A Case for Learned Resilience: Captain "Sully" Sullenberger

If you ever  wondered whether resilience is inherent in one's character or learned, Captain "Sully" Sullenberger is the embodiment of both. Listen to Chuck Rosenberg's podcast interview with "Sully" as he describes all the factors that led up to his safe landing of US Airways Flight #1549 on January 15, 2009.

It is apparent from Sully's description of his upbringing, education, and experience he is continually learning to improve himself as a professional and human being. The view from his aircraft is awing. You may think Sully's story is the making of legends, but perhaps it isn't relatable to you because you rarely encounter problems like the magnitude of potential plane crash in your daily life. Listen carefully. Sully's lessons about resilience are vital for all of us.

In the podcast, The Oath, Chuck explores how "Sully's" past predicted his future. There are two lessons about resilience. At one level, resilience is part of one's character, developed in childhood at home, school, and in one's community. Sociological factors such as one's family, culture, religion, and civic participation contribute to the formation of character.  This is evident in the way Sully speaks about how his values were formed as a youth and informed him as an adult.

At a second level, resilience is learned through years of experience and exposure to challenges in one's life. This seasoning builds the mental models Captain Sullenberger described calling upon in moments of crises. As he points out, the decisions he made during flight #1549 may have seemed intuitive but they were based on decades of cumulative learning through several adversities. Captain Sullenberger reminds us there really are no "overnight stars." As Chuck's guests regularly say, it takes years of preparation and practice, through many challenges, to be an expert or a hero.  Captain Sullenberger demonstrates the potency of inherent resilience in character and learned resilience in practice. His motto could be "in Omnia Paratus"!

Learned resilience is important because some individuals have been shielded from managing crises and the consequences of their decisions. They lack the tools to be resilient, rendering them incapable of confidently facing their dilemmas to achieve desired outcomes. The gap may be due to well-intentioned yet misguided parenting. It may also be attributed to a socio-economic position which has enabled them to escape the fallout of their choices. In psychology, this phenomenon is known as learned helplessness. They exhibit a behavioral fragility to adversity  when their reactions is flight  instead of facing an adversity. These individuals didn't develop competencies of resilience as children and young adults, thus setting them up for heartache and failure in adulthood. To avert these painful results, it's imperative to learn resilience through programmed experiential learning, like simulations, practice, and coaching.

What does this mean to you in daily life? It means the small, everyday things we do make our character. It means our approach to today's challenges makes or breaks our ability to face tomorrow's adversity and change. Mindfulness that focuses us on being our best selves builds character. Approaching everyday problems with a sense of curiosity and openness to learning enables us to accumulate a mental library of lessons to apply when life presents us adversity. The case of inherent and learned resilience lived by Captain Sullenberger reminds us to use these two lessons full throttle.

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