Fortitude: The Myth of Resilience, and the Secrets of Inner Strength: A Sunday Times Bestseller

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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? Bruce Daisley: Yeah, and I think we can see how identity is definitely a conflicted part of this, because for some of the people concerned, channelling everything into accomplishment for identity can prove enriching, but also incredibly endangering. From quotations that we see, Simone Biles, the American Gymnast, during the course of the Olympics, she was probably expected to win at least four gold medals, she end up winning, I think, one silver medal and maybe a bronze as well; she said, during the course of what was effectively quite a public breakdown, she said she was very grateful for the praise she received by coming clean on mental health issues, because until now, she'd seen herself merely in the fact that she was an accomplished athlete. 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. An absolute revelation . . . It's with collective support that you can develop resilience. Your own resilience or individual fortitude is not something you do or don't have, it comes from the extent to which you are supported by others. The extent to which people face these issues of resilience is massively divined by the structural inequalities we face. Ed Miliband

Bruce Daisley - Eat Sleep Work Repeat Bruce Daisley - Eat Sleep Work Repeat

Bruce Daisley: Okay! But for me, there's a need for skin creams, in the sense that people see themselves aging before their very eyes in the mirror and so they go, "I need something that resolves this". But all of the evidence you look for skin creams is that they don't prevent aging. In this light an expectation of resilience is no longer the spellbinding final act of a story, it is something akin to victim blaming.

Bruce speaks on dealing with hybrid working, work culture and building a culture of innovation.

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.

Bruce Daisley - Penguin Books UK Bruce Daisley - Penguin Books UK

Helen Tupper: So, on those three foundations of fortitude, we've covered control, we've talked about identity, and the third one is community; and I think this is the biggest " A-ha!" moment for me in the book, because to your point about resilience and individualism and all that kind of stuff, "Go focus on this alone and put your mindset right, and you'll be fine with resilience"; actually a lot of what you cover in the book is the importance of the relationships you have around you, the role of community in that. But what you discover is, through each of these ten questions, you give a yes or no answer, or you give a 1 or a 0 zero, and you add up your score at the end of it. So, it enables you firstly to have a discussion with a doctor, because you can say, "My ACE score is 4", and it enables you to have a discussion. But what you discover is, once you know this ACE score, once you catalogue someone's experience of adversity, of trauma really, it's got a remarkable correlation with life outcomes. Helen Tupper: So, let's talk about the word "fortitude" for a moment, because this is a book all about resilience, what it is, what it isn't, and what you might need to develop instead, and you've chosen deliberately to call it Fortitude. So, what's the distinction between resilience and fortitude; and why is it an important distinction to make? Now, thinking specifically about the moment we're in with work, there's this one common thing that runs across this sense of community, and it's a sense that we're all in it together. When we feel a sense that we're all in it together, it seems to be incredibly enriching. In fact, you can witness examples in society. When it looks like, during COVID we're all in it together, the Queen's sitting on her own at her husband's funeral; when we're all in it together, it seems like this is a collective effort. When we start seeing people who don't look like they're in it together with us, that's when we get affronted, when we get annoyed, frustrated that, "Why are they not doing it? Why is that family not doing it?" We feel it breaks this bond, the affinity we've got.Naomi Osaka, tennis player, has said she's asked herself, "What am I if I'm not a tennis player?" Through that, you can really see the dangers of enmeshment, because we see ourselves thinking, "I'm a provider for my family [or] I'm someone who's going to work hard and make my mum proud of what I accomplish at work [or] I'm going to be able to get the money for a deposit on a flat because I'm striving so hard". We see all of these things as a way to paint this redemptive image of ourselves. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley, Ellen C Scott and Matthew Cook. Sign up to the newsletter We can only respond to requests for professional speaking engagements. We are unable to respond to requests for autographs, shoutouts and personalized messages. How did the topic of resilience become politicised victim-blaming? How did it this lead to the real origins of resilience becoming obscured?

Podcast - Eat Sleep Work Repeat Podcast - Eat Sleep Work Repeat

The second part is, I'd read this work that I couldn't get out of my head, and it was about a study that's very relevant. We're recording this just in the week that Mo Farah has come out and said, "Actually, I'm not the person you think me to be. I'm actually, rather than someone who was sent here by my family and have formed a new life here, my dad's died, my mum effectively sold me into modern slavery, and I came here as a domestic servant. And, from the age of pre-teen years, I was a domestic servant". So, we might look at Mo Farah's story and go, "Well, at least he's been gifted with this good fortune that's lifted him out of this traumatic start in life", but no, they're not an accidental coincidence.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. 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. But what if the version of resilience we've been peddled is a myth?