Succeeding When You're Supposed to Fail: The 6 Enduring Principles of High Achievement

Q & A with Author Ron Brafman Q: For decades, psychology focused on pathology--what's wrong with us--rather than successful outcomes. What led you to focus on the qualities that lead to success? A: There's this wide-held belief--which stems from within the field of psychology--that difficult life events impact us for the worse. That is, take someone who's endured a tough childhood, faced unexpected crises, or had serious difficulties at school or work, and you'll see that these events have taken their toll on that person. And sure enough, that's the case most of the time. Experiencing hardships makes us more likely to develop symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. But when psychologists looked more closely at individuals who have faced adversity, they found that roughly a third of them came out unscathed. Not only that, they went on to lead successful lives despite their ordeals. If anything, the challenges they faced seemed to make them that much stronger. At first this unexpected phenomenon caught the field of psychology by surprise. But repeated studies have shown that certain individuals seem to be psychologically immune to hardships. That caught my attention. Take two individuals who grew up in the same neighborhood and experienced the same type of hardships. One of them succumbs to their difficulties, while the other one goes on to thrive. What accounts