Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychologist, who, during the World War II, was a prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp. While there he was fascinated by the different attitudes of the prisoners. Though everyone there was experiencing the same hell, some had the will to live and some did not. One of his conclusions, which he wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, was that we cannot control the circumstances around us, but we can control our attitude. This is the core of tenacity. It’s not based on strength and it’s not simple self-motivation. It’s an attitude, a positive attitude, specifically, that exists regardless of any outside circumstances.
This ability to maintain a positive attitude regardless of the circumstances is more than a blind optimism, it plays a role in our ability to survive. My great aunt, who, with her husband, was a prisoner at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the war would tell me stories that confirmed the importance of Frankl’s observations. This amazingly strong woman, who gave birth to her first child on one of the cattle cars the NAZIs used to transport prisoners, said to me that those who survived the Holocaust came out of it one of two ways: either you came out stronger or you came out broken. In her case, she came out stronger, but her husband was broken by his experience. Regardless of how their experience affected them, theirs was a remarkable marriage and partnership for the rest of their lives.
Tenacity, without a doubt, helps an individual survive and thrive. But that doesn’t mean we all need to train ourselves to learn how to have it. Like a talent or a skill, some will be born with a natural capacity for it, some will have to work very hard to develop it and some, no matter how hard they work, will never become proficient. Tenacity is no different. Some are born with it. Some of us can learn how to get it and some of us, no matter what we do or try, will never truly master it. But whether everyone needs to have tenacity is not the point, the point is that those who don’t have it or those who aren’t able to master it need those who do. My great uncle’s ability to survive and live a happy and prosperous life after the war was not because he learned to find a strength he did not naturally possess. His survival and happiness was possible because he was partnered with someone who had natural born tenacity.
This is what it means to lead. Leaders don’t need to be the smartest in the group. They don’t even need to be the best managers. Leaders are those who have an attitude and a world-view that inspires the rest of us. Leaders must be tenacious – they must have an optimism. A vision of the future that is brighter than our current state. Whether it’s a natural disposition or it’s cultivated over time, it’s this very attitude that inspires others to want to help and join. Those without natural tenacity want to stay close to those who have it. They feel stronger when they’re near that person than when they’re not. They find themselves able to do things because of this positive influence.
This is the value, for example, of a great coach. A great coach does not chastise people for their weaknesses. A great coach does not demand that the team fix their weaknesses. A great coach is able to remind each player of their unique strengths and works to amplify those strengths and combine them in a manner that is good for the whole team. When a great coach is present, every player feels a part of the team. They feel they’re contributing, in any way, big or small, to the success of that team. Whether each player has a natural tenacity or not, each of them takes on the tenacity of their leader. They have tenacity by proxy.
When a leader, be it the coach or a member of the team, is able to transfer their tenacity to others around them, they’re able to inspire the rest of their team. And when that happens, each member of the group is more likely to come together not for the good of themselves, but for the good of the group. And when that happens, we as outsiders can see it. We may even say of the entire group, “they have tenacity.” As individuals, every member of that group may not have the right attitude, they may not have natural born tenacity, but in the group, they do. And when the group is together, they can and often become a force to be reckoned with. This is more than a social nicety. Our very survival as a species likely depends on the existence of tenacity. The human animal is a social animal.
Our survival as individuals dramatically increases when we are among others around whom we feel safe. This is what it means to “feel like we belong.” Socially, a country is a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs. We feel like we belong in one country more than another because we feel safer, more trusting and more trusted, by the people who share our view of the world. A community, neighborhood, club, family and any other cultural divider we can name, all provide the same thing – a sense of belonging and a sense of trust among those “like us.” This sense of trust ensures our own survival. By ourselves, we are less likely to survive in the outside – be it during caveman times or modern day. When we find others we can trust, who let us in and watch out for us (and we do the same for them), then we are more likely to do well. In other words, as the group succeeds, so to, do we succeed.
Tenacity, that positive attitude about what the future holds, is an attractive quality. It will attract others who believe what we believe. Who share our world view and, more importantly, are willing to commit blood, sweat and tears to help make that future vision become a reality. Tenacity, the undying belief in that optimistic view of the world, is a way to attract others to help us and a way to have others invite you to help them.
