Ep 182 - Thriving Through Adversity: Building Antifragility with guests Dr. Adam Wright and Dr. Nick Holton

Have you ever wondered what it takes to not just survive adversity but to thrive because of it? In this insightful episode of The Quiet and Strong Podcast, host David Hall is joined by experts Dr. Adam Wright and Dr. Nick Holton to explore the transformative concept of antifragility.

Listeners will gain a profound understanding of how to leverage challenges for growth, develop resilience, and build skills that enhance well-being and performance. Adam and Nick share their personal stories and professional insights, highlighting practical strategies to train for antifragility and the importance of aligning principles with goals.

Key takeaways include:
- How to proactively prepare for unexpected challenges and turn adversity into opportunities.
- The difference between resilience and antifragility, and why thriving from stress is more impactful than just bouncing back.
- Methods for building a supportive environment to foster growth and high performance.

This episode provides practical tools and thought-provoking discussions that can help you sharpen your potential, tackle challenges head-on, and achieve a thriving life filled with purpose and alignment.

Listen in as we explore the depth of human potential, the importance of mindset, and actionable steps to become antifragile—and be strong.

Episode Link: QuietandStrong.com/182

Dr. Nick Holton specializes in helping individuals, teams, businesses, and organizations achieve peak performance and overall well-being through the science of human flourishing. He serves as a private coach and consultant for professional athletes, NCAA programs, educational institutions, and Fortune 500 businesses.

Dr. Adam Wright is a high-performance and executive coach, consultant, and educator who supports elite performers in volatile, high-stakes environments. His clients range from high school, collegiate, and professional athletes to Fortune 100 corporate leaders, and entertainment industry creatives.

*** See full guest bios on the episode link above.

Connect with Adam and Nick:
Website: TheAntifragileAcademy.com
Socials: LinkedIn | Instagram

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David Hall

Author, Speaker, Educator, Podcaster

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Transcript

Dr, Nick Holton [00:00:00]:
We have to develop the ability to understand what it is that leads to a thriving life and how we build that up. And at the same time actively consciously take on unpleasant things at the right incremental levels so that we can develop and practice these skills and resilience and self regulation and performance. And in other words, sort of sharpen our edge of our own potential.

David Hall [00:00:34]:
Hello, and welcome to episode 182 of the Quiet and Strong podcast especially for introverts. I'm your host, David Hall. I'm the creator of quietandstrong.com. This is a weekly podcast dedicated to understanding the strengths and needs of introverts and strategies for success. Introversion is not something to fix, but to be embraced. Normally, while I reach episode on a Monday, be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform, Leave a review or rating. That would mean a lot to me and help others find the show. Tell a friend about the podcast.

David Hall [00:01:04]:
Help get the word out there that introversion is a beautiful thing. Today, my guests are the cofounders of the Anti Fragility Academy, Doctor Adam Wright and Doctor Nick Holton. Nick's work focuses on helping individuals, teams, businesses, and organizations become better versions of themselves throughout the application of cutting edge science of human flourishing, a synergistic development of both peak performance and overall well-being and fulfillment. It currently serves as a private coach and consultant working with individuals and groups ranging from professional athletes, NCAA programs, educational institutions, and Fortune 500 businesses. He also runs a podcast alongside the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. The show, Flourish FM, focuses on research to help individuals better understand how to live well. Nick has also directed multiple large scale implementation projects oriented towards human flourishing for schools and organizations around the globe. Adam is a high performance and executive coach, consultant, and educator who supports a broad range of elite performers whose craft demands their absolute best in volatile, high stakes environments.

David Hall [00:02:22]:
Adam's clients range from elite high school, collegiate, and professional athletes to Fortune 100 corporate leaders, professionals in military and law enforcement, and creatives from the entertainment world. He consults with clients in such disparate performance areas as the front office of the NFL, MLB, the European PGA, MLS, Hollywood, and Wall Street. As a practitioner scientist, Adam draws from decades of practical experience as a coach and athlete as well as lessons learned as a researcher and professor. Adam currently serves as Major League dental performance consultant for the Washington Nationals and as an adviser and educational board member for several institutions. Alright. Well, welcome to the Quiet and Strong podcast, Adam and Nick. It's so great to have you. I'm excited to chat with you today.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:03:19]:
Great to be here with you. Thanks for having us.

David Hall [00:03:21]:
Yeah. We're gonna talk about the work that you do with antifragility. And, definitely, before we get into that, let's just start with you. Like, tell us each about your journey to the work that you're doing now.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:03:35]:
Kick it off, Adam.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:03:37]:
Yes. So it's becoming a long and and windy road, but right now, I spend most of my time in the world of applied sport performance psychology. But I started my world my world basically in phys exercise physiology. I started with a master's in applied physiology. So I spent a great deal of time in the gym and on the field training athletes. And I just became more and more fascinated with what was going on behind the scenes. You know, what was going on between the ears as opposed to just writing programs to make people fitter, stronger, better, faster. And that led me down the road of getting an additional master's and PhD and eventually a master's in sports psychology and counseling.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:04:11]:
So at this point, it's probably 15 or 16 different sports of which I work in and in military and law enforcement and executives. And as I said before we started, you know, what what I've never been interested with average, both in my own life or studying. I'm interested in the extremes, And I just find it fascinating to to work with outliers and try to better understand them and bring that those that content by learning to everyone, you know, so we could distribute it and democratize a lot of this stuff.

