Resilience

Resilience

Transcript for Resilience (Full Episode)

Jonah Willihnganz: [00:00:00] From Stanford University and KZSU. This is the Stanford Storytelling Project. 

Aimless Focus: You were just supposed to look hot like in your bikini. You weren't supposed to actually like go in the water and swim. Um, but I did 'cause I wasn't hot. So, um, so I was 

Thank you.

Jonah Willihnganz: On January 6th, the 1912, almost exactly a hundred years ago. A young German meteorologist stood up in front of a European conference of geologists and declared that the continents of the earth were all once upon a time, a single landmass, and that over the eons they had broken up and drifted apart, like a slowly separating jigsaw puzzle.

The young meteorologist told the crowd that the continents were in fact still moving, that the very land they stood upon in Europe was slowly gyrating away from other land masses like North America. He had taken careful calculations and found, for example, that Greenland was a mile farther from Europe than it had been a hundred years ago.

Paris and Washington were separating by more than 15 feet per year. Terra firma was, in fact, Terra mobile. Everything, even the continents were at sea.

This young man was Alfred Wegner, now known as the father of Continental Drift Theory, and he was essentially laughed off the stage.

Like Kepler and Galileo and Darwin, Wegner proposed a theory that countered almost everything people believed at the time. Today, it seems utterly obvious that the continents were all one landmass. How can anyone look at the map and not see that? Right? But when Wegner gave his presentation in 1912, [00:02:00] the prevailing view of the earth was that it had formed in a molten state, cooled and contracted its geologic features were the result of the contraction, like the wrinkles formed when a prune shrivels up.

This had created the ocean basins, mountain ranges, and other geologic features. If the coastlines of some continents seem to eerily match the coastlines of other continents, that was seen as simply coincidental. Namely, because no one could imagine the earth moving.

And this view of the fixed earth, of fixed land masses was just as entrenched as the earlier views of the Earth is flat or being orbited by the sun. So it's no surprise that Wegner was so profoundly rejected. What is surprising is that Wegner kept going. In the few years after the 1912 conference, Wegner published his theory and was rewarded with reviews that called it a fairytale and utter, damned rot.

He was labeled a crackpot, a fraud, even a danger. He was denied academic posts, research funds, and vilified by specialists in every field his theory touched. But Wegner didn't care. He voyaged all over the earth. Collecting data followed and combined data from scholars in fields that barely acknowledged one another.

And despite overwhelming repeated abject rejection by nearly everyone that could matter, he kept going.

Mostly alone, mostly in the cold, far reaches of the earth until he died on an expedition to Greenland in 1930 at the age of 50. He didn't care that despite the vast amounts of evidence he compiled, people could not let go of their fixed worldview. He kept going. He was in a word [00:04:00] resilient.

This is State of the Human, the radio show of the Stanford Storytelling Project, and I'm your host This week, Jonah Willihnganz. Resilience is our theme this week, and we have five stories of people discovering resilience and how to become resilient. In Wagner's Day, people usually spoke of character and just as most people felt continents were fixed, they'd also felt that character was fixed.

So you were either a resilient person or you weren't. Today we speak less of character and more of personality, something more malleable. And psychologists think of resilience as something all of us have the capacity for, and that all of us can cultivate. We can, in short, all become Wagners.

In our first story today, a woman finds resilience at a young age, in an unexpected place, a country club swimming pool. In our second story, we visit a crucible of resilience. A call center where employees spend all day asking strangers for money. In our third story, we visit with an academic advisor who shares her experience helping students develop resilience.

In our fourth story, we finally go to Burning Man and learn about the powerful kind of resilience one young man finds there. And in our fifth and final story, a Stanford student decides to develop a resilience through a program. Its creator calls rejection therapy. Stay tuned.[00:06:00] 

In our first story today, a Stanford student who we're going to call Aimless Focus recalls the moment in her childhood when she discovered her resilience. That she was a resilient person. This story was recorded live at the True Story series that is produced by Daniel Steinbach. 

Aimless Focus: I guess this story is about, um, is about self-knowledge when it really helps that you sort of, like you have a story that you can tell yourself about who you are, right?

And you go like, I'm that guy. Right. So like that, that's right. That, that's who I am. I know what I'll do now because I'm that guy. Right. Um, so, so this is, so this is my story, um, this is my story about that. So, um, I grew up in this area, um, and, uh, when I was a kid, um, my parents had this membership to the Los Altos, uh, country club.

