Stronger Through Adversity: World-Class Leaders Share Pandemic-Tested Lessons on Thriving During the Toughest Challenges

  CHAPTER 22  

Continuing the Conversation

Conversation is a catalyst for innovation.

—JOHN SEELY BROWN,organizational researcher

From childhood, I’ve been fortunate to have had conversations with wise teachers. For example, I learned a lot about coping with adversity by asking my mother how she dealt, at age 13, with the death of her father. Although reluctant to discuss WWII, my dad talked about ways he managed physical pain from the shrapnel that he carried with him from the Battle of Anzio. In adolescence, when I wasn’t particularly interested in talking to my parents, I was fortunate to be able to sit for hours on my grandparents’ porch and talk with them about ways to manage what seemed like insurmountable teenage angst. Through college, ...