David Hall [00:04:39]:
Awesome. Thank you. And Nick?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:04:42]:
Yeah. So I I came into what we're currently doing really as a starting point through education, or if you wanna back up even further. I mean, I had early experiences as a kid where essentially I was, you know, either coaching or being coached, got a good vibe from what it felt like to help somebody improve or level up or just, you know, become more capable in something that gave them meaning or joy or whatever it might be. And so I said, well, where can I get a big dose of that? I'll become a teacher, classroom teacher. I did that for a better part of 15 years. You know, anyone who's been through the the school system here in the United States knows that the day in and day out is not typically filled with joy and the actualization of potential. So I went I went back for a PhD, kinda saying, alright. I need to know more.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:05:28]:
How do we get at this? Like, how do I tap into more of the good stuff that kick the young people in front of me have? And that led to kind of a larger exploration of just human potential science. And so Adam and I were were kind of this Venn diagram around human potential science. What I'm having is counseling, physiological lens, coaching lens, and sports psych and performance lens. I'm coming in from the educational design, the learning design, the well-being and positive psychology and the performance loans as well. And so I think those those two histories and we're kind of converging and diverging areas of expertise, you know, make what we do a little little unique.

David Hall [00:06:08]:
Yeah. Awesome. And how did you start working together?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:06:11]:
So we actually started doing some consulting or some contractor work for an organization at the same time. And we went in and got air quotes onboarded, if you wanna call what happened onboarding. It just kind of hit it off right away. I think shared some similar frustrations, some similar questions, some similar values. And, you know, like we said, the Venn diagram was, was between our skill sets and our interests was pretty obvious. And so it quickly turned into, well, hopefully down the road, we get a chance to work together more formally at some point. And then as we both kind of moved in a separate way, I was doing other things, We came back together and, and said, you know, Hey, let's, let's start putting some stuff together and what we're seeing and what we think is, is needed given our academic background and expertise, but also just given the practical reality of what we were seeing in front of us as as practitioners.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:07:07]:
And if you remember, Nick, too, there was a trigger moment where, I don't know, it was about 2 years ago where 5 NCAA athletes committed suicide within a month. And I think that that probably spurred that was the catalyst, I think, that really said, okay, we we need to do something here. Resources are just not out there at the level or or the depth that's necessary proactively, not just reactively. Yeah. So that's that's how we started academy.

David Hall [00:07:32]:
Yeah. And that's such a good example of why the work that you're doing is so needed. So let's let's get into it. What is antifragility?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:07:41]:
So the I think the simplest way to understand it is to kinda juxtapose it with 2 other terms. So we'll we'll do 3 real quick here, and we'll give a little metaphor to to help anchor it. So you've got on the furthest end of one extreme, you've got fragility. Adversity strikes, chaos strikes, right?

David Hall [00:07:57]:
Vulnerability, complexity, like

Dr. Nick Holton [00:07:57]:
generally just like unpleasantness at various levels like You might see learned helplessness, you might see extreme pessimism giving up, like we can get into all those details, but essentially you just follow-up on the external definition. So then you move down the spectrum a little bit. You'll we'll get to a term a lot of people will know, which is resilience. Now you're gonna see different scientific conceptualizations of this. And I've got a close colleague who I respect dearly that I think would push back against this idea of resilience as returning to form. So returning to baseline. So adversity, chaos, complexity, unpleasantness strengths, You feel that there's kind of a hit to your behavior, to your productivity, to your mental state, whatever it might be, but there is a navigation or a rebounding. And she and others would say, you never really return as the same.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:08:55]:
And, and that but, but we would say generally, you're coming back to baseline. And that's really an important distinction because then as we move to antifragility, there's where you see the difference. Antifragility is about thriving through and or because of the adversity itself. Okay? So it's about taking, accepting to a certain extent, embracing and leveraging, right? These difficult things and learning to do that proactively. So we're creating a robustness that can lead to, you know, kind of being less permeable and more consistent thriving and flourishing and that human potential we talked about earlier. Right? And so we have the metaphor we always use is Greek mythology. It's the phoenix. Right? That's resilience.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:09:45]:
Up into flames, rise from the ashes, return as its original self. Anyone familiar with the phoenix Greek mythology? And then the hydra, this many headed sort of evil figure, slice one head off, it grows back 2 more. Not just 1. Right? 2 more. That's antifragile. Right? So the juxtaposition between the phoenix and the hydra really is what we're going after.

David Hall [00:10:06]:
All right. And there's I think yeah, go ahead, David. No, go ahead.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:10:10]:
Just gonna add a point to that because, I mean, you're gonna see this run parallel with this concept of post traumatic growth, the clinical literature based upon trauma. But usually, potentially traumatic traumatic events happen to you. And what we're suggesting too is that we actively seek out issues of of of a certain magnitude and kind, but we seek out volatility. We seek out stress. We seek out adversity. And putting the tools in place to help us grow and thrive in those situations.

