So we've been talking about how stressors can influence negative outcomes, and we all have heard a lot about that. Stressors certainly do influence that. So whether it's an earthquake, or a tsunami, or the loss of a loved one, or an illness, or many, many things, many stressors in our lives, a divorce, a loss of a job, all of those things can influence us in a negative way. We've been talking about how purpose in life can buffer the negative impact of these stressors. But I want to talk about something a little more fundamental, and to me, much, much cooler than this buffering relationship, than this buffering pathway. Sometimes these stressors can actually increase your purpose in life, or create a stronger, more authentic purpose in your life. And this new purpose in your life can create growth, and we might call that posttraumatic growth. So I'd like to cover this idea of posttraumatic growth. There are scales of this, psychological measures of posttraumatic growth, and often they relate to these kinds of questions. So these are three questions that are part of a very popular posttraumatic growth scale. And they ask subjects to report just how much they agree or disagree with these statements. I changed my priorities about what's important in life. I established a new path in my life. You notice that those two are directly related to purpose and having a strong purpose in your life. So what's important in your life, that's your core values, and values, as we know, are really part of having a purpose. I have a new path or direction in my life. This is purpose related. And then the third question I added in here, this is part of the scale as well. I discovered that I'm stronger than I thought I was. So think back to some event or some time where you were really challenged in your life. Now look back on that. Ask yourself, am I stronger now than I was before? Did that experience actually help me grow? So want to get into that and the role of purpose in life in that case. So very often these stressors cause a new direction in your life, and also improve your self-confidence or your self efficacy, your sense of strength, and your ability to solve these kinds of problems, which leads to greater growth. So let's start with the military. In week four, we're going to talk a little bit more about the military and some really interesting research done with military service people. But this is a cool study I just wanted to show you related to purpose and growth. This study recently came out. They were looking at military service individuals who had either gone through growth from their military service experience, over four years, or kind of maintained their level of growth, but did not grow any more. And then there are people who diminish their level of growth. So in this study, there are three different trajectories that these researchers were looking at. One was a low and declining trajectory. And if you look at the pie chart up on the left, you see that 72% of veterans who had gotten out of the Gulf War or other military experiences, 72% over four years had experienced low and declining posttraumatic growth. Then there are people in the green, who had this consistently moderate level of posttraumatic growth. Then there are people who had this high and ever-increasing level of posttraumatic growth. You can see from the pie chart that that's 15% of people. What they then did was ask, well, were there certain predictors at baseline, at time one, when the study began, that would predict this four-year outcome? And they found two things. Now, look at all the things they were looking at. They looked at things like how curious are you? How optimistic do you tend to be? How integrated are you in your community? In other words, what kind of social network or social support might you have? Those weren't predictive of this increasing posttraumatic growth. What they found was that gratitude was, and also purpose in life was. These are two transcending characteristics of people. So if I can feel gratitude on a regular basis, if I have a transcending purpose in my life, those two things were predictive among these veterans over four years of growth. We can also look at illness as a predictor of purpose. Very often when we get sick, especially some major illness like a cancer, or if we have a sudden heart attack, or some major issue, sometimes that actually can give us a purpose in life. We don't just shrivel up. Our amygdala doesn't just take over and we're scared all the time. Our amygdala might flash, and we get nervous or scared for a while. But then suddenly, we start building with our ventromedial prefrontal cortex this greater purpose and meaning in our lives, this greater direction, a way to start making stronger decisions. And as a result, we start growing. I'd like to give you an example of this, and introduce a person who has had a huge influence in my own life and my career, and how I think about purpose, and his name is Jim Loehr. Jim Loehr founded an organization called the Human Performance Institute. And the Human Performance Institute has worked with elite athletes, and athletes of all different types of sports, mainly as kids who he has helped coach or become a psychologist for. Jim Loehr is a psychologist. And so he's often brought in when a person really needs to start thinking more about improving their performance and, in a way, improving their attitude toward their sport. So Jim is very interested in purpose. And in this Human Performance Institute now, it's not just elite athletes that he trains, but it's anybody. So for two and a half days, you can go into the Human Performance Institute. And I went there, and it really did change my life. And so when I was there, he asked people to start thinking about what mattered most in their lives, how to bring their best self to their life every single day. But very importantly, he asked people to start thinking about what their purpose was in life. At around 3 o'clock in the morning that first night that I was there, after going through almost an entire yellow pad of paper, I wrote down, finally, a purpose that I felt was authentic and what I wanted in my own life. I came home and I told my wife and my daughter Julia about this, and I said, you guys, maybe should go to the Human Performance Institute, I'll cover it. And so they went down, and Julia ended up having a remarkable experience. She was asked to go in front of the audience at the Human Performance Institute and actually talk about her own purpose in her life. And so I interviewed Jim Loehr, and you're going to see a number of interviews of this person, who's kind of a hero of mine, a really amazing person. And I got a chance to interview him and talk, and you can see a full hour-length version of the interview in this MOOC. But I'm going to show you just little clips of the interview, and this is a little clip of Jim's experience when he invited my daughter Julia up to speak about her purpose. >> When he had the courage to get up and speak about her purpose in her life, it's just one of those moments that you can't really put words to it. It was so authentic, so real and so powerful, not just for her, but for all of us. >> So I've talked about my daughter before. My daughter had a heart transplant when she was at a young age. She needed a second heart transplant when she was nine years old. She decided she wanted to become a nurse. And so when she was 17 years old, she wrote an admissions letter to the University of Michigan School of Nursing. And I recently found that letter, and I'd like to share with you some of the things she said in that letter. Some people find religion during such an experience they might classify under miracle. I found purpose. Facing death at a young age gave me a perspective on life that was different from my friends. My experiences have directed and motivated me to pursue the path that will help me carry out the purpose I feel for being on this earth.
