The Best Wine Grapes Were Planted to Suffer

For Maggie Harrison, an Oregon winemaker, the primary consideration in growing the best wine grapes is character, so the vines are often planted in soil  where they can barely survive and have to fight for nutrients. The grapes gain depth of flavor in proportion to the amount of work the vine must expend to survive. Harrison calls this process “suffering.”

If we incorporate that approach to resilience, perhaps the best way to build character and resilience is to embrace when adversity hits.  Only then can we  develop the skills that allow us to fight to survive. 

Character and resilience are qualities that enable individuals to navigate life's challenges with grace and determination. They are not innate traits but rather cultivated through deliberate effort and experience. In this blog post, we explore the parallels between growing wine grapes and building character, resilience, and anti-fragility in humans. By drawing inspiration from the art of viticulture, we can glean valuable insights into personal growth and development.

1. Planting the Seeds: Nurturing a Strong Foundation

Just as a successful grapevine begins with a well-prepared soil bed, building character and resilience requires a solid foundation. This involves instilling core values, developing self-awareness, and establishing a sense of purpose. By understanding our personal values and aspirations, we create a fertile ground for growth.

2. Weathering the Storms: Embracing Challenges

Grapes face adversity in the form of harsh weather conditions, diseases, and pests. Similarly, humans encounter hardships, setbacks, and obstacles along their journey. Embracing challenges, rather than avoiding them, is crucial for growth. Just as grapevines strengthen their roots when faced with adversity, humans develop resilience by confronting and overcoming obstacles head-on.

3. Pruning and Training: Shaping Strength and Adaptability

To produce quality grapes, vineyard owners engage in meticulous planning, trial and error, pruning and training. Similarly, individuals must constantly refine their skills, learn from failures, and adapt to changing circumstances. By embracing continuous learning and self-improvement, we develop the ability to navigate life's complexities with greater ease.

4. Harvesting the Fruits: Celebrating Milestones and Lessons Learned

The culmination of a year's worth of labor and nurturing is the harvest season. Similarly, in our personal development journey, we must take the time to celebrate our achievements and acknowledge the lessons we have learned along the way. By recognizing our progress and expressing gratitude, we cultivate a positive mindset and fuel further growth.

5. Developing Anti-Fragility: Thriving in Adversity

The concept of anti-fragility, introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, refers to the ability to not just withstand shocks and disturbances but to actually benefit from them. Grapevines exposed to moderate stress produce stronger, more resilient grapes. Likewise, individuals who embrace challenges, learn from failures, and adapt to change, become more anti-fragile. They thrive in the face of adversity, gaining strength and wisdom from each experience.

Conclusion:

Just as wine grapes require careful cultivation to produce the finest wines, building character, resilience, and anti-fragility in humans demands deliberate effort and a growth-oriented mindset. By drawing inspiration from the art of growing wine grapes, we can appreciate the value of embracing challenges, nurturing a strong foundation, continuous learning, and celebrating milestones. Let us cultivate our inner vineyards and unlock our true potential as we embark on a journey of personal growth, resilience, and anti-fragility. Cheers to becoming the best version of ourselves!  

Excerpts taken from: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/magazine/maggie-harrison-wine-antica-terra.html

To learn more about mental conditioning, enroll in our self-paced online course:  "Strengthening Your Mental Core."  

Building Your Antifragility Skills

“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; antifragile gets better”.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012). Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

In my coaching practice, my approach has evolved to help individuals develop resilience and cultivate antifragility through a combination of mindset development, behavioral and emotional skill-building, and mental strategic planning. 

Here's a step-by-step guide to enhance resilience and foster antifragility:

1.  Understand the concepts: I begin by exposing them to the concepts of resilience and antifragility. Resilience refers to the ability to bounce back from setbacks, challenges, or adversity, while antifragility goes beyond resilience by using setbacks and challenges as opportunities for growth and improvement.

2.  Assess current mindset: I assess the individual's current mindset and beliefs about adversity, failure, and setbacks. This helps identify any limiting beliefs or negative patterns that may hinder their ability to develop resilience or embrace antifragility.

3.  Cultivate a growth mindset: I work on fostering a growth mindset, emphasizing that challenges and setbacks are opportunities for learning and growth rather than fixed limitations. This shift in mindset helps individuals view adversity as a chance to develop new skills, gain experience, and become stronger.

4.  Identify strengths and weaknesses: By conducting a self-assessment or using appropriate tools, I help the individual identify their existing strengths and weaknesses related to resilience and antifragility. Understanding their starting point allows for targeted development in areas that require improvement.

5.  Develop coping strategies: Together, we would explore various coping strategies and techniques that can enhance resilience. This may include stress management techniques, neutral self-talk, reframing perspectives, setting realistic goals, and practicing self-care. These strategies equip individuals with the tools to navigate challenging situations effectively.

