Resilience = "The capacity to successfully manage high levels of change."

Quote: (Write on Board.) ''I am grateful for all my problems. After each one was overcome, I become stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties.'' (J.C. Penney)

I heard the story of a man who had applied for a job as a flagman at a railroad crossing and was told he would be given the job if he could pass a test consisting of but a single question. Agreeing, the applicant was told to imagine he was a flagman at a crossing having but a single track when he suddenly observed the Continental Express train approaching from the east at 95 mph and looking in the other direction saw the Century Limited Train bearing down from the west at 100 mph.

Having further been told that the two trains were at the time 100 yards apart, the job-seeker was then asked what he would do under such a circumstance. Without hesitation, the would-be flagman responded, ''I'd get my brother-in-law." Puzzled, the railroad's examiner inquired what good that would do, to which the job-seeker promptly replied, ''He ain't never seen a train wreck.'' (Speaker's Library of Business Stories, Griffith, Joe, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Copyright 1990.)

This flagman encountered an insurmountable problem that wouldn't go away and figured out a way to make the best of it. This week, like the flagman, some of us are up against difficult decisions or hard times. Perhaps your parents aren't getting along or someone close to you is seriously ill or injured. Maybe you're flunking a class although you've given your best. Maybe someone important to you has betrayed you.

We can respond in either of two ways. We can either become bitter, or we can become better. The only difference in those two words is the letter "i." I may not be able to magically solve the problem, but I can choose to not give up. I can choose to make the most of my problems - learning from my heartaches and becoming stronger because of them.

Personal Reflection: Write down some things you don't like about your life: bad circumstances, personal weaknesses, etc.

Brainstorm: Name as many good things as you can that come from hard times. (Write them on the board.) Now look back at your personal list. Can good come out of these as well? How could your attitude toward life improve if you thought of these as assets rather than liabilities?

Game: Gladiator Challenge

Ask for a guy to volunteer to stay in the ring (designate a circle) for one minute against two girls. Have him stand in a small circle (made with masking tape) on and instruct him, "You must stand your ground, with these two barbarians trying to knock you down. Stay up for 20 seconds and you win. Here is your shield. It's your only defense against the swords. You can't push or shove or grab the pillows with your hands. (Hand him a clean trash can lid for a shield. Make sure there's nothing that he could fall on and hurt himself. If he has glasses, take them off.)

Get two volunteers from among the girls. Give each a pillow (not stuffed with feathers!). You may not push the gladiator with the pillow. You cannot hit him with anything else but the pillow. You have twenty seconds. (Consider playing some motivating music, like from the movie "Rocky," in the background. Ask the girls to cheer for the girls and the guys for the guy.)

(If he doesn't go down, you might have him stand on one leg. If time allows, allow another guy volunteer and two different girl volunteers and play again. Give something manly, like Beef Jerky, to the guy who stays up the longest. You might get some good snapshots!)

Imagine that before anyone gave the rules or said "Go!" one of the girls made a solid hard hit before you expected it. You'd probably fall. That's why in life we need to expect opposition. Don't be surprised when the going gets tough. Just realize that it's those same hard times that will narrow down your competition.

Successful people in every field - musicians, businessmen, artists or whatever - must learn to overcome difficulties, manage uncomfortable change and bounce back from defeat.

Illustration: In a famous study entitled ''Cradles of Eminence,'' the authors investigated the home backgrounds of 300 highly successful people. They had made it to the top, men and women whose names everyone would recognize as brilliant in their fields, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, Albert Schweitzer, Clara Barton, Gandhi, Einstein, and Sigmund Freud. What do you think the backgrounds of these people were like? Raised in stable, wealthy homes with no troubles? You might be surprised.

* 3 out of 4 of the children were troubled either by poverty, by a broken home, or by parents who were rejecting, over possessive, or dominating.

* 74 out of the 85 writers of fiction or drama and 16 out of 20 poets came from homes where, as children, they saw tense psychological drama played out by their parents. (Translation: Their home lives stunk.)

* Physical handicaps, such as blindness, deafness, or crippled limbs characterized over one-fourth of these people.