David Hall [00:10:35]:
Yeah. And I was I was gonna say and it's there's a lot to unpack here, so let's keep talking. But first, like, why the why is it the phrase antifragile? You know, what what is the anti for instead of saying something like resilience or other terms?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:10:52]:
Yeah. 2 really two reasons. 1, originally, this work came from Nicholas Nassim Taleb, right, in a different field, in a different area. And what we're saying is, okay, that term and that definition makes a lot of sense. It really resonates. Adam can speak to seeing examples of this, especially in the physiological world. He just mentioned one of the psychological world, which is post traumatic growth. And so we said, okay, I don't think there's a need necessarily on an academic level to change this construct, right, in terms of the language.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:11:25]:
And then the other pieces, we think the anti suggests something proactive, right? It's, it's actually intended

Dr. Adam Wright [00:11:31]:
to say, okay, get yourself to a

Dr. Nick Holton [00:11:31]:
level where they're, like I said, a step a step further, we think, than resilience.

David Hall [00:11:43]:
Yeah. So let's talk about that. So and I've heard you both say this on other podcasts as well. It's like, tell us about even seeking it out because that's probably for it to a lot of people.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:11:55]:
So great. And I think a related piece here that we always like to mention that can be a good entry point is, what is anti fragility not? Okay? And so what we're not talking about, because you mentioned seeking out, is seeking out trauma. We're not talking about purposeful trauma induction. Right? We're not it's and we've we've had this conversation with other people because we can understand a misinterpretation. We're also not talking about mental toughness or fortitude as a just grit and bear it and feel nothing and suck it up. What we're talking about is developing skillsets and mechanisms based on science that provide flexibility, that provide adaptability, right? So that when these things occur, which inevitably they will, we can adapt, adjust, right, and fit where we need to fit as quickly as possible to continue and or get back to thriving. Right? So there's just a little bit there about what antifragility is not. That make sense?

Dr. Adam Wright [00:13:00]:
It's an important point because I feel like in the world of kind of broscience and and David Goggins, who we're a fan of, you know, an interesting end. Yep. Yeah. That's an end of 1. He's 1 in a 100,000,000. Right. Right. Yeah.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:13:13]:
And and ironically, you know, particularly a lot of the teenagers I deal with, you know, and they idolize him, you know, and they wanna act like him and they wanna be like him. And the truth is, he had a remarkably Trump traumatic childhood, and he was dealing with a lot of issues, and and he didn't do it alone. The interesting thing is everything he learned, something like David Goggins, was in the military. He was taught routines. He was it's about continuous learning. It's about building physical, mental resilience around a team environment. It's about reflection and adaption and diversifying activities and skill sets within the military. It's not just on him.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:13:44]:
So I think sometimes that that message gets miscommunicated

David Hall [00:13:47]:
in a way. And, you

Dr. Adam Wright [00:13:48]:
know, I I just wanna make sure that we don't fall in that realm of just grit and bear it, mental tough, just go for it, suck it up. Because, hey, there's a place for that. I'm not saying there's not a place for that, particularly in high level sport. But you're doing it in a way where there is high challenge and a lot of support and a lot of compassion and a lot of psychological safety.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:14:06]:
So what you have to appreciate is there's a sweet spot in all of this, right? Especially coming from the different kind of research traditions Adam and I come from. If the core definition, what we're after here, is the ability to thrive through or even because of adversity, then there's kind of like a basic assumption, which is I know what thriving is and looks like and feels like. I know when it's there, I know when I'm experiencing it more often than not kind of day to day. Right? So that's a starting point. Okay. Cool. That makes a lot of sense. We got to know what is positive and pleasant and build the good.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:14:43]:
That's an inherent part of the strategy. And we do that in our training and coaching. Right? But here's the other piece, and this this comes to your question about what it means to seek out antifragility. Right? Well, the other two components besides well-being or building the good are resilience and performance. So what's resilience? We talked about it. Well, you've got to have the ability to allow in, endure and navigate unpleasant experiences. If you're going to develop resilience. Okay.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:15:15]:
Basic idea. Well, what about performance? Well, if you look at basic performance indicators, the flow state, right? Zone of proximal development and educational speak self regulation, or in other words, willpower, right? Self control. Those are all a requisite experience, right? Or a requisite skill set is the ability to take on unpleasantness, right? To go after hard things, to say no to maybe some of the viewers have seen the marshmallow test to say no to the dopamine hit now in service of something later. Right? So why am I bringing all of this up? It's a both and. We have to develop the ability to understand what it is that leads to a thriving life and how we build that up. And at the same time actively consciously take on unpleasant things at the right incremental levels so that we can develop and practice these skills and resilience and self regulation and performance. And in other words, sort of sharpen our edge of our own potential.

David Hall [00:16:20]:
Yeah. So I think that I know that you talk about it as a proactive approach. So how is a proactive? How do we do training to be antifragile? Some examples of that.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:16:35]:
Well, I think a good place to start is is some simple framing. So the brain likes threes and sevens, right? So we can get into another 3 and maybe another 7 if you want to. But the 3 that's most important here to your question is top down, bottom up, outside in, or what we know in the coaching world is bio psychosocial. So another way to split that up, top down, is thinking about your thinking. Right? You work with us or you work with our content. And we have tons of free content and resources and videos and how tos and workbooks. Like just check out our website, but you can get a ton of stuff for free. But for, for an example, if we were teaching cognitive behavioral techniques, acceptance commitment techniques, how to do a gratitude journal, how to do benefit finding, these are all top down processes.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:17:22]:
We're being a little simplistic here, right? But it's thinking about your thinking. Okay? So number 1, what's your mindset about stress? What's your mindset about doing difficult things? What's your mindset about whether self control is even a valuable thing to develop? Right? What's your mindset about whether enduring unpleasantness is even a worthwhile pursuit? But you gotta start some level up here. Number 2, bottom up. And so this is sort of the mind body connection. Everything we're learning about sleep, nutrition, and Adam's got a great phrase, energy in, energy out, breath work, temperature control. Right? Allah, Andrew Huberman, it's a 100% nervous system. Right? When we're talking about mental performance, it's a misnomer that that's contained within the brain or skull. Right? An extension of that is the 3rd piece, which is outside in.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:18:14]:
Who are you surrounding yourself with? The people around us and the ecosystems around us impact our mood, our emotions, our habits, our motivations, our goals, even our imaginations of what is actually possible. Right? So it's got to start in those 3 buckets. And then when we work with people or organizations or whatever it might be, we will then break down skillsets, tactics, strategies, behavior changes, etcetera, typically within those buckets that check off kind of that, that list of 7 sub components that I referenced earlier.

