Book Review: ‘Stronger – Develop the Resilience You Need to Succeed’ by George Every Jr. Ph.D., Douglas Strouse Ph.D., and Dennis McCormack Ph.D.

Sometimes we all need a good kick in the pants to get ourselves back on track, where ever that track may lead, but it is a rare occasion when the people giving you that boot all have Ph.D’s and one of them is an original Navy SEAL.

Stronger – Develop the Resilience You Need to Succeed is a crack team of experts cramming over thirty years worth of valuable experience into one surprisingly easy book to read. This volume will not weigh you down with heavy psychology, over the top spirituality, or tales of success that are too far out of your reach to even gain hope from. All three of these authors are smart, direct, and want nothing more than for you to get where you want to go.

Right of the bat they admit everyone involved in this book, and likely everyone reading it, has all failed at some point in their life. The goal is not to try and eradicate all failure because that would be a fool’s errand. We will always make mistakes in our lives, the goal is to get better at learning from those and bouncing back quicker every time.

They quote Al Neuharth, the owner of USA Today, who said:

Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before they’re forty. The bigger you fail, the bigger you’re likely to succeed later.

They refer to this as gaining “psychological body armor” and their key is personal resilience, which is comprised of five factors:

1. Active Optimism
2. Decisive Action
3. Moral Compass
4. Relentless, Tenacity, Determination
5. Interpersonal Support

These steps are all important and generally lead from one to the next. They dive into each of these points with a full chapter containing their philosophy behind it alongside true life stories of these attributes in action.

My favorite of all these steps is the moral compass. It was interesting to see while they did mention God at points, they didn’t affix having morality and ethics to just being religious. Everyone, no matter what their faith is or if they have any faith at all can still be a truly moral and ethical person. The important part is using that morality to balance each and every action you make to see if it falls on the right side.

Later in the book, they also make a great point when talking about your personal outlook on other people’s actions and how they affect you. They write:

Don’t forget Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which can adequately explained by stupidity.

I’m keeping that one in my brain for a long time.

Stronger – Develop the Resilience You Need to Succeed is not just a collection of heroic stories from people who you wish you could be. In fact it doesn’t want you to be those people at all. Instead they want to help you become the best version of you possible and they laid a bunch of breadcrumbs song the way for you to follow.

Honestly, I ate all the breadcrumbs and I’m going back for seconds.