It's called the Fremont Hills Country Club, but it's actually in Los Altos Hills. So that's the really posh area where like the rich people in Silicon Valley live in addition to Atherton. Um, and, uh, and so it's a tennis and swimming and horseback riding club. Um, and it was a little, uh, a for paying for the membership was a little bit outside of my parents' price range. It was a little bit of a stress, a strain on the family, uh, finances.

Um, and so we were definitely like, we were definitely like the poorest, sketchy people, uh, compared to the people at the club. So like, we weren't, we were really not able to make good use of the membership because we could swim in the pool, but it's not like we owned a horse, so we couldn't do any of the horseback riding.

And I wasn't like waspy enough to play tennis. So we didn't do that either. So the only thing I did was swim. Um, and I was actually really good at swimming. Um, but being good at swimming was like, not really very cool because like, so the pool was like the meat market of like [00:08:00] the, the Los Altos Country Club.

You weren't really supposed to go in the water. You were just supposed to like. Show off how you got plastic surgery and you were like, some rich guy's, second wife and you were hot or whatever, and you're supposed to like parade by the pool. Um, or if you were like my age and you were like a, a teenage girl or whatever, you were just supposed to be like, you were just supposed to look hot like in your bikini. You weren't supposed to actually like go in the water and swim. Um, but I did 'cause I wasn't hot, so, um, so I was... thank you. So I was, yeah, I was actually, I was actually a really, really, I was actually a really, really awkward teenager. I was kind of, I was kind of overweight, um, and, you know, nearsighted, right?

Um, and sort of hairy, um. I think the worst story about puberty is the story that I heard from like vegan propaganda, which was like they inject turkeys with so many hormones that their breasts get so big that they can't get close enough to have sex. I feel like the story just sums up like everything that's bad about puberty.

So like, so like I was, I was really, I was really like, I was kind of hairy, but I was also sort of like curvaceous and I had a lot of hair. Um, and the, and the mean girls who were like hot and wore bikinis, they said that I looked like, um, they said I looked like Fabio with boobs. 'cause it was kind of like, it was kind of like all this puberty stuff going on at once, but my body was like going crazy and couldn't decide whether it was male or female.

So it had like hair but also had breasts. And I also, because I was swimming so much, I had a lot of muscles because I was actually a good, I was actually a really good swimmer. It's the only sport I've ever been any good at. So like, here I can show you. Um, 

yeah. 

So I, I'm told like I'm all... the grad student life has made me all scrawny now.

Right. But like, I'm told that I still kind of have it in the shoulders. So, so suppose I go like this, right? I used to have these giant shoulders from, from [00:10:00] all of the swimming, and I could like, blow anyone out of the water. This was the age, this was like early teens when, you know, girls were kind of ahead of guys in their growth. Mm-hmm. Right? So I was faster than all the guys. Um, I was faster than all the girls. I was both male and female, so that was good. It was good that I was faster 

than both. Right. Um, so, uh, but the thing was, of course it was like not cool to be good at swimming. It was not cool to like, be able to get in the water and win races.

When we had meets, you know, with, with other clubs, we, we lost every time, but we lost in this like, genteel rich person manner. Um, which was, I guess what we were supposed to do. I don't know. So I was a really, really bad fit. Um, and some of the girls, all of the girls, um, in the club, uh, were really mean to me.

Um, and it, it caused stress in the, it caused stress in the family. Um, because I guess my dad kind of always thought that it was like my mom's job to like, talk to me about fitting in with other girls, you know, and like becoming a woman, you know, and that kind of thing. Because, because it was really awkward for him to have to say stuff like that.

So my dad told me many years later that at a swim meet, he walked past this group of girls and they were gossiping about me because I was wearing a bathing suit 'cause it was the meat and I, I didn't shave yet, but I kind of needed to 'cause it was past puberty. Um, and uh, and so I kind of had like tufts of hair everywhere.

Um, and uh, and my dad heard them snickering at me and he felt really bad, you know, but he felt like he couldn't say anything. He was like, well it's, it's a mother's job to do this, right? Like, it's, it's a woman's job to like take her daughter is like, I can't talk to her about that, that kind of thing. Um, and, uh, but you know, like it was hard.

I mean, I think it was awkward for my mom 'cause like she was the only like not white person in the whole club. And like one of the, the first time I ever saw my mother cry was actually, um, at this club because, um, there was this, there was this other little girl, this was when I was littler and she said something like, well, that woman can't [00:12:00] be, that woman can't be Melissa's mother 'cause she isn't white.

Um, 'cause I look like I'm white. Um, and the, and her mother who she was talking to was like, well, honey, that's because she's adopted. Um, and so my mother started to cry. Um, and, um, because I guess I was swimming so much that like the chlorine bleached my hair, so I looked like I was white. I don't know. It's really hard to imagine now.

