TED - How to Turn Setbacks into Success | Amy Shoenthal | TED
The speaker shares insights from interviewing successful individuals who turned setbacks into opportunities. Through extensive research, they developed the Setback Cycle, a framework to help others navigate setbacks. The speaker recounts personal experiences of professional setbacks, such as being laid off and sidelined after maternity leave, which led to personal growth and career advancement. The Setback Cycle consists of four phases: establish, embrace, explore, and emerge. Establish involves recognizing a setback, while embrace requires accepting discomfort and reframing self-doubt. Explore focuses on leveraging community connections for support and opportunities. Finally, emerge is about using newfound tools and confidence to move forward. The speaker emphasizes the importance of community and resilience in overcoming setbacks and achieving success.
Key Points:
- Setbacks can lead to reinvention and success through the Setback Cycle.
- The Setback Cycle includes four phases: establish, embrace, explore, and emerge.
- Recognizing and accepting setbacks is crucial for personal growth.
- Leveraging community connections can provide support and opportunities.
- Resilience and reframing self-doubt are key to overcoming setbacks.
Details:
1. 🔄 Understanding Setbacks
- A setback is a reversal or check in progress, distinct from a mistake or obstacle.
- It occurs when forward progress is unexpectedly reversed, illustrating a bump backward on a chosen path.
- Setbacks differ from obstacles as they represent a backward motion rather than a mere challenge to overcome.
- Unlike mistakes, setbacks are not necessarily caused by errors but can arise from external factors.
- Examples of setbacks include project delays due to unforeseen circumstances or sudden changes in market conditions.
2. 🎤 Insights from Interviews
- A significant theme from interviews with founders, business leaders, senators, celebrities, and cultural icons is the valuable lessons learned from major setbacks.
- These setbacks often catalyze the interviewees' most successful ventures, demonstrating the strategic importance of resilience and adaptation.
3. 📚 Developing the Setback Cycle
- The Setback Cycle was developed through three years of research, including interviews with psychologists, executive coaches, and a neuroscientist to understand the impact of setbacks.
- The framework aims to provide actionable strategies for individuals to enhance resilience and creativity following setbacks.
- The research involved reviewing numerous academic papers and business books, ensuring a well-rounded understanding of overcoming setbacks.
- Specific methodologies included qualitative interviews and literature reviews, leading to identifying key components of resilience.
4. 📉 Personal Setback Experience
- Balancing a full-time job with personal projects, such as writing, is common due to limited financial returns from book sales, requiring authors to seek supplementary income.
- Despite achieving milestones like manuscript submission, individuals may face sudden professional setbacks, such as job loss, impacting their personal pursuits.
- Coping with such setbacks involves resilience and adapting strategies to maintain progress on personal projects despite financial or professional disruptions.
5. 💡 Setbacks as Opportunities
- Career setbacks can feel devastating, affecting stability and long-term plans.
- Despite initial disappointment, setbacks can be perceived as opportunities for growth and new directions.
- Many successful individuals view setbacks as a 'green light' to pursue new opportunities.
- For instance, Steve Jobs' departure from Apple led to the creation of NeXT and Pixar, which eventually contributed to his successful return to Apple.
- To practically embrace setbacks as opportunities, consider redefining goals, seeking new skills, and exploring uncharted paths that align with personal passions and emerging market trends.
6. 👶 Parenthood and Career Challenges
- Returning from a 12-week maternity leave, the expectation to resume the previous role seamlessly proved unrealistic due to changes during the absence.
- Individuals who temporarily filled the role excelled, creating a complex dynamic upon return and prompting discussions on their continued involvement.
- Despite the strong performance of replacements, there was a belief in deserving workplace opportunities, highlighting the need for recognition of returning employees' previous contributions.
- A lack of proactive discussions about new roles or opportunities for the returning employee was noted, underscoring the importance of transparent communication in career transitions.
- These setbacks are reframed as opportunities for personal and professional reinvention, emphasizing resilience and adaptability in career development.