With all these things going against them, how did these people go on to such outstanding accomplishments? Perhaps they compensated for their weak areas by excelling in another area. Perhaps their difficult backgrounds made them hungry to succeed. Maybe they had to think more deeply about life, since their childhoods were difficult or confusing.

The point is, just because our family life stinks or we have physical or mental handicaps doesn't mean we're doomed to grow up as losers. Sometimes it's those difficulties or seeming defeats that motivate us to make something special out of our lives.

The bottom line: An elderly woman called her husband on his cell phone. She blurted out, "Honey, be carefull! I just heard on the radio that some crazy man's driving the wrong way on the interstate." Her husband responded, "One man! There's hundreds of them!"

My point? If everything is coming your way, then you're probably in the wrong lane. (Bumper Sticker)

Putting it Into Life: As Sir Edmund Hillary said after he first failed to reach the top of Mount Everest, "Mount Everest, you have defeated me. But I will return, and I will defeat you because you can't get any bigger -- and I can!'' Sure enough, he became the first person to stand on the top of that mountain at 11:30 AM, May 29, 1953.

This week, don't let your difficulties and defeats get you down. We can grow. Let's never stop climbing.

Trust Game: Divide into groups of 6 or 8 - it must be an even number. Ask each group to stand in a circle holding hands and count off in order, "one, two, one, two." Instruct the students: "When I say 'Go!' all the even numbered students lean forward while the odd students lean back. Keep holding hands so that you'll support each other from falling." Say "Go!" again and ask the even numbers to lean back while the odd numbers lean forward. 

Debriefing - What can this game teach us about success? (In order to endure hard times, don't do it alone. Get friends you can lean on.)  Here's how some successful people learned from others.

Do you have areas of interest that you'd like to develop, such as art, a sport, writing or programming? Why not find others with the same interests who can keep you motivated and give you fresh ideas?

Action Point: Don't go it alone.

Illustration: Jim Morrison, front man for the 60's band "The Doors," had charisma and talent. Thirty years after his death his music still plays and you can buy his t-shirts at "Hot Topic." He could have pumped out great poetry and songs for decades, but his life was cut short. Although his stage show presented the ultimate rebel and symbol of freedom, his abuse of drugs and alcohol led him to slavery. By his mid-twenties his band members had to assign a baby sitter to him to make sure he showed up for concerts. His chemical crutches had stripped him of his freedom and his ability to write or perform. His heart finally stopped at age 27.

Illustration: Many people try to find freedom through drug use. Instead of freedom, it buys them bondage. Some may think, "Hey, I could work for a really cool band. They wouldn't mind if I abused drugs." But it doesn't work that way. Early in shock-rocker Marilyn Manson's career, he had a bass player named Brad who was creative, good-natured and wrote songs with Manson. But his drug problem made him lose it all. As Manson described him,

''By then his life was heroin. Playing bass was just a way of killing time between shots.''

Manson began to despise him and told him firmly that he had one more chance to clean up his act or he'd be out of the band. Brad broke down and apologized through his sobs. He wanted like everything to stay in the band. But after two more lapses, Manson finally fired him. Nobody plans to become an addict and as a result lose their friends, people's respect, their dreams and talents. The only way to ensure avoiding Brad's fate is to turn down the first (or next) drug offer. (Source: Marilyn Manson in his autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Regan Books, 1998, p. 124-126.)

Quote: "All my mistakes -- all my stupid f---ups -- I can categorically tell you are a direct result of alcohol and drugs or both." (Ozzy Osborne)

Illustration #1: Bethany Hamilton is a surfer. And not just a casual surfer. She's committed. It's not just that she's spent enough time on her board to become a top amateur surfer in Hawaii, headed toward the pros. I know she's committed because of her attitude toward a surfing tragedy a couple of months ago.

On that fateful day she woke up at 5:00 A.M. to hit the waves with her best friend, Alana. After about 30 minutes of surfing, she took a break, lying on her surfboard with her arm dangling into the water. Suddenly a 15-foot Tiger Shark clamped down on her arm and began jerking her around. When she saw the red water, she knew that she'd lost her arm.

