel stuck based on what we’ve always done, or what others expect of us, or what others want us to do. At some point, you need to realize that you get to choose the game you play. Go do the thing you’ve always wanted.
8. Zoom out
As a child, I remember failing a test, or being picked on, or having an embarrassing moment and just telling myself:
In ten years, this won’t matter.
And by expanding the time horizon, I’d immediately escape the drama of the situation. And still, today, if I’m overwhelmed, I’ll use the same phrase to put things in perspective.
Obviously, some things will still matter in ten years. So nowadays it’s more like: “Will this matter?” … as a way to gut-check whether or not something is worth the emotional investment. Or in other situations – the issue itself doesn’t matter, but how I respond does. So I’ll shift the focus away from the reaction and towards the lesson.
9. We’re all connected
Zooming out often reminds me of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, the famous photo that Voyager 1 took of Earth from 3.7 billion miles away – where our planet shows up as a speck of dust in a beam of light.
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar’, every ‘supreme leader’, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
We’re all connected in this big web of life. My life isn’t more meaningful than your life. My outcome doesn’t matter more than your outcome. My desire to win doesn’t mean I can’t feel great even when I lose. Things will go your way, and things will go against you. We’ll all experience the good and the bad in different ratios and volumes.
And whether you crawl through the mud, and get to the other side a champion – or you end up face down in the mud without ever finding the other side – you get to choose your purpose. The goal becomes how you show up, not how it turns out.
10. We’re all going to die
And then… everybody dies.
And that can either be depressing or empowering. It’s up to you. Or if you’re like me, you’ll probably feel both sides of that coin.
It’s easy to say: You didn’t exist for a really, really long time before you lived, and it wasn’t that bad. But it still feels really sad, sometimes, to think of not existing, and missing the things I hope to experience – in my life, and in my kids’ lives.
But don’t get stuck there. Pull yourself out of it and find a way to turn this ONE LIFE into a meaningful one. You’ve got this one precious chance to live with blood in your veins and breath in your lungs – and sentience to think and feel.
So make the most of it, even despite the worst of it.
I was coaching U11 hockey the other night and my son’s team was down 3-2 late in the 3rd period. And then the other team scored a goal to make it 4-2 and quite a few kids hung their heads, no different than you’d expect for any group that was trying hard for a better outcome. It was super disappointing. But I’m just watching the dejection and I’m like:
Come on guys, we’re not going to give up with five and a half minutes to go! Sure, we’re probably going to lose, but if we’re going to lose then let’s at least wait for the final buzzer to make that announcement. But for now… go make the next shift your best shift!
And we still lost. It wasn’t a speech that’s going to end up in a movie. But I think it’s the same with life.
We owe ourselves our best swing at this existence. We owe it to ourselves to be resilient… to persevere, and to endure. Because if we don’t, we’re just giving up with time on the clock and opportunities for better outcomes.
So carry on. Play the next shift.
Because whether or not you outlast it, or ever make it to the other side – the endurance, in and of itself, is the worthwhile pursuit.
