The Survivor Mindset, Or How To Create More Favorable Circumstances
I had a conversation with someone this weekend who had a “dangerous childhood” similar to mine. The events themselves were wildly different, but the same themes emerged – devastating family trauma at an early age, high levels of personal danger, and a lack of family role models who could steer us on a course where we could “turn out okay.”
Yet in spite of that, we both turned out okay. Naturally, we have the same basketcase of issues that any other person has (we’re just as screwed up as the rest of humanity), but we didn’t break when all this bad stuff was going down. We didn’t fold. We didn’t bow out. We didn’t implode. We didn’t turn to pills, or the bottle, or to the barrel of a gun to take away the pain. Instead, we turned our focus outward to create a life of challenge, a life of service (as best we can), and hopefully, a life that would inspire other people to see hope when facing their own darkest hours.
Again, we have our issues, and we have the same number of “days that suck” as anyone else, but we survived – and more than that, we’re thriving, despite all our baggage and hangups.
How Do Some People Survive Brutal Circumstances Without Imploding?
But I got to thinking … how the hell do some of us pull that off, when other people throw in the towel and say “screw it?” I mean, it’s not because we’re exceptional people who have some coping gene. So I spent some time thinking about the things I’ve seen in myself and in other people who escape some level of personal hell with their souls intact, and I’m going to share my mental notes about what kind of mindsets give “survivors” the psychological advantages they need to make it through to the other side.
Survivor Mindset #1 – Believe That The Game Can Be Won.
I’m not saying “life is a game” (that would be kind of flippant), but there are a lot of things about life that are like a game. There are some general rules. It pays to be on the right team – or to start your own one. There are ways to get bonuses, upgrades, and lucky breaks … and most of all, the better you understand the rules, the more you can stack the deck in your favor.
If I haven’t killed you with bad metaphor overdose yet, you’ll see my point: People who treat life as a game discover they have the option to play to win rather than just take the cards that life hands them. While some things happen as a result of random chance, there’s a lot that can be done to increase the odds that favorable things will come their way. Samuel Goldwyn once said “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” and that’s what playing to win is all about.
Horrible things can happen to people, and after the dust settles it may seem like they have lost all of their resources, all of their options, and all of their opportunities. But survivors see it differently. If they have “nothing,” they can find a way to gradually build up from that position rather than calling it quits.
Survivors Look For Patterns They Can Use To Their Advantage
Survivors look for patterns, for processes, for some kind of formula that explains how life works so that they can decide on a strategy to improve their position. One of the most powerful patterns is what some people call “The Law of Reciprocity,” or basically “what goes around comes around.”
When I was 9, and my family basically imploded, reciprocity was a pattern I discovered and used to start stacking the deck in my favor. I was low on resources, so I focused on helping people in every way that I could, without asking for anything in return. Over the next ten years, this strategy created an enormous reservoir of reciprocity in my life, which gave me countless opportunities to get things that I needed when I needed them. From high school teachers lending me their cars to anonymous donors helping me pay for college, what “went around” certainly came back around.
For me, this was simply the way I chose to view life. I believed that “givers get,” and that if I gave enough, things would ultimately work out for me. I used giving and contributing as my way to stack the deck in my favor so that I could survive. Other people look for patterns that exist in areas of competition, or achievement, or talent … these patterns are everywhere.
Begin Creating Your Circumstances By Seeing Life As A Game
If you’re having trouble surviving the challenges of life, and you feel like you have nowhere to go, maybe you should try thinking in “game” terms. There are more options to increase your ability to influence the game than you realize. In chess, different pieces have different advantages and disadvantages – it’s the same way with people, and it’s the same way with yourself.
When you feel helpless, you’re like a pawn – unable to do anything but move forward, capturing only the opportunities that come by coincidence. But as you look for the patterns that make up human psychology and turn your focus to understanding the rules of life, you open yourself up to different roles. Suddenly, you may find yourself like the bishops, able to move diagonally at will and to move farther in those directions. Other times you may pick up a knight-like ability, and find yourself looking at obstacles that would have stopped you as a pawn and jumping over them entirely.
The bottom line, it all begins with believing there is a way for you to have more, and that you can have more by using strategies that still allow you to respect yourself in the morning. Survivors realize that the game is all about increasing your power – not your power over other people, but instead your power to understand the big picture and the opportunities that exist when you can start thinking a few moves ahead.
(looks at watch) Looks like I’m out of time for today. Next post will continue with another aspect of the survivor mindset, where I’ll talk about choosing the right role models. I hope you’ll join me by subscribing to this blog and better yet, linking to or Stumbling this post.
See you next post,
Two words comes to mind: Resilience and Accountability. We can’t blame others for our situations, holding ourselves accountable keeps the power in our own hands. Resilience allows us to see opportunities through the challenge, without simply “getting over it.”