David Hall [00:18:51]:
So what's an example of, of how someone might be antifragile in a particular area of their life?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:18:58]:
You wanna go, Adam?

Dr. Adam Wright [00:19:00]:
I'll I'll I'll share a personal story. So I wanna say 13 years ago, Superstorm Sandy. We were hitting the northeast really hard, and I had just moved into a new house with a young son, family. And within 6 weeks, we were flooded out. We had about 4 feet of water in our kitchen and and things, you know, are my my son was like, oh, the tide is coming in, you know, and then we was like playing in in our in our living room in 4 feet of, you know, contaminated water. Yeah. So it it was insane. My my family was surfing couches for a year.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:19:31]:
We were eating off a red cross truck. We had a secondary house in a condo near the beach that was also lost. We were homeless for a year.

David Hall [00:19:39]:
Wow.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:19:39]:
And with within 2 or 3 days, you know, I could sit there and cry. I could break down, or I could go back to work. And so, okay. How are we gonna rebuild? How are we gonna make this better? What are we gonna do differently this time? And, sure enough, after a course of a year, we bounced back. And, you know, we rebuilt the house, and I grew my business, and my son learned from this, and we got stronger as a family. But it was a choice. It it was a choice to either make this something that we could, you know, turn into that kinda, I call, a hinge moment and and really leverage kind of this philosophy and these skills that we built, or you could just kinda roll up and die. And we did it, I think, in in a way that was, I think it came at a cost, but we I'd but I think we did it in a way that largely made us stronger even today as a family.

David Hall [00:20:28]:
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That's that's definitely some challenges and diversity there. Wow.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:20:36]:
And, you know, one one last thing. The interesting part was in in my business, when all this is going on, the best thing I could do is go out and work with my clients and patients. So getting out of my own head and giving to others at that time was actually better for me because it gave me the motivation to to, you know, stay stay flexible and to stay focused and cope with my stress and anxiety.

David Hall [00:20:57]:
Yeah. So, you know, you both talk a lot about how it's not just resilience, you know, it's it's really learning from your challenges or being prepared for your challenges. What did you learn?

Dr. Adam Wright [00:21:09]:
Not to attach too much to anything other than my family and my relationships. It could all go in a second. Yeah.

David Hall [00:21:16]:
Yeah. Wow.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:21:16]:
And then that's what really mattered.

David Hall [00:21:18]:
That's great. Nick, did you have an example?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:21:20]:
I mean, you can kinda pull them out from from different fields to a certain extent. Right? So, like, I'll give simple ones. So so take sports. Okay. Well, you know, I worked in youth sports for a long time. Like, what hap this soccer guy. What happens if somebody messes up, you know, their, their right ankle? Okay. There's opportunity to work on your left.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:21:40]:
Really, really simple example and attitude of like, okay, the adversity here is here. Okay. How do I take this and turn it into something beneficial or useful? Because it is what it is. By the way, and I just really wanna say, and I know Adam sent to me here, he said I can I can cry or I can go do something? And I just wanna say it's like you can cry and go do something. Right. So so this kid, right, this kid can be upset about their right ankle and whatever it might be. But to Adam's point, at the end of the day, it is what it is. You have 3 choices.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:22:13]:
Right? Make it worse, keep it the same, or make it better. And we're looking for the sort of optimism behaviors that can do that. In a in a business context, we have a client who is expanding while a lot of others are shrinking. Right? Really trying to use the pressures of the current economic situation to turn a little bit of coal into diamonds, so to speak. Right? And and moving about that very philosophically, right, intentionally in that way. I think Adam's story brings up a clarification of values. Right? So when tragedy strikes, you know, you lose somebody in a family or you lose a pet or something like that, what does that teach you about yourself and what you care about so that you actually come out clearer and firmer and more coherent about who you are and then can behave that way more going into the future. Right? These are all simple kind of, I think, life examples, everyday examples of where you would see somebody take an attitude of this could put me down, but I'm, it's actually gonna bring me up a notch or 2 in the long run.

David Hall [00:23:15]:
Yeah. So definitely, you can learn from these things like you're saying. What's the proactive piece? Was was were were you prepared for that storm that came? I mean, what how's what what's the proactive piece in all that?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:23:31]:
So I think that's I don't mean to steal Adam's words here,

David Hall [00:23:33]:
but I think that's part

Dr. Nick Holton [00:23:34]:
of why we're both interested in this. Right?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:23:36]:
It's like, you know, that we we got the preemptive piece.

