Strength of Character
I was talking to a friend the other day about a leadership development session they had just attended. In this session, the facilitator asked each participant to share a story from their childhood/younger years that they felt made an impact on them and helped define who they are today. Stories ranged from a gentleman whose eldest brother died in an accident which forced him to step in and take responsibility as he was now the oldest child, resulting in his sense of responsibility as adult and compassion for others; a young lady who recalled studying late into the night by kerosene lamp as a child because there was no reliable electricity in her village, teaching her the value of hard work and resilience; to another individual who had to run the family farm in high school due to his father’s health problems, which led him to do poorly in school, but as adult in the United States Air Force honed his reading and writing skills and had a successful career. The common thread through the stories shared was how these challenges that these individuals experienced shaped these individuals in a way that in the end, was positive.
However, there was one person whose story stood apart from the others. They described how they saw a family member act in a way that they considered a betrayal of trust, and how to this day, as an adult, they will not speak with that family member due to anger that still remains. To be clear, it is not our place to judge or to deny anyone else their feelings on their experiences, but the change in the tonal shift from the stories shared by this their peers made me take a step back and think about how our experiences shape our lives, our philosophies of leadership, and how we interact with others.
It’s often expressed that our experiences, whether they are positive, negative, or neutral, make us who we are. I beg to differ. Experiences, like a pen sitting on your desk, do not have a consciousness. When Ernest Hemingway wrote “The Old Man and the Sea”, the story did not come from the pen that he used. This iconic story came from the creativity and imagination of the man himself. The pen was merely a tool used in the writing of this great literary work. Likewise, these experiences didn’t MAKE these people who they are. The key is the conscious decisions these individuals did with those experiences and how they used those experiences to form and shape their views.
How we deal with the challenges and obstacles that life throws at us is at the core of what builds our character. When life throws a curve-ball at us, we find ourselves at a crossroads. We can either use this experience as a learning opportunity, to evaluate what we could do differently or better, and a lesson in life that we can use to uplift and motivate others; or we can go down a darker path of blame, deflection, self-pity, shame, or anger.
To become more emotionally resilient in the face of adversity we need to ask ourselves what our goals and values are and who we want to be as human beings, leaders, friends, spouses or whatever role(s) you hold in your life. It is knowing what we are made of, what drives us and sustains us; that helps us to overcome the obstacles that will inevitably come our way. Having that firm foundation helps us walk away from challenging experiences with increased wisdom, insight and perspective.
When we reflect back on our lives and what we have accomplished, what is it that we are most proud of? What is important aren’t the achievements, not the degrees on the wall, the Company Grade Officer or Noncommissioned Officer of the year awards, or the speaking engagements. What is important is what we did along the different journeys in our lives that make up the fabric of your character.
Just like Hemingway, whose pen was merely a tool that wrote a compelling story of persistence, resilience and redemption, our experiences are merely an element that helps write our story. The direction that our story takes and what we want it to be is wholly in our hands. Strength of character is not defined by our accomplishments, but how we react to the obstacles and adversity that are put in our paths.