But, um, but anyway, okay, so, so yeah, I was on the swim team and I was the only person who was good. And so I won all my events at every meet, always. Um, and it was kind of like, it was sort of a foregone conclusion. Like it wasn't even exciting and nobody thought I was cool 'cause I won. They were just like, Melissa's perverse, she always wins.

Um, and so, but then one day we went to the club and I was with my mother took me and I realized when we got there that I had forgotten my swimsuit. Um, so I guess my mom thought I brought it and I thought she brought it. And so my event was just one of my events 'cause I was in all of them and I always won all of them.

Um, my, my, but my most important event, the event that I needed to qualify for junior nationals was like in five minutes. Um, so I, so I had to borrow a swimsuit or I was in a position where I needed to borrow a swimsuit from one of the other girls, and there was no way they were gonna lend me a swimsuit, right?

Because I was like, disgusting and like hairy and gross and probably had a penis and stuff. And so like, there was no way they were gonna lend me a swimsuit that would just be like. Yeah, just no. Right. So, so I asked and they were like, yeah, forget it. Um, so I was like, well, and so my mother was like, I'll run home and get it.

And so she ran off and I was like, yeah, there's no way she's gonna get back in time. So, um, I was like, well, I really wanna swim the meet. I guess you could swim naked. It's not gonna work. Um, but I really, all of a sudden I was just filled with this desire. I was like, I always win. I will win. And it's just a matter of getting in the water 'cause once I get in the water, I'll win. So, um, so I went into the lost and found. Um, and the lost in found was like really, really gross. Um, it was like this pile of like stuff that people, it ki-- it kind of smelled like an accident in the kitty pool because there was a kitty pool, you know. And so like for years people had been piling up [00:14:00] stuff and it was like a little kid would have an accident in the pool and then he would just, his mother would just be like, oh God, and just like, take off his swimsuit and kind of throw it into the lost and found.

So this pile of stuff in the Lost and Found had been like marinating like for years. Um, and it smelled really, really bad in there. Um. And I had to dig to the bottom of the pile until I found this lady's swimsuit. That was a little bit too big for me, but it, I, I knew I could get it over my large body, muscular, um, yeah.

Um, so, so I was like, and it was kind of slimy, you know? And it had been there for long time, smelled really bad. Um, and I knew that like none of the other girls or really anybody in the whole world would ever put on that swimsuit. 'cause like, it's like having like. I mean, wearing a swimsuit is really intimate, you know, it's like, it's like a tongue on your skin or something.

Um, and who knows where it's been, right? Um, but um, but I, I was like, okay, well I have to wear the suit in order to win. Um, and I know that if I put it on a win again, and, and so, so I was like, I'm that, I'm that guy or girl. I'm the one who will do anything. Uh, to get in the water, uh, and to swim, uh, and, uh, to beat, you know, you guys.

Um, so I'll put it on like, I'm, that, I'm the guy who will, who will put on the disgusting, uh, the disgusting suit. I will do it. Um, so I did it. I put it on and it was gross. And um, and I jumped in the water and I won, of course. Um, so, so my mother and, and the other girls were like, and I was like. Because by then I was just like, well, I'm gonna as well live it up.

Right? Um, so my mother came back and she had my suit and I had already won, right? And I was still, I was still in suit and I was just like, yeah, I don't need anymore. This is, I'm just gonna wear this me with when I, when I put on this suit, I dawn my true nature. I know what I am. Um, so, uh. [00:16:00] Uh, so yeah, uh, that, that's my, that's my story.

Jonah Willihnganz: We often discover our resilience through rejection that is visited upon us. But another way to get resilient is by putting yourself quite intentionally in the middle of lots and lots of continuous rejection. In our second story today, producer Christy Hartman takes us to a place where rejection is the norm, where it can happen literally every minute over and over, and over.

Christy Hartman: This is the Stanford call center. It's run by an independent contractor and staffed by Stanford students. Their job. They ask people for money.[00:18:00] 

When was the last time you called someone and asked for money? How'd that go? But believe it or not, some people do this for hours every single day. In this story, we'll meet Jessica and Jordan, two students that work at the call center and even seem to enjoy it. They expect people to say no and to avoid it.

They've come up with a few strategies. 

Jordan Raymond: Um, my name is Jordan Raymond and I'm a junior graduating in June oh, 12th. 

Jessica Talbert: Um, my name is Jessica Talbert. I'm a senior graduating in June. I'm very chatty. Mm-hmm. Um, and I actually tend to be a lot more vulnerable. 'cause I guess my tactic was more, um, to make myself vulnerable.