David Hall [00:23:39]:
I gotcha.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:23:40]:
I won't speak for you, Adam. I got the reactive piece. I figured all I said while I was going through shit, basically. Yeah. You. But Go ahead, Adam.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:23:51]:
No. Well, this is how we say we we were reacting to a to a tragedy in that sense, but at the same time, I think we exposed ourselves to even more controlled stressors in that I put all my savings back into the house and doubled down. You know, and I think in that way, I think I was not only reacting to problem, but I was preparing to leverage it for growth with intention.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:24:12]:
Yeah. But were you prepared up to that point, Adam? Like, when like, throughout your life, when you think about, like, really, really crappy circumstances, did you feel like you were coming in with the skill sets we're currently trying to equip people with?

Dr. Adam Wright [00:24:24]:
No. I I listen. I think my study of Buddhism, I was you know, I think my meditation practice, I do I think my exer you know, you know, some exercise that builds some inherent resilience from a biosecrestructure perspective, yes. But in terms of that intention, no. I mean, of course, I've never saw that coming. But I I do think particularly on that that that that biological end of things, I was probably a little bit more resilient because I was training for stress.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:24:50]:
And so those are good to your question, David, those are good examples. Right? So Adam's not saying, hey, I consciously had a TAA program and worked with a coach like Adam, right, to build my capacity so that when Sandy hit, I was prepared in all these ways. But you did hear him mention some of the organic experiences that he had, like exposing himself to stressors early in life, having already taken on challenges, doing physical training and having his body relatively dialed in, having the community and the social support, the family piece, right? All of those different things are a part of it, but we'd love to more formally equip people with it. Right? And, and to do that, and to your question, you've got to be willing to identify, choose, and then take on. Paul Bloom at Yale has a great phrase for this, chosen suffering. Okay. So what does that look like for the person who's addicted to something? And I'd argue most of us are addicted to something in some way. Let's take for me sugar.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:25:53]:
I got a terrible sweet tooth, right? The chosen suffering is just really trying not to indulge Monday through Friday. That's it. Right? It's just trying to sharpen the tool and we can get into all the neuroscience and the psychology. There's a lot of legitimacy to it. Right. I know other people, I don't actually know anybody, but I don't know if either of you've seen this, this kind of viral trend. I just caught wind of it yesterday, but essentially guys are getting on long flights and giving up all entertainment, all reading, and they are challenging themselves to stare at the flight map For the entire flight. Okay.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:26:32]:
Now what's the meaning there. I don't know. Outside of chosen suffering, I can do this thing and it's going to be unpleasant. And that is actually what makes it worth doing. Right. Unpleasant, but not traumatic, by the way. Again, that important nuance. So it's choosing the things that give you meaning because in part they're hard and they nudge you to grow and they nudge you to round out your edges and get outside yourself and you walk away thinking, well now I feel more capable and like I can take more on.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:27:04]:
Right? Travel might be a good example. International travel is a great Adam's headed to Europe pretty soon, a great example. When you don't have the language, you don't know the culture, you don't know how to get around. That's hard, but it's meaningful, chosen unpleasantness that leads to growth. Right? So there's a lot of different ways, big or small that I think you could choose kind of your meaningful suffering.

David Hall [00:27:26]:
Yeah. So how do you train for this? How do you how do you you know, what what are you training for to be antifragile? How does that look?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:27:35]:
Well, it so depends on individual, group, team, organization. But let's say it's just an individual. Right? So I go back to the framing we established, which is we're going to look at well-being levels with academic constructs and tools. We're going to look at resilience levels. We're going to look at performance levels using a variety of different tools. And we have a basic assessment that you can take on our website and get kind of a rough report. So from there, it then becomes, okay, well, we've got these 7 parts or components of antifragility, things like attention and awareness, mindsets, coping mechanisms, psychological flexibility. But the point being is we would look, we would look at your assessment.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:28:15]:
Right? We would look at the breakdown in each of those seven areas. We typically have a discovery call where we try to understand what are you dealing with? What are some of your challenges, your strengths, your goals? Why are we having this conversation? Why are you interested in antifragility? What does it mean to you? And then if if we're the right fit, it's a combination usually of coaching and content. Right? So asynchronous, watch some content, read this book, here's some videos, here's some exercises to try out. And then we work with people 2 on 1 in certain performance situations, 1 on 1 group level, but you're trying to not just inform with content, you're ultimately trying to help them create behavior change. And so, okay, which of these seven areas do we need to focus on? All right. Well, how do we focus on it? Top down? Bottom up? Outside in, all 3, 2 of those 3. And it's very differentiated and individualized because that's how human beings are, Right? Scale is always gonna have inherent limitations because because human beings just don't scale, psychologically or biologically for the most part.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:29:20]:
Yeah. Just add let me add just a general point to this. And I think it's important. It's this all starts with awareness, right? All of it starts with mindfulness. And I think particularly work with high level performers, they're just on the go constantly. So I think a major factor of what we're trying to do is to get pause and to probably ask some deep questions and to spur some self reflection in such a way is like, who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I stand for? What are my principles? And then based upon that, check-in with your goals. You know, are my goals aligned with with these principles? And if they're not, take a really hard look and say, okay, what do I need to do to change things? And I think for so many so many performers, they just don't give themselves time to do that. You know? It's 247.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:30:02]:
We're on constantly tied to our tech. We're not stepping back even for a moment and just saying, okay. Is this what I really want out of my life? Are these the relationships I wanna cultivate? And we're trying to create a situation and coaching and content to help people do that in a way that's concretized, it's systematic. It's not just random. Like you see, oh, stones isn't great, and Buddhism's great, and training's great, and this is great. So we're trying to put this in a program, something to follow with support, with coaching.

