Episode Details

This week we explore the links between optimism and resilience, using the example of a terrifying real life hang gliding experience.

Welcome to episode 21 of the Leadership Today Podcast where each week we address some of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we are looking at optimism and resilience.

Have you ever had a travel experience that didn't quite go to plan. Chris Gursky certainly has. Chris recently travelled from his home in Florida to Switzerland. He was particularly keen to have a tandem hang gliding experience over the picturesque Swiss countryside, so he booked that in for the first day of his holiday. The YouTube video of his first flight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLBJA8SlH2w&t=9s) shows an excited Chris and his pilot running towards their take off from high on a mountainside. As soon as they took off though Chris and the pilot realise something has gone horribly wrong - the harness Chris is wearing is not actually clipped on to the hang glider, leaving Chris to hang on for dear life. Chris has one hand on the steering bar and one hand on the pilot for most of the flight, not sure of how long he could hold on. The pilot tries for an early landing, but is unable to control the steering while also trying to hold on to Chris, leaving the hang glider to travel over an even greater drop - some 4,000 feet from the ground. After an excruciating two minutes, the hang glider finally nears the ground travelling around 45 miles per hour, with Chris letting go just before it lands. Chris walked away with a broken wrist from the landing and a torn bicep muscle from holding on so hard. Amazingly, despite the ordeal, Chris said "I will go hang gliding again as I did not get to enjoy my first flight."

Chris' story demonstrates the two main elements of resilience - holding on and bouncing back. On the one hand, resilience is about your ability to withstand difficult circumstances - to hold on despite the odds - which Chris literally demonstrated during his hang gliding experience. And resilience is also about your ability to quickly bounce back from setbacks - much like Chris' desire to go hang gliding again, despite his near death experience.

So much of our experience of life is shaped by the lens through which we view events, rather than the events themselves. Shawn Achor in his book "The Happiness Advantage" says that if researchers knew everything about your situation, they can only predict 10% of your happiness levels. Around 50% of our happiness is determined by a so-called genetic set point, with the remaining 40% being determined by our thoughts and actions which, of course, we can alter.

Our resilience links closely to our level of optimism. Martin Seligman describes this in his book "Learned Optimism". As the title suggests, Seligman has long argued that optimism can be learned, just as early behavioural experiments with animals demonstrated that helplessness and pessimism can also be learned. Seligman outlines three ways in which optimists and pessimists differ when seeking to explain the causes and impacts of events - personalisation, permanence and pervasiveness - the three P's.

Let's look at these three P's using an example of a setback. Alan is reversing his car into a tight spot in the city when he hears breaking glass and the hiss of a tyre going flat. It turns out he has backed over a glass bottle, badly puncturing a tyre on his car.

Consider the three P's if Alan took a pessimistic view of this situation:

• Personalisation - Alan immediately blames himself - he should have noticed th