I remember my first boss, this is a technique that I never forgot. He was just, he was like, he'd asked him, so like, would you like to get involved with us for a gift of $500 tonight? And they say, no. Like, I can't do that because, um, we're remodeling our house and like, I just don't have any extra money. And he would go, oh, you're remodeling your house, that's great. Well, I'm glad that you're able to do something that like, that you've, that you've dreamed about and that you really love and like, just like that a lot of these students are getting to do something that they really love here at Stanford. So maybe you can't get involved with this for a gift of $500, but how about a gift of $250 to help out these students who wanna go abroad. See how it links around. It's called LASC actually, but I don't remember exactly what LASC stands for. 'cause it is an acronym. Do you remember what it is? 

Jordan Raymond: Yeah. Um, listen, acknowledge, support, and continue.

Christy Hartman: LASC is all well and good when you're dealing with someone who is just remodeling their house, but a lot of students end up facing callers with even more intimidating reasons not to talk. 

Jessica Talbert: There's also like quick little things that you get that are like pretty funny. Like you'll call, be like, hello, is Mr. [00:20:00] Richard there? And he's just like, I'm having sex with my wife right now. What do you want?

Michelle Powers: My name is Michelle Powers and I was the program manager at the Stanford calling Center, and we had a few instances when students would call an alum. And we had a few people who would break down on the phone crying because they'd lost everything in the stock market. So, I mean, what a burden to put on a 17-year-old.

Christy Hartman: Michelle doesn't work there anymore, but she was the one who'd come over with a Snickers bar and a sympathetic ear when rejections were worse than just, no. 

Jordan Raymond: I called this man who graduated in 1960 something and he said that he didn't wanna give to Stanford because it was too liberal. So I gave my normal spiel like, you know, giving to the Stanford Fund, you know, really doesn't support that, you know, our politics here in any way whatsoever.

And he was like, well, I'm mad that they have other histories. And I was like, what do you mean by other histories? And he's like, they should never teach African history at a university. And I was like, you know, I tried to do my call center appropriate answer. I was like, well, you know, we like to give our students a global level of education so they, they're prepared to work with anyone that they come up to.

And, um, he, he continued on saying, the only history you should ever teach in a school is European history or American history. And I was like, you know, well Stanford is one of those places that really appreciates diversity. And he goes, I hate diversity. And I, I just, I had no words. There was nothing. So I just said, okay, thank you, sir. Goodbye. And that was the only phone call that I've never been able to continue with. 

Christy Hartman: Rejection is hard. People quit. Attrition is high at the call center. Jordan, who you heard earlier, has seen most of the people she started with quit. Most people can't hack it, but some people can. Some people are good at being rejected.[00:22:00] 

Michelle Powers: Another student supervisor who worked there while she was still a caller, was talking to someone and it was a similar situation where the person was upset because he felt all these spaces for students were going toward minority students, and he felt. That it was just wrong that was happening and that he felt that scholarship money shouldn't be directed toward minority.

It was just like she dealt with it beautifully. But I mean, she was a student of color and she was here on full scholarship and, um, her mother was disabled. So it was just like, it couldn't, it couldn't have been more personal. Um, but the hard thing is, again, being able to tell students, no matter what people say, you have to be professional, you have to be polished. Um, you can't let it get to you. 

Christy Hartman: So it turns out rejection in these situations isn't just a rejection of giving money. It can be, or it can feel like a rejection of who you are. 

Jordan Raymond: It's, it's really easy to tell on their first couple of phone calls, so, you know, when they, like, when they're, everyone's in that awkward stage, you can kind of tell who's going to excel out of that awkward stage and who might stay there and it's, you know, just continues to get nervous. It's very easy to tell the kids that have never had an actual job before because they take it a lot harder to begin with. You know, it's just, it's very hard for them to adjust to that type of situation. But the kids who have had, you know, other jobs seem to do better and stick around longer.

Jessica Talbert: Especially young girls who've been like, really like, happy and talkative, but they also have got like this fierce competition in them. Like, so like they'll, they'll be, they'll be optimistic about like, about their next call and like maybe they'll suffer some losses, but they're looking for the win, like the overall win.

Christy Hartman: So part of the job is learning to defeat rejection, learning to turn no into yes. But even for the best callers, no is what they hear over and over again. No, no, no, no. Why do it? Why go through that? What's the payoff? [00:24:00] Michelle has some ideas. 

Michelle Powers: So I spent a lot of time trying to convey to them how much this job will help them in the future, even if they don't go into sales, even if they don't go to marketing, even if they are in school for another 15 years. This will help you.