David Hall [00:30:32]:
Yeah. And you mentioned mindset and goals. What what's some general advice? How often do should people be checking in on their mindset mindsets and their and their goals?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:30:42]:
How often is is an interesting question with mindsets because I think they're somewhat malleable, but depending on who you ask and the arguments you wanna have the role of the subconscious and mindsets, maybe they're not controllable at all, but I think Adam and I would push back against that. I I think to me, it's any time there is, I think, a moment of reflection, right, about current status or current circumstances or experiences or maybe future stuff. Right? So goals, like Adam brought. To me, those are always opportunities to ask a very simple question. Do I have the mindset that fits what's required for this context? Right? And so how frequent is that? Not so sure. But that at least matches question to a context, which is, is there some sort of reflection or transition happening that requires you to evaluate whether the right mindset is in place?

Dr. Adam Wright [00:31:40]:
I'll add to that a little, Nick, in the sense that particularly in

David Hall [00:31:42]:
the work that I do with,

Dr. Adam Wright [00:31:44]:
you know, we do with professional athletes, were 3 things that I'm always asking them. Right? This is kind of the macro, kind of outside the the lines and on you know, in the lines, actually, while performing. It's the interplay, right, between intention, your attention, and your energy. And it is always some kind of reflection around this before every game when I go through it usually with my pitchers. And so it's like, what is your intention for today? For the day, for the batter, for the pitch. And if that's not aligned, we gotta step back and take a breath and figure out what we're trying to do here. 2nd, is your attention test on on something that's test relevant? Right? Or are you taking in way too much noise and losing the signal? And lastly, is your energy where you need it to be? Is it too high? Is it too low? Is it contextually appropriate for the demands at hand? Like, for instance, the other day, we had a young guy come up first time in a major leagues, he's pitching and, you know, basically, we sat down for a half hour before we went there because he couldn't breathe. And all we did, we said, we met it meditated to get Tim to a level because we knew once he was going to get back on and now and guess what? That adrenaline was going to be flowing even even higher than it was.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:32:45]:
So so I think this could be happening at a macro level at these big hinge moments and and and contemplation points. But also, every time we engage every time we engage in a task, we could step back for a moment and reflect.

David Hall [00:32:56]:
Yeah. And and with this conversation, I I I'm thinking that, you know, definitely challenges are a part of life. We're not gonna get away from them. It seems there are certain people that are trying to, you know, completely eliminate challenges, which is great, but there's that you know, they have that fear of failure, and and and, really, this is really saying, you know what? We are gonna grow with our challenges. I I don't know. What are what are your thoughts on that? Like, it seems, you know

Dr. Nick Holton [00:33:24]:
Yeah. I don't think it's great. I don't think you should be trying to remove challenges. I think you should be trying to remove meaningless annoyances and challenges, but intentionally taking on meaningful challenges. That's where I would make the distinguishment for sure. There's actually interesting research in the psychology world that shows connections between levels of comfort and psychological ill being. It is not typically great. Most people need some stress.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:33:54]:
They want to work, they want to be pushed. You got to flex the muscles, flex the brain, like squeeze things a little bit, keep them energized, keep moving. Right? Like it's, we're, we're not, most of us not meant to be, you know, couch potatoes.

David Hall [00:34:07]:
Right. Well, well said.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:34:09]:
And at the same time, that doesn't mean we throw people in pressurized situations for which they don't have the coping skills to deal with them. So part of this is, you know, it's often the case to say, well, this person just isn't resilient. He's not mentally tough. As opposed to saying, how am I gonna create an environment a culture that's gonna facilitate these internal this internal strength in this person, and then they can face these tasks? I see so much of this in coaching where, you know, this kind of the bully mentality, this is what we call, you know, we we shoot for these. We shoot for a culture we call a facilitative environment. Right? Which is kind of what we talk about, high challenge, high support. But in so many environments I work on, it is high challenge and very, very low support. Particularly at the high school level, I see this way, way too much.

David Hall [00:34:55]:
So high challenge, high support. And it's not that we're trying to remove challenges. We're trying to prepare people for challenges and and and help them learn from their challenges.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:35:05]:
Find the right level where they they stretch without snapping. Right? And as they stretch, support them from the bottom to to get to that next level and then do that on repeat.

David Hall [00:35:17]:
Yeah.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:35:18]:
Trauma, intense trauma is a snap experience a lot of the time. Right? We don't want to we don't stretch.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:35:26]:
And and if you're taking if you're creating an environment where it's driven by the fear of failure, right, you know, that's gonna lead to anxiety. It's gonna lead to procrastination, to avoidance behaviors. You know, it's gonna hinder personal growth and performance. Makes no sense. Right? So if we can do this in such a way that we accept that there is no failure. Right? Just the the outcome is basically data points to help us corpse correct and learn new skills, and, you know, that's a different philosophy, and that allows for creativity, allows for freedom, and it allows for self esteem and self efficacy.

