"You grieve, you learn,
You choke, you learn,
You laugh, you learn,
You choose, you learn,
You pray, you learn,
You ask, you learn,
You live, you learn."
~ Alanis Morissette
What I love about the lyric of Alanis is that it describes so well the third category of experience identified by Nassim Nicholas Taleb as anti-fragile.
The
first two categories are 1) fragile and 2) resilient. When a box is marked "FRAGILE"
that means it breaks easily and is vulnerable to shocks.
The second category, resilient (sometimes called robust), means that it can withstand a shock. If you ship champagne glasses mark the box fragile. If you ship a bowling ball you don't have to mark the box because it is resilient.
Most people live their lives in the first two categories. And by most, I mean 99% because they do not even know of a third possibility. That's why there is no word for it.
That's why Taleb had to invent the word antifragile.
For the package bearing something antifragile would be marked "BENEFITS FROM SHOCK."
A candle is fragile to a strong wind. The wind blows the candle out. But a forest fire benefits from a strong wind. It is not resilient to the wind, it grows from it.
Most people are either fragile or resilient to rejection...to hearing a NO. They either get upset and depressed (fragile) or they learn to be okay with it...to withstand it without being upset (resilient).
But there is that 1% who have learned to benefit from a NO.
They learn from it.
They grow from it.
They even welcome it. They are anti-fragile now, and they are powerful as a forest fire.
Same is true with divorce. Most people are only seeing the possibility of the first two categories. They are either devastated and depressed over their break-up (fragile to it), OR they have learned to "get through it," withstand it and survive (resilient).
But what if there were a third category?
And what if we could learn to go there?
Allison Pescosolido has created that third possibility for people "going through" divorce.
She calls it a reframe.
And when you have done her intensive program, you are no longer merely resilient to your divorce.
You are stronger for it.
You have reframed every aspect of it. You have used it now to improve dating skills, improve your sense of freedom and maturity, and to strengthen your independence and your capacity to apply your love to all of life.
She calls it DIVORCE DETOX and you can find her here: http://divorcedetox.com/.
In my own world I work with a lot of coaches. I had a coaching prosperity school for years. Today I have a very intensive three-day workshop that I put on with master coach Rich Litvin that teaches coaches to move out of the first two categories into the third. The next seminar is May 17 - 19 in Los Angeles....Marina del Rey, actually. If you are a coach whose career, practice and prosperity have been going from fragile to resilient, you can register here to begin your move to antifragile in the category of prosperity: http://thatconfidenceguy.com/prosperous/.
Why should we live our lives in the first two categories only? Either fragile and vulnerable (a weak victim) or resilient, and withstanding things (a stoic victim).
Why be a candle in the wind, when the very real possibility is to grow like a forest fire?
Can I not find such a fire in my heart?