Rejection happens and it's going to happen for the rest of your life. If you can learn to deal with this now, I promise you this job is going to help you. Please believe me that the skills you learn here, whether or not you're conscious of it, are going to benefit you in your life.

Please don't quit.

We deal with hundreds of little rejections every day, whether or not we know it. I mean, just, you know, missing the toothbrush when you're squeezing toothpaste onto it. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a little rejection in a way.

Christy Hartman: For Jordan and Jessica, Michelle's advice has proved right. They say working at the call center has made them tougher. 

Jessica Talbert: Oh my goodness. Mm-hmm. In, in so many ways. The ability to, to take rejection is like, it's, it's rare and it's, I'm so happy that, that I have it. Um, not only can you like hear no and quickly think of reasons why it actually should be a yes, convince them that it's a yes, but also when things are like our final, like you can be okay with that, just like in your calls, like maybe this one said no. Okay, hang up, dial the next number, and then there's another opportunity right there. And I remember one of my friends told me once that she, we were talking and she told me no and. And then I just kept talking to her about it until like, until she said yes. And she's like, I think you just used call center tactics on me? And I just, I didn't realize how much it, like it permeates, like how I like relate with my friends as well. 

Christy Hartman: Maybe it's weird to think of working in a call center [00:26:00] as training for life, but that's how Michelle sees it. 

Michelle Powers: These kids are the trophy generation, you know? These are the, oh, you participated, here's a sticker. And that's, that's what they've been raised with. And their, their parents have shielded them from this. Parents shielded them, school shielded them, now college is shielding them. And I, I forget the exact title of the book, but it's on my reading list.

Something about a generation of wimps. And as, as unfavorable as that sounds, frankly, I think when you, when you're not preparing people for this, um, that that is what it breeds. You know? And I have known people who went to top schools who would become paralyzed when rejected because they were just so, it was just so beyond them that that could happen.

We focus so much on giving kids the best experience in academia, the best experience with research, the best professors, all the resources they need, and I think we don't think about these soft skills that are a part of life that most other kids deal with fairly regularly, like rejection and resiliency.

Christy Hartman: So you work at the Stanford call center, you've been dissed, rejected, you've eaten a lot of Snickers bars, but you've also found triumph, success. When you look at the numbers, you've done pretty well. Last year, Stanford raised over $700 million from donors, so you come into work every day. You don't mind hearing no. You know it's only a yes waiting to take shape.

Jonah Willihnganz: Jessica Talbert graduated last spring in 2011. Jordan Raymond is currently a senior at Stanford and Michelle Powers currently works at the business school.[00:28:00] 

Resilience is in fact getting a lot of attention these days in schools, mainly because educators have noticed that this quality is as or even more important than specific aptitudes. No matter how well a student performs, at some point they're likely to experience limits, and when they do, how they cope can powerfully affect both their work and their happiness.

In our third story today, we hear from an educator at Stanford who has created a new program to foster resilience in students. 

Adina Glickman: What I know about our students is they're in a bit of a bind.

My name is Adina Glickman and I'm the Associate Director for Academic Support at the Center for Teaching and Learning.

The, the, the, the worldview that they've had to have to get here requires absence of failure. Uh, you know, you have to have, you have to do super well in everything that you're doing. And, and failure is not an option because then you won't get into Stanford. Um, so now they're at Stanford and we're, we're trying to impose on our students a very different mindset, which is try, fail, try again, explore.

Um. For the purpose of, of helping them develop intellectual [00:30:00] richness and perspective, and they're not good at it, and well, why should they be? There's a, there's a beautiful, I don't know where I've heard it, but I'm sure you've heard it. The, the, the story of the, you know, the kid who sees the chrysalis trying to, trying to emerge as a butterfly, and the kid just feels so terrible, you know, looking at this struggle. So, so, so he peels back a little bit of the, of the, of the shell and help, you know, helps the butterfly out a little bit and, and it's still pushing and still struggling. So he tears a little bit more away and helps the butterfly come out and butterfly eventually struggles and plops out and then can't fly.

Because the muscle that it takes to fly is the one you develop while you're pushing yourself out of the  chrysalis.And I think those, that's our kids. They've been drinking air their whole lives, and now they're thirsty. The resilience project, right now it's a, a collection of stories. The focus of the stories are things, things people wanted that they didn't get.

Um, efforts to publish something or efforts to get a job or wanting to get a good grade in a class, or in one case, we have a story about efforts to get, um, funding for a startup. Um, and the resilience is manifest in what these people did with those rejections or setbacks or failures to, to get what they wanted.