David Hall [00:35:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. I know that I've learned them probably the most from what others could perceive as failure. You know? It's it's it like you're you're saying, it's it's really learning opportunities, and there's gonna be things that, you know, don't go as we planned, but we we learn from them.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:36:11]:
Then that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt and it's not uncomfortable. Yeah. Right? It's that you could simultaneously live with that and move on with value based actions and a plan for the future. You don't have to get rid of the bad, the feelings, or the thoughts around those failures.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:36:24]:
It's It's also worth noting, like, and this is an important mindset shift, failure is actually required, right? In terms of the neuroscience, in terms of the neurochemistry, that is required to feel the joy of success.

David Hall [00:36:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's very important.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:36:41]:
Right? These things are relative. There is a teeter totter mechanism, right? They actually need to be counterbalanced. So and again, that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, but there's a difference between something hurting and it, like, not being necessary or useful. Right?

David Hall [00:36:56]:
Yeah. So, you know, you work with the world of sports. You work with businesses, education. So how do you bring these things into to business, for example?

Dr. Nick Holton [00:37:07]:
Well, I think it depends on, you know, who you're working with. You're working with the leader. You're working with the leadership team. You're working with, you know, HR who's trying figure out training modules, right? You're working with individuals, you're given a keynote, those sorts of things. But I think in many of the business settings, for better or for worse, the key question is always, how is this going to impact outcomes, right? Okay. You guys might have an input. How is that gonna impact the output? Right? And so generally, what you see in her work is an orientation around metrics like burnout, satisfaction, engagement, turnover. Those are really kind of the primary markers, and everything else is connected to those, I'd say, for the most part.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:37:53]:
And so generally, the first time we're engaging with somebody, and I just did this this morning for a prospective client, we start with a survey. We wanna know. Right? We're generally not this pairing that comes in and just says, hey, here's our packages and our programs and here's the things we do. We're trying to actually understand what your problems are and make sure we're the right people. And by the way, you share our values. Because if you don't think that inherently what we're trying to help people do is invaluable, this ain't gonna work. So first and foremost, do you have problems around burnout? Do you have problems around employee engagement, which is for those unfamiliar, it's essentially a satisfaction and kind of productivity and performance score in a lot of ways. Right? Whatever metrics we're using, pull out the data, pull out some themes, get some summaries, put it in front of the people we're talking to, and then say, okay, how would we go about tackling this? Does it mean helping individuals? Does it mean doing group training? Does it sometimes it means not us.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:38:51]:
Sometimes it's them, right? It's remember outside in. You gotta change leadership. You gotta change policies. You gotta change practices. Like, there's there's mountains of research that says the way you're doing this is not going to work more more than likely than not. Right? So, you know, it's it's unfortunately kind of the psychologist cop out answer. It depends, but it certainly does depend, right, on on the person and the entity.

David Hall [00:39:14]:
Yeah. And I know, you know, we could probably spend few hours on that question. So just briefly, let's let's talk about education. And I I wanna break it up with, you know, secondary and our elementary and secondary education and also then college and university. How can we give these tools to students? This this is start with this this is theory about expertise.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:39:36]:
Neither of us neither of us are specialists in elementary or child development. Right? Okay. However, we have both worked with lots and lots and lots of young people in early capacities, me especially. The the simple answer is there's a lot of resources, age appropriate resources out there that are often in the world of emotional intelligence, social emotional learning. They're not necessarily going to see mental performance like we might talk about with, you know, higher level aged elite, you know, amateur, professional, collegiate fleets. But there is stuff out there, right? I'll give you a great example that I just exposed myself to last week, but any parent on the call needs to take their kid to see inside out too. And if you haven't seen the first one start there, but then you go see the second one. They're having real conversations with real neuroscientists about the brain and they're turning it into really beautifully written and woven stories about how your emotions can and sometimes cannot control you, right? And why they're all necessary.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:40:41]:
They all have a place. It's, it's just fricking beautiful. So for those with long, young kids start there. Right. I don't get paid to say that by the way, I don't have any relationship with Disney, but

David Hall [00:40:52]:
yeah,

Dr. Nick Holton [00:40:52]:
But the point is, like, start somewhere because and any parent knows this, their minds are sponges right now. Right? They are so plastic. There's so much wiring happening. And so if you can start to put some of these skill sets in just last week, I have a 6 year old niece, right? And we were out at the Lake. It was a rainy day. It was an indoor day. So she she wanted to play some video games. She and I had a deal and we I told her a little bit about what it means to focus on something and drain cognitive energy and then what it means to unfocus and turn it off so your mind can wander.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:41:27]:
And we had a deal the whole day that she got as many minutes on the game as she did in off activities, right? It's just a simple thing to try to start planting those seeds right now. Oh, you hurt yourself? Okay. Let's have a cry and let's endure it. And it doesn't just have to be, Oh, I gotta get rid of it and panic time. Like those are all moments. High school, middle school, older, I think you can start really putting content in front of them. Right? But I think in Adam, I'd like you to speak to this too. Well, I mean, it takes you a little outside of education, but in Adam's context, sometimes getting these sorts of skills to the people who need them means Trojan horsing them in.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:42:09]:
Like, not not telling that men that you're teaching them or coaching them. And and again, it's not education. But Adam, if you'd speak to that with your athletes, I think it's a good a good case study.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:42:19]:
Well, the idea is if you're going to create better performance, it's going to start with the foundation of well-being. But people don't want to talk about well-being, particularly at the highest level. They only want to talk about performance. So if I could get into my office And kids too.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:42:32]:
Yeah.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:42:33]:
Right. Right. So if I could get into my office, maybe to use some technology, some biofeedback, some HRV training to start a conversation of self reflection, we're not really focusing on actually on the inner life for per se directly, but we are getting to their inner life and we're allowing some kind of a safety, particularly in the world of bravado in where we spend a lot of this time, you know, in a clubhouse, it creates its allows more safety, you know, and so it's always it's the in that I have is like to stand in the gym lift some weights simultaneously with with an athlete, and then maybe he say, hey, how's life going? How's your family life at home? You know? And somehow by creating performance and integrating the 2, it allows us to it allows us to open up. You know? And and there's another element. So I spent 10 years teaching, you know, college students as well. You know, there was something also that that I really liked and it's something how you know, I love the idea of experiential learning. I love the idea, even when I was teaching a sports psychology class, bringing interdisciplinary studies in and drawing connections between various fields, whether it's neuroscience and sports psychology, perhaps religion. I love the idea of bringing a holistic understanding to complex issues and layering them, you know, and giving give my students some flexibility in creating the curriculum and then having experiential learning experience around that to go out into the the world and and get some, you know, hands on experience.

