Resilience by Eric Greitens | Book Summary

In 2012, Eric Greitens unexpectedly heard from a former Navy SEAL, Zach Walker. Walker was tough in war but returned home struggling with PTSD and without having a purpose. The two started talking daily, and Eric Greitens captured his thoughts on building resilience in what would become this book, Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life.

Greitens says to Walker, “I’ve collected these letters on resilience in the hope that they might benefit you too.” His letters are derived from his own experience and the wisdom of ancient and modern thinkers to show you how to create purpose, tackle pain, establish a vocation, seek mentorship, create happiness, and much more.

“It’s true that current science has confirmed centuries-old insights into resilience. But I don’t have any such promises. In fact, the only thing I can promise you is that these letters will be imperfect.”

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Letter 1 – Your Frontline

In Letter 1 of Resilience, Eric Greitens discusses the Frontline:

Frontline – “the place where you met the enemy; …where battles were fought and fates decided; … a place of fear, struggle, and suffering; … a place where victories were won, where friendships of a lifetime were forged in hardship; … a place where we lived with a sense of purpose”

You have a frontline in your life now, where you encounter fear, struggle, suffer, face hardship, and fight your battles. You earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love, and do purposeful work. Greitens wants to help you determine the new frontline of your life.

Letter 2 – Why Resilience?

In Letter 2 of Resilience, Eric Greitens discusses the reason for focusing on Resilience. “Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffering can come strength—if we have the virtue of resilience.”

The insights are often old because resilience is a virtue as old as human existence. Since the beginning of recorded history, people have recognized it as essential to human flourishing.

Therefore, you need resilience to live a fulfilling life of happiness and success. Also, you need resilience to take on challenges, develop your abilities, and live with purpose and joy.

Letter 3 – What Is Resilience?

In Letter 3 of Resilience, Eric Greitens defines Resilience:

Resilience – the ability “to use what hits you to change your trajectory in a positive direction”

The first step to building resilience is taking responsibility for who you are and your life. If we take responsibility for ourselves, we become not victims but pioneers:

• The victim falls prey to fear and delights in blaming others.
• The pioneer forges his own path: more difficult but much more rewarding.

Resilience is a virtue. Resilience is an excellence we build. We can practice it in the choices we make and the actions we take. After enough practice, resilience becomes part of who we are. “If we make resilient choices, we become resilient.” You can develop resilience:

• You: Anyone can do it. No one can do it for you. You and you alone have to do the work.
• Develop: You can build virtues, change your character, and change direction in your life.
• Resilience: It can’t be bought or given to you as you must work hard to build excellence.

Letter 4 – Beginning

Even though beginning brings fear, you must choose whether or not you will live in fear for the rest of your life. Thus, in Letter 4 of Resilience, Eric Greitens says that you cannot hesitate, and you must begin.

First, when you begin, begin with humility to recognize how little you know. You begin by accepting that you have problems and are far from perfect.

When you begin, you sometimes lack the skills, knowledge, and experience to carry out even the most basic tasks. You don’t need to know everything, but you need to begin. Approach each day as if you have something new to learn and end up in a noble place. Begin even though you know that you will suffer failure and defeat along the way.

Letter 5 – Happiness

In Letter 5 of Resilience, Eric Greitens discusses happiness and provides Aristotle’s definition:

Happiness – “a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect excellence”

There are many ways to live and experience happiness in the span of a single life. There are three primary kinds of happiness:

• Pleasure – the intensity that can be adjusted and shaped by our condition and context
• Grace – the gratitude for the gifts received experienced in prayer or meditation
• Excellence – the pursuit of worthy goals leading to growth, mastery, and achievement

Letter 6 – Models

Most of us know how important it is to have models. However, as adults, we stop looking. Therefore, in Letter 6 of Resilience, Eric Greitens argues that you need to find models for areas of life you want to improve:

Models – one who “has achieved monumental greatness, or someone who has lived a quietly honorable life; good models share an excellence that draws us to emulate them”

Thus, you need to choose models that resemble your ideal life and match the specific challenges you face. Learn from them, but do not copy them. As your life changes, you will have many models, and your models will change with it. Models help us learn resilience by offering hope and practical wisdom.

Letter 7 – Identity

In Letter 7 of Resilience, Eric Greitens discusses the importance of putting identity first:

Identity – “the type of person you believe you are”

And so, based on how you prioritize your identity in relation to actions and feelings will determine the amount of control you have in your life:

• Life is in control of you: How do you feel? Feeling leads to action, which shapes your identity.
• You are in control of your life: Whom am I going to be? Your identity leads to action, which shapes how you feel.