I’m reminded of the movie “The Pursuit of Happyness”, starring Will Smith. The movie is inspired by the story of Christopher Gardner. A variety of choices left him alone and homeless, taking care of his young son. They lived in homeless shelters and the bathroom floors of subway stations. Gardner refused to give up. Due to his persistence he went from bathroom floors to a an unpaid internship to self-made millionaire.
Role models and support are key, looking forward to the next post.
Holy fuck. Yes.
Without wanting to reveal too much about what shaped me and details of my childhood and past, I will say that you’re dead on.
1. It’s all a game, and I’m going to win it – or at least make it to the next level. What’s interesting is that I operate the business the same way.
2. I am a fact gatherer. I research, watch, observe, listen, etc, as much as I can before I take action. When I do, I know exactly what I’m doing, why and all the possible outcomes that could result. This is along the same principle as “watching for patterns”. I watch for the future – and I make sure I know what it is before it happens.
Or as much as possible.
Okay. I’m hanging on the edge of my seat for number two, if only because I recognize myself in this.
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good post…I like the concept taken.this will give us a happy way of life…
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I’ve been a therapist for a long time and I’ve watched some of my clients (who have been severely traumatized) approach the world from an attitude of entitlement . They expect to be given to and they feel like they deserve special treatment because of what they have suffered. And of course, this strategy often ends up backfiring in a big way cause it’s ultimately a passive position. You assume that others are automatically going to take care of you.
I really like how you took charge of your destiny through the concept of “givers get” and how you created resources for yourself by giving to others first. By doing that you took action and put yourself in a position of power allowing you to very effectively meet your own needs. Which is a great game plan even if you don’t have a difficult family background!
Thanks for the great post!
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Great post … I have a similar story and outlook on life … keep on keepin’ on — you rock!
Wow, Dave, that was awesome. Like you, I am a survivor of…shall I say…overcoming obstacles? While my family didn’t exactly implode, I certainly had some difficulties to deal with while a youngster. I certainly agree that in a way life became like a game but not in the usual sense of the word or to use aover used cliche but it’s true.
Somehow your mind, if you allow it to, finds a way to get to the other side of the bridge. For instance, from the time I was a young kid/teen, I always found a way to prove my father wrong whenever he said I couldn’t do anything because of my hearing disability.
I remember once I excitedly told him I was going to apply for a job at a gas station down the road from my house to which he replied,”Steve, you’re deaf, they’re not going to hire you.”
Well, that did it. I marched off defiantly and got the job! Unfortunately a few weeks later I got fired because I was caught goofing off with the boss’ son playing marbles. Oh boy. But the point was made. Mylife continued to be a patern like this for years until I got to the point where I no longer needed to prove anything to anyone because just about everything I had set out to do, I had achieved successfully.
Even my Dad now in his 70’s no longer questions anything I say I’m going to do whether it’s setting up a new business or whatever.
Great article! I was definitley inspired today. By th eway, I have two questions for you. When are you going to interview me? And I have just launched a new online business that I want to tell you about. Are you game?
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This is really good stuff, Dave.
I didn’t have a traumatic childhood, but I did lack some resources, which inspired me to become more resourceful. Like James, I’ve learned to look around and assess a situation before acting.
I’ve also learned to think about the resources that are available to me, as well as the obstacles I may have to overcome – and resources doesn’t necessarily mean money.
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[...] I read this yesterday, and it really spoke to me. I have often wondered how some people become drug addicts, or how people like my father die of a broken heart (at the bottom of a bottle) while others just withstand the abuse, year after godforsaken annus horribilis. People who treat life as a game discover they have the option to play to win rather than just take the cards that life hands them. While some things happen as a result of random chance, there’s a lot that can be done to increase the odds that favorable things will come their way. Samuel Goldwyn once said “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” and that’s what playing to win is all about. [...]
Hi Dave – This was an interesting post. I guess it is all a game in some ways. And probably the getting for giving thing is true too. I’ve had some shit luck sometimes but I’ve been lucky in lots of ways too – and when I’m lucky, I just remind myself that my life hasn’t been totally bad and I’m far luckier than a lot of people.
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[...] the last post we were talking about the the survivor mindset and the value of viewing life as a game you could play to win. For those just joining us, the “survivor mindset” is simply a term I was using to [...]
One thing that makes a big difference in the ability to overcome obstacles is the belief that any problem can be overcome or any goal can be reached.
The belief that there absolutely is a possible, perhaps creative, way to solve any problem or attain anything that’s desired means that a person keeps being willing to look for the solution. It’s the looking and reworking of the issues and obstacles and the trying of new things when old ones fail that support a person in being persistent enough to get wherever they want to go.
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I hear that.
I’m a patterns and practices kind of guy and success leaves clues.
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