At times where you feel like you've made a mistake or you're in the process of doing something that's not going the way you want it to, there are always doors you can't see, and sometimes it's a leap of faith [00:32:00] to to just say, okay. I know there are doors, but I have to be willing to proceed without knowing what's behind them.

I had a boyfriend in college that it was a, it was not a healthy relationship, but I moved in with him after college and we lived in San Francisco and broke up with him. He was, he's part of my present life. But boy, if I hadn't moved in with him and had this unhealthy relationship, I'd never would've discovered that San Francisco's the place, you know, this, this part of the country is where I wanna live.

Never would've gotten there. Um, the way I met my husband was that, that my best friend at the time had a sister. Who lived in, uh, New Hampshire and had a friend who she wanted to set up with me. So I drove all the way up from New York to meet this guy and he didn't show up because he chickened out, but my future husband was there and that's how I met him. 'Cause I was, you know, I was supposed to meet somebody else.

So I've been through enough ex. Where the door got slammed and a window opened. So chances are that's gonna continue to happen. You know, just sort of faith, that faith in the, in the, in the patterns, uh, of, of life, you know. Tomorrow will bring a different experience than today did, but it's not gonna be unrecognizable.

My reaction to setback is [00:34:00] almost always to try and find the meaning in it. I had a good friend whose father died very suddenly when he was in his forties. She was in her twenties and she said, you know, when that happens, it's a tragedy, but if you don't find the meaning of it, if you don't find what it means in your life and what to do with it, and how it is a meaningful, painful thing, it remains a tragedy.

And I think that that's, that's how you get to feel about, about setbacks. You know, it is a tragedy, but if you don't learn about it, if you don't figure out either, well, I, you know, I, I, I went about that in a way that yielded not success. What can I do differently? Or what's the universe trying to tell me by setting me in a different direction? Then it remains a tragedy.

A big part of my approach with students comes from, from being trained as a social worker who, the mantra of which is, begin where a client is at. You know, don't, don't be all pulling them someplace that they're not ready to go. Don't start in a great, a great space when they're in a... 'cause they won't feel like you get it. So definitely I start, I start where they are and try and try and show them, show them opportunities.

I remember I one point realizing that when I was feeling bad, I didn't want anybody telling me it was gonna be okay 'cause that was trying to move me through it too fast. First, I want people to say, you're right. It looks dark, [00:36:00] it looks bad, and let, when I'm ready, then I, then I can see that it's gonna be okay, but it always felt like someone was trying to talk me out of it.

Very often, I will say, you know, imagine future you or if it's someone who I think connects with themselves as a nurturer, I'll say, imagine your child in college coming to you. What would you wanna tell them in the first? In the first part, imagine future you, you know, really what's gonna be important.

When you think back, what will you want have to have gotten from this?

Jonah Willihnganz: Adina Glickman is Assistant Director for Academic Support at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford.

In our fourth story today about resilience, we go to Burning Man. Now if you don't know what Burning Man is, chances are you're not from the Bay Area or even California. It's an annual event held out in the Nevada desert that incorporates music, food, and is a kind of temporary community devoted to experiential learning and growth.

Michael Zeligs takes us there. This was recorded Live at True Story and produced by Dan Steinbach. 

Michael Zeligs: Hello, beloved Palo Alton's, it's a pleasure, pleasure, and an honor to, uh, be back around here. I'm going to tell the story of the first time I did mushrooms at Burning Man. '

Um, [00:38:00] so my life was falling apart and it had been for a long time, many months. A friend of mine got shot in Mexico. Another friend of mine was terminally ill with cancer in the hospital all summer long.

I was sitting with that. I was in a relationship with Jess, we talked on the phone a lot.

We decided we were gonna go to Burning Man because how, what else could we do? We, we'd heard about it. Jess meets up with me in Colorado and we make our way there and. She's kissing me and like really just not good. You know, I love her, but like I'm just not feeling, not feeling that. And by the second day of Burning Man, there we are in this massage workshop where I'm learning about thai massage, and there I am kind of working on her and I have this breakthrough.

I'm like, oh my God, this, this is how I can love this person. You know, here's a, a way that doesn't have to be this weird sexually binding partnership. You know, the way that I can express truly how grateful and I and amazed I am at this person's existence, here I am thinking this and massaging her. She gets up after and uh, she says, oh my God, my chakra is repulsing.

And I look at her and I say, I wanna break up.

So that was day two and, and, and, you know, I didn't really see her much after that. Um, and I proceeded to dip into Burning Man, and my entry point was not the partying. My entry point was not the music. My entry point was this temple in the middle of it all, where the people would go and openly cry.[00:40:00] 

And I kind of first went out there, uh, and saw that and was just really touched, like it was safe. It was like safe for me to feel that I had been living a wreck for six months and then I didn't know where to go.