In the end, putting identity first means prioritizing character over achievement.

Letter 8 – Habits

In Letter 8 of Resilience, Eric Greitens states that your life follows the direction of your habits:

Habit – “the small decisions you make and actions you take regularly”

To change the direction of your life, you must change your habits. Every action creates feelings that reinforce habits. When a habit becomes so ingrained, it will strengthen and reinforce your character and the person you want to be.

We rely on our habits to focus on what matters the most. They can serve you for the better. You have power over your habits and are responsible for them. For more on habits, check out Atomic Habits (book summary) or The Power of Habit (book summary).

Download the PDF Book Summary for Resilience by Eric Greitens

Letter 9 – Responsibility

In Letter 9 of Resilience, Eric Greitens claims that the most important habit is to take responsibility for your actions, life, and happiness:

Responsibility – “a thing that one is required to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation:”

• The more responsibility people take, the more resilient they are likely to be.
• The less responsibility people take, the more likely life will crush them.

“Life is unfair. You are not responsible for everything that happens to you. You are responsible for how you react to everything that happens to you.”

Taking responsibility requires courage and results in feeling fear, as it is something worth doing. Embrace the fear and use it to propel yourself to become the person you wish to be. Pursuing excellence requires responsibility, while creating excuses frees you from responsibility.

Letter 10 – Vocation

If you want to live a purposeful life, you will have to create your purpose. You create purpose by taking action, trying things, and learning from failure. Specifically, in Letter 10 of Resilience, Eric Greitens talks about purpose in terms of your vocation:

• Vocation – “the work that you feel you have been called to; the place where your great joy meets the world’s great need”

Developing vocation helps create purpose, serve others, and make contributions to the world.

To learn how better serve others by getting a grip on your business, check out Traction (book summary) by Gino Wickman. If you are just starting out as an entrepreneur, check out Entrepreneurial Leap (book summary) by Gino Wickman. If you are just starting out as an entrepreneur, check out Entrepreneurial Leap (book summary) by Gino Wickman.

Letter 11 – Philosophy

In Letter 11 of Resilience, Eric Greitens defines the philosophy of resilience in this book:

Philosophy – “involves deliberately making ourselves uncomfortable”

“Socrates asked his fellow citizens to do [the following]: Examine your lives. Take a disciplined look at your actions. Test your beliefs. Ask the hard questions. Discover how much you don’t know.”

Philosophy requires clarity of thought and consistency of action. Philosophy should not offer a way of thinking but rather a way of awareness and living well. Intentions matter, but whom we become and what we leave behind ultimately matter.

Letter 12 – Practice

When you learn how to do something, you have learned one thing. When you learn how to practice, you have learned how to do anything. Therefore, in Letter 12 of Resilience, Eric Greitens argues that the gap between good and exceptional performers is some to no practices versus deliberate practice:

Deliberate Practice – “the style of difficult practice requiring you to stretch past your comfort zone and receive ruthless feedback on your performance;” the five variables of practice include:

• Frequency – the repetition and adaptation between each practice
• Intensity – the pushing beyond the boundaries of our past experiences
• Duration – the minimum training necessary for ourselves to adapt to our work
• Recovery – the time to adjust to what we have learned to grow stronger, smarter, or more spiritually
• Reflection – the consideration of our performance against the standards we have set to adjust and integrate what we’ve learned into our lives

You build resilience by practicing it deliberately to change who you are. For more on deliberate practices, check out So Good They Can’t Ignore You (book summary) by Cal Newport.

Letter 13 – Pain

In Letter 13 of Resilience, Eric Greitens discusses pain and categorizes it into the pain we seek and the pain that seeks us:

• Pain You Seek: This pain comes from studying, training, and pushing yourself.
• Pain Seeking You: This pain can happen, but it is tragic and unexpected at its extreme.

You must face pain with courage and practice readiness. “To work through pain is not to make it disappear, but… to turn it into wisdom.” Pain is not all created equal, as some are good and necessary, while others are unnecessary.

Letter 14 – Mastering Pain

In Letter 14 of Resilience, Eric Greitens argues that being resilient means understanding which pain deserves your attention, as not all pain matters. Additionally, “we grow when we recover from the right pain in the right way.”

Specifically, there is a difference between Pain and Suffering:

• Pain – you often don’t have a choice not to feel pain
• Suffering – you often choose to suffer, as it stems from your relationship to pain

Therefore, you shape your relationship with pain and can master it by choosing the meaning you give to it.