7. 🚀 Career Transformation Post-Setback
- A significant personal milestone, the birth of a daughter, coincided with a rapid rise in journalism career, suggesting a symbiotic relationship between personal growth and professional success.
- Increased writing efforts significantly boosted visibility, leading to more speaking engagements and attracting consulting inquiries, demonstrating the power of content creation in career advancement.
- Strategic preparations for potential career changes were made by forming an LLC, setting up an invoicing system, and securing a client on retainer, ensuring financial stability before experiencing a job layoff.
- The successful launch of a book on overcoming setbacks marked a major professional achievement, underscoring the importance of adaptability and resilience in career transformation.
8. 🧠 The Science Behind Setbacks
- People who have experienced more setbacks excel in problem-solving, reasoning, and logic, and they can recognize signs of issues and course correct more easily.
- Experiencing a setback causes a dopamine dip in the brain, which, although often seen negatively, actually induces plasticity, enhancing mental flexibility and resilience.
- The process is compared to muscle exercise: breaking down muscle mass leads to strength rebuilding, similar to how setbacks strengthen mental capabilities.
- During successful periods, individuals are less inclined to consider improvements or better ways to perform tasks.
9. 🔍 The Four Phases of the Setback Cycle
9.1. 🔍 The Four Phases of the Setback Cycle
9.2. 🔍 Continued Phases of the Setback Cycle
10. 🤝 Embracing Discomfort and Self-Worth
- Phase two of the Setback Cycle is about embracing discomfort, which is crucial for transformation.
- Society often conditions us to avoid discomfort, yet it is essential for growth, particularly during dopamine dips.
- The speaker shares personal experiences of having her intelligence questioned, despite accolades like industry awards and a book on the 'USA Today' bestseller list for several weeks.
- The speaker's self-worth feels challenged due to societal perceptions linked to being a talkative and bubbly woman.
- Experiencing sidelining in a leadership role post-maternity leave intensified feelings of needing to prove her value and worth in the workforce.
11. 👨👩👧👦 Caregiving and Career Penalties
- A significant number of individuals leave the workforce for caregiving responsibilities, such as child care, elder care, or self-care.
- Upon returning, caregivers often face job loss fears or career penalties, highlighting issues of job insecurity and hindered career advancement.
- The interruption caused by caregiving responsibilities can lead to a loss of self-worth and professional identity.
- Statistics show that caregivers experience a 20% reduction in long-term career earnings, indicating severe financial implications.
- To mitigate these impacts, companies can implement flexible work policies and provide re-entry programs for returning caregivers.
- Case studies reveal that organizations offering caregiver support have seen an increase in employee retention by 15%.
12. 🌌 Community and Connection
- Cultivating a community is essential during the explore phase of the Setback Cycle.
- Susan McPherson emphasizes the interconnectedness of people, likening communities to constellations where a single link can unlock numerous opportunities.
- Making habitual connections, such as sending a text or making a phone call, can dramatically enhance one's network.
- Leveraging community connections was pivotal for the speaker in securing initial contracts and transforming a side hustle into a thriving business post-layoff.
- Community support can help individuals reframe narratives of self-doubt and recognize their own potential and capabilities.
- Listening to positive feedback from your community can bolster confidence and aid in overcoming setbacks.
13. 🦋 Emerging Stronger
- Transitioning from planning to execution requires recognizing the complexity of the process and allowing time for additional rest and introspection, especially to recover from exhaustion and strategizing.
- Identify and address any remaining barriers with flexibility, allowing for adjustments in your approach.
- Strategically leverage the new skills and insights gained during the reflection phase to embrace change and gain momentum.
- Implement specific steps such as setting clear, actionable goals and reassessing priorities to ensure a smooth transition from planning to action.
14. 🔮 Final Thoughts on Setbacks
- The speaker encourages a perspective shift, urging individuals to view setbacks as opportunities for clarity and potential achievement.
- Participants are prompted to reflect on past setbacks and consider how those experiences have set the stage for personal reinvention.
- The talk emphasizes the importance of understanding and analyzing setbacks to facilitate growth and transformation.