It's all trainable

I'm going to start this almost-assuredly-too-long of a rant with a few statements that we can all hopefully accept as givens:

1) A large part of living a successful life is the intelligent management of risk. Starting a new career, finding the courage to ask a future wife/husband out on a date, even prudent investing... it all relies on risk management.

2) One's ability to tolerate risk relies heavily on how well they can manage stress.  Yes, in some cases planning is important too, but anyone who's ever started a business or been in a battle knows that no plan survives the first shot.

3) The only way to become "great" at something is to practice it. 10,000 hour rule, right?

In the United States, we pride ourselves as risk-takers, innovators, and free-thinkers. We're the country of good ideas and entrepreneurs. Did you watch the State of the Union last week? President Obama spoke at length about the need for new innovations and new ideas.  Or take all the (mostly ridiculous) bluster over Amy Chua's recent book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother". To paraphrase, "How dare she criticize us! She's raising her kids to be robots! In America, we teach kids to THINK!"

...And then we do things like remove the swing sets from playgrounds because they're "too dangerous." Why? Because some kid jumped off and broke his arm.

What?

At the same time, more news appears every day about the crisis of stress in this country - how stress is literally killing us.

Hmm...

Stress is a physical response, and a good one. We need it. The problem, of course, is that our stress response is built to deal with acute, immediate problems (like a hungry lion in the grass) and not chronic long term problems. These days, we're struggling to find the off-switch to our stress response. Our systems are flooded with cortisol which wreaks havoc on our physical health.

At this point I will pause and recommend you read up on Robert Sapolsky's work with stress. Great stuff.

Here's the thing about stressed out people: they don't take many risks. Why would they? They're stressed enough. I will now refer you back to Given #1 above... taking risks is important for success.

So, we need to find the off-switch to our stress and increase our resilience to it. At the same time, we need to train our children to properly manage risk so they can be the innovators and leaders of the future. What to do? I will now refer you back to Given #3 above:

PRACTICE TAKING RISKS.

Specifically, physical practice. There's this fancy term we have for risky physical practice: Play.

Physical play mimics an acute stress - let's take an example of a precision jump (a long jump where you must successfully land on a small or narrow area, like a ledge or a railing)  Just before you make the jump, all of your senses are laser focused on the landing zone. Your heart rate spikes. Your blood pressure rises. Your palms sweat. The moment of truth arrives... and it's over in an instant. You've successfully landed on the other side. A profound sense of joy and accomplishment washes through you. You relax. YOU RELAX. You've just found the off switch to your stress response.

It's all trainable - strength, power, speed, flexibility... language, math, deductive reasoning... and risk/stress management too.

The more you practice, the more resilient you become. The key, like any other form of training, is progressive overload. Push yourself a little farther every day, but don't do too much too soon. Push your limits - don't ignore them completely.

Kids do this naturally. Think back to the games you played as a child. Many involved testing physical limits and taking risks. Playing games like "how far can you jump off the swings" are a little dangerous and extremely healthy. Children learn how to regulate their emotions and their stress response - they learn how to take risks. When, inevitably, one of them falls and hurts himself, removing all the swings teaches the most profoundly wrong lesson possible.

So get out there and start learning how to regulate your stress response. Play with it. Take risks: Drink deeply of life, feast with friends, laugh sufficiently, and sleep peacefully. It's all trainable.