If tenacity is grounded in belief and attitude, then we can all learn to be tenacious or find someone who helps us feel tenacious. The challenge is to know what we believe. We must have a vision of the world we want to live in before we can have a positive attitude to get there. In other words, clarity of purpose comes before tenacity. It’s the root of it. If I ask you to invest everything you have – money, energy, effort – to go on vacation, what will you do? Perhaps you’ll buy some skis and a bathing suit. Perhaps you’ll fill the car and buy a plane ticket. The efforts will be disparate and sometimes counterproductive. Worse, no matter your energy and excitement to go on that vacation, eventually your positivity will start to falter.
Now what if I ask you to invest everything you have – money, energy, effort – to get to California. This time, you have a clear sense of a destination. The things you buy, the direction in which you travel are focused. I can take it a step further. Let’s go to Santa Monica. They have glorious beaches there. The weather is warm. The people are laid back and life is good. If Santa Monica is a place you’d like to go, not only can you envision the life you could live there, but you can take the proper things and travel in a focused direction to get there. There may be slow days as we travel, we may have set backs, we may get a flat tire, we may run out of money at some point in our journey. The tenacity does not come from the blind will to persist if we do not have a clear direction, a clear reason to travel, in the first place. Tenacity comes from a crystal clear vision of why we set out on the journey in the first place.
To learn tenacity, we must know why we do what we do, first. The more clearly we can explain the world we are working to get to, the more tenacious those around us will feel to help us get there. Those who survived the Holocaust or came out of POW camps, did not simply want to live, they imagined the life they wanted to get back to. They had visions of spending time with their family, playing golf or starting businesses.
Those that make it through rough times in business don’t just look to make money at the end of the year, they look to the world that they’re helping to build with their products and their services. What keeps them driving hard is the destination they have put into words.
The more loudly and more clearly we tell the story of the place we’re going, the more we share the original reason why we took the risk to set out on the journey in the first place, the more tenacious we will feel and the more we will inspire the tenacity of those around us.
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychologist, who, during the World War II, was a prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp. While there he was fascinated by the different attitudes of the prisoners. Though everyone there was experiencing the same hell, some had the will to live and some did not. One of his conclusions, which he wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, was that we cannot control the circumstances around us, but we can control our attitude. This is the core of tenacity. It’s not based on strength and it’s not simple self-motivation. It’s an attitude, a positive attitude, specifically, that exists regardless of any outside circumstances.
This ability to maintain a positive attitude regardless of the circumstances is more than a blind optimism, it plays a role in our ability to survive. My great aunt, who, with her husband, was a prisoner at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the war would tell me stories that confirmed the importance of Frankl’s observations. This amazingly strong woman, who gave birth to her first child on one of the cattle cars the NAZIs used to transport prisoners, said to me that those who survived the Holocaust came out of it one of two ways: either you came out stronger or you came out broken. In her case, she came out stronger, but her husband was broken by his experience. Regardless of how their experience affected them, theirs was a remarkable marriage and partnership for the rest of their lives.
Tenacity, without a doubt, helps an individual survive and thrive. But that doesn’t mean we all need to train ourselves to learn how to have it. Like a talent or a skill, some will be born with a natural capacity for it, some will have to work very hard to develop it and some, no matter how hard they work, will never become proficient. Tenacity is no different. Some are born with it. Some of us can learn how to get it and some of us, no matter what we do or try, will never truly master it. But whether everyone needs to have tenacity is not the point, the point is that those who don’t have it or those who aren’t able to master it need those who do. My great uncle’s ability to survive and live a happy and prosperous life after the war was not because he learned to find a strength he did not naturally possess. His survival and happiness was possible because he was partnered with someone who had natural born tenacity.
This is what it means to lead. Leaders don’t need to be the smartest in the group. They don’t even need to be the best managers. Leaders are those who have an attitude and a world-view that inspires the rest of us. Leaders must be tenacious – they must have an optimism. A vision of the future that is brighter than our current state. Whether it’s a natural disposition or it’s cultivated over time, it’s this very attitude that inspires others to want to help and join. Those without natural tenacity want to stay close to those who have it. They feel stronger when they’re near that person than when they’re not. They find themselves able to do things because of this positive influence.