And they write on the walls, everything, everything that's ever been lost, everything that wants to be let go of. And, um, I got to write, I got to write to my, got to write to my sister, asking her to eat better, got to write to my mom, asking her to let go of all that. Got to write to Jess saying how sorry I was and how much I loved her. Got to write to Alec saying, I hope you get better, brother. Got to write to David saying I'm sorry you died. I know you're there.

The night before the burn, I had a dream that a storm was coming. I saw it. It was dust ripping through all of Burning Man and I woke up at dawn and I was like, I, I gotta do something. And I, um, opened up a cooler and I had some mushroom chocolates in it. Um, and I ate them and I started walking. And I went and sat near this, you know, huge American flag as the sun was rising feeling, just feeling the wholeness of this experience unfolding and knowing that something needed to roll through. [00:42:00] And as I continued walking kind of on this aimless journey, I realized that yet again, I was going to the temple.

I walked up that year, it was built there were these octagonal platforms. And, um, maybe seating for eight or nine people. And I sit down and start meditating, and as I'm sitting there, it starts filling in. And before I know it, there's a whole circle of maybe 10 people sitting in a circle with one man who has an instrument I've never seen before in my life.

It's called the Hang Drum, and it's this brass disc with these nipples on it, and it creates the most cosmic incredible sounds. And we were all there. We were gathered as the sun was coming over the horizon and we knew without speaking that there was some service to be done. And I looked to my right and I just gasped.

I see this man and it just hits me. It's like, this man is sick. This man sitting next to me is really sick with something. And it just feels like, okay, touch him, like reach out and touch this guy. And so I do. I put my hand on his, on his thigh, and then the person on my left grabs, grabs me and before I know we're all holding hands in this circle as we sit listening to this music.

And right then, you know, it's when the psychedelics kick in and I felt myself connecting with these people, with these perfect strangers who had all gotten the call for this appointment. And holding their hands, I closed my eyes and before me real as day was the whole network [00:44:00] of everyone who had been touched, just like I had from a tragedy rolling through my life.

I could just see it. I was holding on. I was the one kid from my hometown that made it to Burning Man that year. I was the one kid who was suddenly here at this service who could seal the deal for, you know, a year of collapse. And I looked and right there, you know, there was David, my poor friend who got shot. There was Alec who was sick in the hospital, white walls, his life. And I got to say, Hey brothers, welcome. I'm glad you made it. Glad we got to, you know, glad I got to be this anchor standing here for you.

And, and then going out from there Was everyone who had ever been touched by these things. And I got a chance to to look at that to look at the whole situation and say thank you. Thank you, and goodbye. Thank you. I've had enough. Thank you for your lessons. Thank you for showing me this skillfulness required to be conscious that a storm is roaring and to allow it to tear through everything. To destroy all the buildings to flatten and raise an entire country so that the soul can be clean and swept again. And saying that I let go and we let go and we opened our eyes.

And we the nine to 12 sitters in that circle and that morning, one at a time quietly standing up and leaving, and I knew, I knew right away [00:46:00] as soon as I just stepped in, that it was over to that time of this storm rolling through me, had run its course. And that I had offered the payment that was necessary for those experiences, the gratitude for those lessons.

And all those bearers of the lessons, all those pains, I was able to say thank you, but I check you at the doorway of this next step of my life.

And I, I'm, you know, walking back to burning man. Okay, it's burn day, I guess. People do lots of things. I know. I'm, I'm done. I feel complete. I'm done doing drugs. I'm just gonna go to a yoga class and be real kind to myself. And, uh, as I'm walking away, that's when the wind picks up and right before my eyes, the most outrageous storm comes in and just starts rolling and ripping through everything.

And for the next two days, you can't see a thing.

Thank you.

Jonah Willihnganz: Michael Zeligs graduated from Stanford in 2010 and is currently a business and media designer for organizations facilitating peaceful global transformation.

Resilience is often defined by psychologists as the ability to adapt to adversity. In our final story today, a Stanford student decides that this is not an ability she has in abundance. And decides to put herself through a program that she finds on the internet called rejection therapy. [00:48:00] Jane Reynolds.

Jane Reynolds: Rejection therapy is, it's really a game. The object of the game is to get rejected every day. The five objectives of rejection therapy are one. To be more aware of how irrational social fears control, smash and restrict, smash the tyranny of fear and reap the treasures. Three become resilient to seek out, learn from, and even enjoy, or to Four, to not be attached to outcomes especially permit yourself to fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. I wasn't planning on doing rejection therapy. After I looked it up, I dared my friends to. One of 'em responds, ha ha ha. Yeah, I'll do this. And I decided, you know what Jane, I would like to see you try to do rejection therapy.