Dr. Adam Wright [00:43:55]:
So just just a thought process when I was a teacher as well, professor.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:43:59]:
Well, just it's there's an inherent tension in how how we navigate responding to your question. And it's a great question, Dave. It's like, okay. A lot of this makes sense. I think a lot of us can see a need with young people and Gen Z in particular. Right? We're actually working with somebody right now who has a deep passion, and we're trying to support him with the science around bringing this in a very thoughtful way to college students, career centers, things like that. But there's this really fine line because I've been in schools. I've seen programs where as soon as something's required, it's no longer interesting.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:44:33]:
It's no longer cool. There's an and the I mean, literally like these, you know, our teenagers are mutants. I mean, I say that affectionately, but like that's the process they're going through. And part of that mutation is like reject what adults and people they used to love and trust are trying to put in front of them for a lot of us. Right? So then it becomes, all right, well then how do you how do you it's a classic question for parents and coaches. How do you get stuff in front of young people that they need, even though they don't know that they need it and they maybe don't even want it. And one of the ways we're trying to do this is, and we do it through sport, but it's a simple, more generalizable answer. Get it into stuff they love.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:45:14]:
Find a way and through stuff they like. My niece, we did it through video games. That's a message she cared about. That's a message she listened to. Right? Sport kids real serious, wants to be good at that sport. They're more likely to listen and read and do and I say that somewhat ironically because my dad put visualization stuff in front of me as a high school athlete, and I rolled my eyes and probably told them to half off under my breath. But some kids, right, that really care about it will listen and pursue.

David Hall [00:45:44]:
Alright. Any further thoughts on college and university students just as far as completing their goals? Too many aren't completing their goals.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:45:52]:
2 or 3 things. 1, goals might be too ambitious, might be unrealistic. We work with a collegiate program, met with them a few months ago. We did some work on goal science, SMART goals, WHOOP goals, some other different sort of things. And at the end, the coach said, like, one of the things I really appreciated about this session is it was a dose of reality. Our goals were terrible last year. Everyone's goal on the team was to win conference. They had no shot, David.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:46:19]:
Right? They were completely unrealistic. And by creating goals that are remember that level of challenge we talked about that are unrealistic and unattainable, that's disincentivizing, that's demotivating. Conversely, too easy, You're going to run into really similar sort of problems. You're going to run into apathy. Right? And so you want to find that sweet spot where it's the right level of challenge. And, and here's what I'd say to, especially in a young person listening, it's authentic, it's relevant, it's real. It is somewhat intrinsic. If not fully chosen by the student, it is at least internalized by and aligned with the student.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:46:58]:
If they're doing it just because mommy, daddy, parent, guardian, you know, coach, influencer, whatever, motivation will be limited.

David Hall [00:47:07]:
Yeah. Adam and Nikki are doing great work, and this has been a great conversation. It's gone by too fast. Is there any parting thoughts you wanna leave us with? And then, of course, tell us where people can find out more about your work.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:47:19]:
Final thoughts, Adam? No. No final thoughts. No. We appreciate you having us on, David. Great great conversation. Love the show and and hope what we shared was helpful to the audience that you can find us more on LinkedIn, Instagram, and our website. LinkedIn and Instagram is just the antifragile academy. No hyphen.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:47:36]:
Antifragile is all one word. And the website is the antifragileacadamydot com. And again, lots of different resources, YouTube channel, podcasts, workbooks, assessment, you name it. We're trying to democratize this, so there's a lot available to you, easy to access.

David Hall [00:47:54]:
Alright. Thanks again. I will get that all in the show notes.

Dr. Nick Holton [00:47:57]:
Thank you.

David Hall [00:47:58]:
Thank you so much for joining me today. I look forward to further connecting with you. Reach out at david at quietandstrong.com, or check out the quietandstrong.com website, which includes blog posts and links to social media channels. Send me topics or guests you would like to see on the show. If you're interested in getting to know yourself better, there's now a free type finder personality assessment on the Quiet and Strong website. This free assessment will give you a brief report, including the 4 letter Myers Briggs code, and you can also have the option of purchasing the full report if you'd like to learn more. I'll add a link to the show notes.

David Hall [00:48:35]:
So many great things about being an introvert, and we need those to be understood. Get to know your introverted strengths and needs, and be strong.