6.  Embrace discomfort and uncertainty: To foster antifragility, I encourage the individual to embrace discomfort and uncertainty intentionally. This involves gradually exposing themselves to new experiences, taking calculated risks, and stepping out of their comfort zone. By doing so, they can develop the capacity to adapt, learn, and thrive in unpredictable environments.

7.  Reflect and learn from setbacks: When setbacks or failures occur, it is important for the individual to reflect on those experiences and extract valuable lessons. By reframing setbacks as opportunities for growth, they can identify areas for improvement, adjust their strategies, and learn from their mistakes.

8.  Encourage continuous learning: I foster continuous learning by encouraging the individual to seek new knowledge, acquire new skills, and broaden their perspectives. This may involve reading relevant books, listening to podcasts, attending workshops or conferences, engaging in reflective exercises, or seeking mentorship from experienced individuals.

7.  Develop a support system: Building a strong support system is crucial for resilience and antifragility. I help the individual identify and cultivate relationships who can provide guidance, motivation, and accountability during challenging times.

8.  Set meaningful goals: Finally, I assist the individual in setting meaningful and realistic goals that align with their values and aspirations. By working towards these goals, they can build confidence, stay motivated, and reinforce their resilience and antifragility skills.

Throughout the coaching process, it is important to tailor the approach to the individual's specific needs, challenges, and circumstances. The goal is to empower them to develop resilience and embrace antifragility, allowing them to not only bounce back from setbacks but also thrive and grow in the face of adversity.

For more detailed information on resilience and antifragility, enroll in our new online course:  Strengthening Your Mental Core.  

Performance: A Function of Talent, Skills, Preparation, and Mindset

I am a performance video junkie.  In following people on Facebook or perusing YouTube videos, I have watched an abnormally crazy number of great performance videos related to all types of activities. What has been amazing to me about the comments (beside the incredibly inappropriate and/or negative ones) is the frequency of comments about how talented the performer is.  The second most frequent comment is how the viewer wished he/she could do that.

These comments provide great insight into the type of mental conditioning that is so pervasive and so counterproductive to success and excellence. Many people incorrectly assume that performance, success and excellence are primarily a result or function of talent (by definition, a seemingly fixed asset).  Thus, their wish is that they had been annointed somehow with the talent for that activity, sport, etc. Alas, they weren't lucky when talent was handed out.  But, what's luck got to do with it?

What they do not realize is that those so-called talented people were also simply highly invested in learning to do the activity.  Ultimately, each of those individuals spent an incredible amount of time mastering the steps involved in the achieving the result that you see:  the performance.

As Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford, points out, successful people approach problems as a learning process. While invested in the result, they see it as an opportunity to learn and grow and, therefore, are not paralyzingly afraid of an imperfect result. They view their skills as capable of change, growth and improvement. Dweck identifies this as a growth mind-set.

Individuals with a fixed mind-set, on the other hand, see their talent or ability as finite (and, typically pre-determined). You're creative and artistic, or you're not. You're good in math, or you're not. You're a great player, or you're not. If you see yourself this way, Dweck says, any mistake or failure is dreadful.  But also, any attempt to learn and grow is also to be avoided.

So, if you possess a fixed mind-set, you think your future success is determined by the hardware and software package (i.e., talent or potential) that was given to you at birth.  

Dweck's work has had major implications for coaching and peak performance.  The way we talk about performance to others and ourselves, she says, tends to foster one mind-set or the other. "You're so talented," is praise from someone with a fixed mind-set and might make developing athletes, performers, and students begin to fear their performances.  This type of "feedback" is such that any failure, setback, or less than optimal performances that could suggest they aren't so good. not so talented.  This dynamic sets up the development of anxiety and aversion of the activity itself.   

"You must have worked very hard to do that well," is an example of a more effective communication of praise.  This statement is more rewarding, reinforcing and encouraging of more hard work.  It leaves room for more risk-taking and discovery.

People with a fixed mind-set are constantly judging their underlying talent, Dweck says, and think others are judging them, too. "The growth mind-set is not about universal judgment," Dweck says.

If too focused, people get caught up in their self-concept and identity.  I am good or I am bad.  I am talented or I am not.  Learning and growth takes a back seat to the protection of the self.

What Facebook and YouTube video posts don't typically provide are the images of the long hours of grueling and monotonous practice that goes into the performances that we see posted.  Of course you don't see those posted.  That would be too boring.  Nobody would sit in front of their computer, tablet, or smartphone watching that.  But that is what you need to understand, acknowledge, and praise when you comment on those videos.

If I could, I would create coaching software that allows you to see a great performance video once and then the video would become unavailable to the viewer until they had watched a follow-up video that showed them all the necessary steps to achieve the results.  After a specified number of hours of viewing the practice video, the performance video could then be viewed again.  That would be great coaching software.   

Until then, I challenge you to consider that the next time you are on Facebook or YouTube and see a video of a great performance, you comment:  "I bet that took hours and hours of practice." Now, that would be a useful comment.