Some people, the fear that they're trying to overcome is a, the feeling of rejection because it feel, it feels bad to have someone say to your face, no, for me, I was over that. I don't mind that feeling so much. My problem is that I expect rejection. Everywhere.

I got a small coffee at Stella Bakery on Columbus in North Beach. It was like late winter, but in San Francisco. So, kind of a nice day and after I drank the small coffee, 'cause I was sitting down reading in the, in the cafe, I decided, I wished I had gotten a large coffee and I looked at the price at the prices and it would would've been only like 20 cents more.

To get a large, [00:50:00] but to get another small, it was gonna be a dollar 50. And so I, I asked the lady, which I never would've done if I wasn't self-consciously going through rejection therapy. I asked if I could just get a refill. The difference between a small and a large for 20 cents. She was not amused. She was so mean, just cold, stony face. No, you ordered the small so it's too late. So I have my note, uh, from that date: seemed reasonable, felt hated, harder than expected.

I, I really wished I had gotten that free refill and I. Even by my first rejection was kind of fed up with being rejected.

I started off with small challenges, I think because, because I was afraid to try anything bigger. It was later as I started thinking about the game more and its potential. That I, I started to actually respect it as a self-help tool, which is how I think it was developed. I went through the Craigslist gigs list looking for silly things I could get rejected from, and I saw an audition call for a film that some students at the Academy of Art were making and they'd pay you 75 bucks and I thought, well, I'll go audition and I'll get rejected.

There was one part of my brain that laughed at it and said, this will be a great [00:52:00] story. And then another, another, maybe deeper down part of me was actually doing it because I really did want to be in a movie. Like I, I used to love acting. I acted when I was a kid. And then got to high school, I auditioned for the fall musical and got into the chorus.

It was my fair lady, and I didn't get the lead, so I quit. So no one told me in high school, like, you like to act, Jane, but you're really not. You're good, but you're not that good. So you probably shouldn't pursue this any further. I told myself that I invented a rejection and I never, I never even tried to pursue it any further. I thought I was being rejected when in fact it was, it was an honor.

There's a hierarchy and you, you pay your dues. Only now in the rejection therapy am I revisiting it because I I gave myself permission again to go out and see if the, the possibility was still there, and I auditioned, and then I got an email a couple days later saying I had gotten the part. So I'm gonna list that on my resume now, professional actress.

Then my question is, what rejections are inevitable? What's, what's a real rejection then? If there's invented rejection, then there has to be real rejection, rejection, rejection. I guess what I needed to work on, which I found out through actually doing this, was my tendency to invent failure, not rejection.

So maybe I need failure therapy. I decided that I [00:54:00] wanted to use the game as a way for me to kind of drive my life forward. I am at a point in my life where I could use a little push.

I submitted some poetry I had, I had written to a literary magazine. That was one of the things that I delayed on. I kept wanting to edit the poems or I had to wait for one other person to look at them before I was sure that they would be ready because in my heart of hearts, I really wish that they'll be published.

I believed they will be rejected, but it was so easy at the time. I didn't have to look anybody in the face and say, here's my poem, that rejection will be hard for me, but I'll just say to myself, rejection therapy, and then everything is a win-win situation. If you're not rejected, then you're not rejected. And if you are rejected, then you won the game.

The fear of rejection is a much greater enemy than rejection itself.

There's a lot of acceptance waiting for me out there, and if I simply asked for it, I could have it.

Jonah Willihnganz: Jane Reynolds graduated from Stanford in 2011. She currently lives in San Francisco.[00:56:00] 

Today's program was produced by Christy Hartman, Charlie Mintz, and myself. We'd like to thank our contributors, Jessica Talbert, Jordan Raymond, Michelle Powers, Adina Glickman, Michael Zeligs, and Jane Reynolds. We'd also like to thank for their generous financial support, the Stanford Institute for Creativity in the Arts, the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Hume Writing Center, and Stanford Continuing Studies.

Remember that you can find this in every fabulous episode of the Stanford Storytelling Projects Radio Show on the on Stanford iTunes, and on our website at storytelling.stanford.edu. There you can also find out information about our undergraduate research grants, our live events. Contests and other fabulous happenings. Tune in next week where you'll hear stories about seeing oneself, how we understand ourselves through various kinds of maps. From the genome to the astrological natal chart for the Stanford Storytelling Project, I'm [00:58:00] Jonah Willihnganz.