Okay, the above is a half-truth; catchy but imprecise. First off, it’s probably true in ‘high-stakes, irreversible (one-way door) situations’ where failure is catastrophic or close to it. That is where you really find out how good you really are and those situations are, thank God, relatively rare. Most of life involves lower stakes, reversible (two-way door) situations where it is possible to pivot.
However, you will have bad days. No one wants those days to come but they will and the question is: who will you be when they do? You can’t fake it in the storm… or hide a lack of preparation. Crises are filters of quality. Only the best, the most prepared, remain standing. True resilience is born of laying a solid foundation of preparation, reserves of knowledge and resources, developing skillsets wider and deeper far more than the everyday ordinary requires.
Your worst day is a mirror of your character, for it reveals how well you utilized the good times to prepare for bad times, for the inevitable turn of the cycle.
Closing Quotes:
“Safety is not the absence of accidents but the presence of defenses.” – James Reason, 1938-2025
“The wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.” – Nassir Nicholas Taleb, ‘Antifragile’
“How we respond to a crisis usually says more about us than how we act when things are going well.” – Simon Sinek, ‘Start With Why/Leaders Eat Last’
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