Letter 15 – Reflection

In Letter 15 of Resilience, Eric Greitens discusses the importance of reflection:

Reflection – “watching yourself from the outside,” including your failures and faults.

Act. Reflect. Plan: Reflection done well allows you to plan well and take action. Therefore, you should build a quality reflection habit to consistently respond to the obstacles in your life.

“The way that you see the world is shaped by the reflection you are willing to do.” Reflection reminds us of “the bounds of our mastery and the limits of our vision.”

Letter 16 – Friends

In Letter 16 of Resilience, Eric Greitens explores the concept of friendship and again provides Aristotle’s interpretation:

Friendship – required for your life, happiness, and excellence; based on the following:

• Utility – those people that are useful to each other
• Pleasure – those people that enjoy being around each other
• Virtue and Excellence – the ultimate friendship that supports, challenges, and inspires

“Friends help us flourish. They lighten our burdens, enlighten our thinking, enrich our lives. … And we grow in resilience when we do the same for them.”

Resilience requires awareness of yourself and your environment. You will lack awareness and understanding without good friends to provide you with their own experiences and wisdom.

Download the PDF Book Summary for Resilience by Eric Greitens

Letter 17 – Mentors

In addition to models, in Letter 17 of Resilience, Eric Greitens recommends that you seek mentors for areas of life you want to achieve mastery:

Mentor – “someone who has been where you are going” and can help you build mastery by “teaching you everything you can’t learn from a book”

Various disciplines require wisdom from books and mentors (coaches, teachers, trainers, etc.). And great mentors understand what matters, the issue being faced, and the person facing the problem. Further, you should have mentors you respect and worthy of your trust to oversee your hardships.

Letter 18 – Teams

Teams can be formed through shared discovery, learning, and service. However, in Letter 17 of Resilience, Eric Greitens argues that great teams are created through the shared pain of sweat, blood, sadness, and struggle.

“Real teams work with and for one another. They share a purpose that is larger than anyone.” However, “resilient teams share … an ability to manage many interests while serving a purpose that is larger than the interests of any one person.”

Letter 19 – Leadership

In Letter 19 of Resilience, Eric Greitens states that leaders lead from the front and are willing to endure more than those they are leading.

Marcus Aurelius has said, “Leadership’s responsibility is to work intelligently with what is given and not waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.”

“Resilience is a leader’s defining trait, … because the character of a true leader can only be forged in the fire where resilience does its work.”

Letter 20 – Freedom

In Letter 20 of Resilience, Eric Greitens recommends that focus on “the freedom to” accomplish what you want instead of “the freedom from:”

Freedom – “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint; the power of self-determination attributed to the will”

Freedom is not limited by what others do to you but by what you can do for yourself. Therefore, you should “give yourself the freedom to live a life that’s balanced,” not like a seesaw but like a symphony.

Letter 21 – Story

In Letter 21 of Resilience, Eric Greitens explores the power of storytelling, especially as it applies to your life:

Storytelling – brings the past, present, and future together to help you understand your life

Your life story will be made up of the challenges you face and the meaning you create. Remember that telling yourself a better story won’t change the past as you have to live your better story.

Letter 22 – Death

“Death is one “of our greatest fears” and “provides the urgency behind our greatest efforts.” In Letter 22 of Resilience, Eric Greitens claims that “the resilient person learns to live with the knowledge of death without being overcome by it.”

So, you should understand that you will die, so practice death by “reminding yourself and others that your time is limited.” Lastly, honor the dead by living their values and maintaining their impact after they have passed.

Letter 23 – Sabbath

“These letters are full of work: striving, overcoming, sweating, pushing through, bearing down. Making ourselves more resilient is necessary and can be joyful, but it’s not easy.”

“These have been letters about the work of your life. But now I want to add: not all of life is work. Not all of life is overcoming. Not all of life requires resilience.”

In Letter 23 of Resilience, Eric Greitens concludes by taking time off with a purposeful Sabbath:

Sabbath – an entire day of rest that is the counterbalance to resilience

“We fill our lives just as I’ve filled these pages. If we’re resilient, we fill them with purpose, with meaning, with wisdom, and with work. And then on the Sabbath … we turn the crowded page, just as you can turn to the last page I’ll send you for now, and we rest.”

Download the PDF Book Summary for Resilience by Eric Greitens

Next Steps

When you use the power of resilience, you can overcome the most difficult challenges that come your way in life. I hope this post will help you build habits and practices that cultivate resilience. Also, I hope you are inspired to get your own copy of Resilience by Eric Greitens.