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Succeeding When Youre Supposed to Fail: The 6 Enduring Principles of High Achievement (9780307887689): Rom Brafman: Books. 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 for these differences? If we take a closer look at people who overcame adversity, what common psychological qualities do they share? Is there a way we can capture these attributes and infuse them into our own lives? That's what I wanted to get at. Q: You describe these people who succeed despite adversity as tunnelers. Why? A: The term originates from the field of quantum mechanics. Physicists have found that subatomic particles sometimes defy classical Newtonian laws to tunnel through barriers that they are not supposed to be able to overcome. There are many theories out there but nobody knows exactly why this happens. I thought this was a great way to conceptualize what happens psychologically. You have individuals who are supposed to be in a certain psychological state given their life events, but somehow they are able to tunnel through the barriers they have experienced. They find a way to overcome the classical psychological laws (i.e., adversity always impacts people negatively) and overcome their apparent fate. What's important to note is that tunnelers are not these superhuman, Type A personality characters who bulldoze over anything they encounter. The opposite is true. They are usually mild-mannered, easygoing individuals who do not even realize that they are doing something extraordinary. Whenever I come across them in my work as a psychologist, I am always fascinated by them. As a rule, they virtually never recognize themselves as being anything out of the ordinary. When I delineate to them their unlikely achievements--How were you able to overcome having alcoholic parents or living in a chaotic family?--they look at me, puzzled. Uh, I never thought about it this way. I was just living my life the best way I knew how. I found that being a tunneler is not about being indifferent to what life has thrown your way, though. It's about being agile enough to not allow life's challenges to overwhelm you and bring you down. Q: What can we learn from tunnelers? A: There's a lot we can learn from them. For one thing, we all have the capacity to succeed no matter what life throws at us. It's just that most of us don't know what to do when a crisis hits us. It's not that tunnelers possess some magical, unique abilities that are foreign to the rest of us. Their secret is that they're able to rely on certain abilities that most of us take for granted. Instead of [6821] ADVANCE PRAISE FOR SUCCEEDING WHEN YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FAIL “From the business world to the battlefield, this book will take you inside the moments that differentiate success from failure. One of the most engaging books I have read in the last decade.” —TOM RATH, AUTHOR OF STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0 “Some ‘high risk’ kids who are supposed to fail instead turn out to shine with success. The secret of this amazing resilience has been scientifically investigated by psychologists. Now Rom Brafman brings you the three secrets of resilience in the stories of these amazing people who ‘tunnel through adversity’ and into success. Now these secrets can be yours. This book will change lives.” —JOHN M. GOTTMAN, PH.D., COAUTHOR OF THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES FOR MAKING MARRIAGE WORK CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR SWAY “A provocative new book about the psychological forces that lead us to disregard facts or logic and behave in surprisingly irrational ways.” —NEW YORK TIMES “A unique and compulsively readable look at unseen behavioral trends.” —FORTUNE “[An] engaging journey through the workings—and failings—of the mind . . . Their stories of senselessness . . . are as fascinating as the lessons we learn from them.” —FAST COMPANY “A page-turner of an investigation into how our minds work . . . and trick us. Think you behave rationally? Read this book first.” —TIM FERRISS, AUTHOR OF THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK
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