This is the value, for example, of a great coach. A great coach does not chastise people for their weaknesses. A great coach does not demand that the team fix their weaknesses. A great coach is able to remind each player of their unique strengths and works to amplify those strengths and combine them in a manner that is good for the whole team. When a great coach is present, every player feels a part of the team. They feel they’re contributing, in any way, big or small, to the success of that team. Whether each player has a natural tenacity or not, each of them takes on the tenacity of their leader. They have tenacity by proxy.
When a leader, be it the coach or a member of the team, is able to transfer their tenacity to others around them, they’re able to inspire the rest of their team. And when that happens, each member of the group is more likely to come together not for the good of themselves, but for the good of the group. And when that happens, we as outsiders can see it. We may even say of the entire group, “they have tenacity.” As individuals, every member of that group may not have the right attitude, they may not have natural born tenacity, but in the group, they do. And when the group is together, they can and often become a force to be reckoned with. This is more than a social nicety. Our very survival as a species likely depends on the existence of tenacity. The human animal is a social animal.
Our survival as individuals dramatically increases when we are among others around whom we feel safe. This is what it means to “feel like we belong.” Socially, a country is a group of people with a common set of values and beliefs. We feel like we belong in one country more than another because we feel safer, more trusting and more trusted, by the people who share our view of the world. A community, neighborhood, club, family and any other cultural divider we can name, all provide the same thing – a sense of belonging and a sense of trust among those “like us.” This sense of trust ensures our own survival. By ourselves, we are less likely to survive in the outside – be it during caveman times or modern day. When we find others we can trust, who let us in and watch out for us (and we do the same for them), then we are more likely to do well. In other words, as the group succeeds, so to, do we succeed.
Tenacity, that positive attitude about what the future holds, is an attractive quality. It will attract others who believe what we believe. Who share our world view and, more importantly, are willing to commit blood, sweat and tears to help make that future vision become a reality. Tenacity, the undying belief in that optimistic view of the world, is a way to attract others to help us and a way to have others invite you to help them.
If tenacity is grounded in belief and attitude, then we can all learn to be tenacious or find someone who helps us feel tenacious. The challenge is to know what we believe. We must have a vision of the world we want to live in before we can have a positive attitude to get there. In other words, clarity of purpose comes before tenacity. It’s the root of it. If I ask you to invest everything you have – money, energy, effort – to go on vacation, what will you do? Perhaps you’ll buy some skis and a bathing suit. Perhaps you’ll fill the car and buy a plane ticket. The efforts will be disparate and sometimes counterproductive. Worse, no matter your energy and excitement to go on that vacation, eventually your positivity will start to falter.
Now what if I ask you to invest everything you have – money, energy, effort – to get to California. This time, you have a clear sense of a destination. The things you buy, the direction in which you travel are focused. I can take it a step further. Let’s go to Santa Monica. They have glorious beaches there. The weather is warm. The people are laid back and life is good. If Santa Monica is a place you’d like to go, not only can you envision the life you could live there, but you can take the proper things and travel in a focused direction to get there. There may be slow days as we travel, we may have set backs, we may get a flat tire, we may run out of money at some point in our journey. The tenacity does not come from the blind will to persist if we do not have a clear direction, a clear reason to travel, in the first place. Tenacity comes from a crystal clear vision of why we set out on the journey in the first place.
To learn tenacity, we must know why we do what we do, first. The more clearly we can explain the world we are working to get to, the more tenacious those around us will feel to help us get there. Those who survived the Holocaust or came out of POW camps, did not simply want to live, they imagined the life they wanted to get back to. They had visions of spending time with their family, playing golf or starting businesses.
Those that make it through rough times in business don’t just look to make money at the end of the year, they look to the world that they’re helping to build with their products and their services. What keeps them driving hard is the destination they have put into words.
The more loudly and more clearly we tell the story of the place we’re going, the more we share the original reason why we took the risk to set out on the journey in the first place, the more tenacious we will feel and the more we will inspire the tenacity of those around us.