She also lost half of her blood. She'd have lost it all had her friend's father not taken a surf board leash and strapped it on as a tourniquet.

People were amazed at her calm, both during and after the event. Perhaps it had something to do with her world-view. In her own words,

Although she knows she may never be able to compete again, she vows to continue surfing. Why? Listen carefully to her explanation:

She hopes that she can be fitted with a prosthetic arm so that she can continue surfing and playing the guitar.

Her attitude tells me something important about resilience. She found something worth enduring setbacks for. She isn't a casual surfer. She's passionate about surfing. Think again of her words,

Sometimes our reactions to obstacles and tragedies reveal our true convictions. Often we hear people say things like,

• "I'm not applying for another college. One turned me down."
• "Guitar practice is too hard. It hurts my fingers."
• "Forget band. I don't like some of the members."

I've got to wonder if Bethany might tell each of these: "Then you're not a real student. You're not a real guitarist. You're not a real band member." If they were passionate about what they were doing, they wouldn't give up so easily. ("Shark attack doesn't deter surfer girl," Detroit Free Press, November 24, 2003)

Illustration #2 (this illustration also used in another lesson): I can’t make it through the grocery store line these days without noticing Tom Cruise staring at me from a magazine cover. How many of you saw him play Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible or one of his many other movies? His accomplishments are pretty incredible.

He has starred in blockbuster after blockbuster, is one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, has been recognized for his achievements in acting by a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination, and has the physical agility (and guts) to perform 95% of the stunts in Mission Impossible II, including dangling off that cliff at the beginning of the movie. It’s easy to look at Cruise and assume that he probably always had everything going for him. He must have been very successful in high school and popular with the girls. Think again. His life is actually the story of a survivor who learned to turn his shortcomings into assets.

Do you ever struggle with financial problems? Tom couldn’t afford some of the things other kids had because his dad refused to pay child support for his four children. He and his sisters had to work to contribute to the family income. They sometimes survived on food stamps.

Do you ever struggle with social problems? His social life was disrupted regularly by moves that forced him to change schools an average of once a year (8 elementary and three high schools). Lots of kids made fun of him. He was always the new geek, never the cool guy that girls flocked to. Lots of kids made fun of him.

Do any of you ever feel dumb? As if Tom didn’t have enough problems to deal with, he was always in remedial classes for slow learners. He was later found to have a learning disorder called Dyslexia, which makes it incredibly difficult to learn skills like reading. Not knowing what was wrong, he just thought he was dumb and would often come home crying. With dyslexics, their brains often tell them that things are backwards. He couldn’t even distinguish his right hand from his left.

Do you often fail at sports? Concluding that academics weren’t his forte, he plunged into athletics. He played football but was too small to excel. Wrestling, however, is divided into weight classes, giving him the opportunity to compete. But when running some stairs (trying to lose a pound to compete in his weight class) he slipped on some papers his sister had left and tore a tendon on his leg. So much for athletics. Unable to wrestle on the team, he tried out for a part in their high school play. He landed a starring role and fell in love with acting. A theater agent just happened to be in the audience the night of the performance and encouraged him to go into acting. The rest is history.

I’d like for you to reflect for a moment on Tom’s life. It would have been so easy for him to grow bitter, conclude that life sucks and hate all the people around him. But instead, he learned from his shortcomings. He draws from the heartache he experienced as a child to express emotion when he acts. He learned to work harder than others by having to learn with a disability. He says that his school difficulties were a character course that made him a better person. As a result, he goes the extra mile for his producers and has the people skills that make people love to work with him. (Illustration of Tom Cruise written by Legacy Educational Resources, Copyright 2000, All Rights Reserved. Sources: 1 – "Cruise Control" (excerpt from 'Cruise')( Cosmopolitan ) Frank Sanello; 12-01-1995; 2 – "Man With a Mission," ( The Calgary Sun ) Lisa Wilton, Calgary Sun, 05-21-2000; 3 - "Conversations With Cruise," Vanity Fair, June, 2000; Tom Cruise, by Phelan Powell, Chelsea House Publishers, 1999)