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We can't control which difficulties we'll encounter, but we can control how we'll respond to them. We can choose to be victims or victors, winners or whiners, optimistic or pessimistic.

We all need resilience on a daily basis, not just in times of catastrophe. The cumulative effect of everyday stress of family, job, and even traffic jams can be nearly as hard to deal with as great tragedy. When something goes wrong, do we see it as further evidence of life's unfairness and futility? Or can we find the opportunities for growth? Once we make this crucial attitude shift, a resilient life is within our grasp. We have seized the power. We can now convert mountains into molehills and discover abilities and internal boldness that we never knew existed.

Profile: Phil Butler

When I need an extra reminder about the connection between optimism and resilience, I think of Phil Butler. Phil graduated from Annapolis and became a Navy light attack carrier pilot who seemed to have the world by the tail. Then he was shot down on a bombing mission over North Vietnam. He spent four days trying to escape through the jungle before he was captured and imprisoned. Each day in his cell he hoped that tomorrow might bring freedom. He maintained this hope for eight years! Phil managed not only to survive but also to accomplish the POW mission — "to return with honor."

Phil told me how the prisoners were kept separate to break their spirits so they could be used for political propaganda. Despite this isolation, they managed to develop and use a secret method of communicating. They created a tap code based on assigning letters to a five-by-five box grid, rather than using traditional Morse code, which might have been deciphered by the guards. Messages could be sent by tapping lightly on the wall or even by the swishes of a broom while sweeping the courtyard. Phil and the others would sweep out jokes and stories to entertain all the other prisoners.

New prisoners were taught the code, and soon elaborate games and formal "lectures" were organized to keep their minds occupied. Phil says the most damaging part of being a POW was the isolation. If it hadn't been for the mutual support through the communication system they devised, few would have survived the torture and horrible conditions. The strong personal relationships that he developed supported him through eight years of imprisonment.

Phil feels the men owed their courage and tremendous endurance to their refusal to lose their optimism, and that humor was an essential factor. He told me a story about Skip, a pilot from his squadron who was shot down eight months after he was. After being blindfolded, bound with ropes, and tortured for weeks in an unsuccessful effort to get a tape-recorded "confession," Skip was finally moved to the cell next to Phil's. The first message Skip tapped through the wall was, "Sorry I didn't get over to you sooner, Phil, but I've been all tied up with other things. " The POWs were strengthened and unified by such humor.

Phil still maintains this ability to put things in perspective. When he was shot down, he was declared "Killed in Action," and there were three memorial services held for him: one in his home town, one at his base in California, and one on the ship. He says with a slight grin, "I have some terrific news clippings in my scrapbook."

Optimism was actually enforced among the POW's because pessimism is so demoralizing. The men realized they couldn't afford the luxury of constant pessimistic grumblings, because both pessimism and optimism become self-fulfilling prophecies. "We had to remain optimistic to survive," Phil says. He calls optimism and humor the "glue and grease of life. Optimism is like glue because it unites us with people as we work together to accomplish our goals and objectives. Humor greases up the tough times so we can slide through being tired, sick, disappointed, depressed, bored, or even growing old. People who share a strong sense of optimistic purpose are absolutely unstoppable. "

Optimism + humor = resilience — that's Phil Butler's formula.

After his repatriation, Phil was awarded two Silver Stars, the Legion of Merit, Bronze Stars, and Purple Hearts for heroism, but he didn't stop there. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in sociology and completed a successful Navy career. Now he's one of the top speakers and consultants in the country. He's living proof that our true prison is negative thoughts. Resilient thinking is the key to unlocking the door.

Excerpted from How High Can You Bounce? by Roger Crawford. Excerpted by permission of Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Tags: Success

About the Author

Roger Crawford receives standing ovations from more than 100,000 people annually at major organizations, including Aetna, American Airlines, General Motors, Met Life, IBM, AT&T, Kraft, and Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and is a consultant to a number of Fortune 500 companies. His first book was his autobiography, Playing from the Heart. Once told he would never walk, Roger Crawford became a Division I college athlete and was certified by the United States Professional Tennis Association.