T OUGHNESS #2: M ENTAL T OUGHNESS

A VEXING STORM

 “Another way my sage guide leads me, from that air serene, into a climate ever vex’d with storms: And to a part I come where no light shines.”

– Dante’s Inferno, Canto IV
 
Freezing to death.
 
Falling to death.
 
These were the mountaineer’s options.
 
It was mid-June; it did not feel like mid-June on Mont Blanc.
 
13,500 feet above sea level has its own climate even on the best of days – and this was not the best of days.

2,000 feet below, the storm raged – and was rising fast.
 
Relative safety was at the Vallot Refuge at 14,311 feet – not far in good times!
 
These were not good times.
 
The fog rose alongside the wind and snow – and suddenly, the mountaineer could not even see his own boots when looking down.
 
Vexing storms indeed – 60 mile per hour winds began to howl incessantly around  Greg Nance , pulling his precious body heat away from him; carrying swirling frozen ice crystals to shave away at his life force; a heavy fog making the ground treacherous to navigate.
 
He stood alone on one of the most deadly mountains in the world – standing still in the harrowing snowy winds was to freeze to death; movement in the thick fog was a near-guarantee of falling to death.
 
It was not a good day in mid-June.
 
***
 
TOUGHNESS #2: MENTAL TOUGHNESS
 
This is the second chapter of our ascent into Toughness  – we are investigating how to train and build physical and mental toughness, as well as learning to cultivate, tame, and harness our emotions to serve our causes.
 
Mental Toughness gets right to the heart of the issue – clearly, mentally tough people can outperform more weak or cowardly people, people more prone to panic or self-destruction.
 
But what is  mental toughness, exactly? How do we cultivate it? Why do our minds sometimes fail us?
 
***
 
EXHAUSTION AS DANTE CLIMBS DEEPER INTO HELL
 
Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia , published in 1320, stands as one of greatest works of literature. The symbolism is so rich and vivid that it’s well-worth studying for its lessons.
 
Often lacking in summaries of the work are the motion and emotion felt by Dante and his companion Virgil as they travel through Hell.
 
There’s plenty of descriptions of what the various sinners suffer – who could forget the image of Alexander the Great submerged in the boiling river of blood? – but perhaps just as profound are the levels of sadness and exhaustion that Dante feels throughout the journey.
 
In Canto XXIV, Dante needs to climb through a difficult area to make his way on their journey through Hell, and he becomes exhausted, emphasis added –
 
At length the point of our descent we reach'd from the last flag: soon as to that arriv'd, so was  the breath exhausted from my lungs, I could no further , but did seat me there.
 
"Now needs thy best of man;" so spake my guide: "For  not on downy plumes, nor under shade of canopy reposing, fame is won , without which whosoe'er consumes his days leaveth such vestige of himself on earth, as smoke in air or foam upon the wave.
 
Thou therefore rise: vanish thy weariness by the mind's effort , in each struggle form'd to vanquish, if she suffer not the weight of her corporeal frame to crush her down.
 
A longer ladder yet remains to scale. From these to have escap'd sufficeth not. If well thou note me, profit by my words."
 
I straightway rose, and show'd myself less spent than I in truth did feel me.   "On," I cried, “for I am stout and fearless."
 
***
 
THE FROZEN ANGUISH ON MONT BLANC
 
Nance is in a harrowing position – 60-mile-an-hour winds and 13,500 feet above sea level. Fog rolling in, can’t see his feet – and thus can’t maneuver to safety. Sharp biting cold which is going to be fatal if hypothermia sets in.
 
He later reflected on the experience –
 
“There was no choice; all I could do was lean forward, widen my stance, clench my fists and repeatedly move in a tight circle, like a dog chasing its tail in slow-motion. I needed to keep my blood flowing to ward off hypothermia and frostbite but had to tread the same ground to avoid walking off a mountain cliff into one of the crevasses silently waiting to swallow another victim.”
 
***
 
THE ESSENCE OF MENTAL TOUGHNESS
 
I think mental toughness is, if we investigate it, a relatively simple thing –
 
It’s doing what one ought to do, regardless if you feel like doing it or not.
 
This is simple to write, simple to comprehend, simple enough on the surface – a relatively simple thing – and yet, at times, incredibly difficult.
 
***
 
FIRST NECESSITY FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS: KNOWING WHAT TO DO
 
If mental toughness is doing what we ought to do regardless, then if we want to become mentally tough, it’s key to know what to do .
 
Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman wrote in  On Combat  about how knowing and training just a single way to do things  leads to superior performance under stress –
 
“While learning skills and ingraining them as muscle memory or autopilot responses, it is important that only one way be taught. W.E. Hicks' 1952 study found that as the possible responses increased from one to two, reaction time increased by 58 percent. In other words, having to choose between options takes time, and the more options you have, the greater the reaction time. This is often referred to as "Hicks' Law," but Sun Tzu said the same thing many centuries ago: "The more possibilities you present to the enemy, the more diffuse he is forced to become. The more diffuse he becomes, the more difficult it is for him to concentrate sufficiently to make a successful attack." We want to confuse the enemy with a variety of possibilities, but we do not want to do that to ourselves. Thus, a simple set of skills [...] all extensively rehearsed, allows for extraordinary performance levels under stress."
 
Incredible. As you go from one option to two options on what to do, it takes 58% longer to decide what action to take.
 
In many situations, that’s life or death. And that’s from merely two  options.
 
Learning one right way to do things and drilling in that way, along with clarifying what should be done, leads to superior performance.
 
Theoretical mental toughness is worthless is you pick the wrong thing to do, or if the situation is confusing and you can’t pick a course of action in time.
 
***
 
SECOND NECESSITY FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS: TRAINING
 
It’s long been known that athletes and soldiers need to prepare by training the physical actions they’ll undertake when in competition or combat.
 
It’s only been relatively recently, though, that this has applied to people doing less physical activities.
 
Training is still erratic and inconsistent across different mental fields. Accountants almost universally receive considerable training and practice when studying their field, so balancing and reviewing accounts becomes second nature to them.
 
Meanwhile, training in fields like sales is more haphazard. Better companies will have workshops, roleplaying, hot-seat training where a single person does sales in front of a group or instructor, debriefs, and analyzes, but many companies don’t do this.
 
Last chapter, we noted that the U.S. Marine Corps has their new officers repeatedly write and re-write many types of orders to learn how to rapidly spot what factors matter and to communicate them concisely.
 
Some companies have similar types of trainings for their executives and managers, but most don’t.
 
Regardless – repeatedly practicing an action that you want to habituate gives you a higher level of comfort and familiarity with it, and lets you perform that action that action under stress and pressure. If the organization you’re part of doesn’t have training for a key skill you need, or if you’re self-employed, you should develop trainings for yourself in the areas you’ll need when under stress and pressure.
 
***
 
THIRD NECESSITY FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS: REDUCTION TO ACTION
 
If you read about firsthand account of people surviving incredibly challenging situations – ultra-endurance sports, getting into elite military units like the Navy SEAL Teams with their infamously brutal Hell Week training, surviving a huge storm during mountaineering – one patterns stands out as occurring over and over and over again.
 
The elite performers don’t focus on the overwhelming whole – they focus on getting through the next step.
 
In his survival of that hellish storm on Mont Blanc, Greg Nance repeatedly focused on the next step he needed to do. He walked in slow circles until the storm broke enough for him to make his way to the next relatively protected area. Then he massaged his toes and fingers in the sleeping bag until the blood was going. Then he focused on doing sit-ups in his sleeping bag to stay warm. And so on.
 
This is not a unique thing about Nance – this seems to be the norm among people who handle huge and complex situations.
 
The ultramarathoner who is running 100 miles and feels miserable at mile 70 doesn’t think about the fact that they still need to run more than an entire marathon – they think about getting to the next checkpoint in the face, or even just getting through the next mile.
 
When you read about the incredible soldiers who are able to persevere through Hell Week to become SEALs, they’re always writing about being present and getting through the current drill, the current exercise, the current race or instructions or fitness that the trainers are demanding. They survive Hell Week one minute at a time.
 
Emergencies or feats of incredible human endurance can’t be handled as a gigantic whole – there’s only one of you, and you can take only one action at a time. The way you navigate gigantic feats, or crises, is by reducing the whole to the single next action to do, doing that action, and then reducing it to the single next action to do.
 
***
 
FOURTH NECESSITY FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS: SUPPORT AND MORALE
 
Nance recounts two key parts of what helped him survive and summit Mont Blanc –
 
“My cell phone which I brought to wake me each morning somehow picked up signal and I was able to use my last credits to call my family.  I knew they were watching Mont Blanc’s weather and had heard of the storm battering the higher elevations.  I assured my sobbing mother that I would make it back home in one piece while promising my brother that if I could get my energy back I’d make a summit bid when the weather cleared.  My father gave me some last-minute guidance and reminded me to stay tough despite the circumstances.  Those thirty minutes of support over the phone made up for the hunger, altitude and thirst-induced weakness.”
 
Falling into a catatonic half-sleep, Nance was surprised when others arrived –
 
“I was stirred from slack jawed melancholy at 3am by the sound of iron clangs on the stairs. Three mountain guides had rounded up stragglers and would rest in the refuge before making their next moves.  Most were heading down while others still harbored summit aspirations.  A few folks shared war stories from their climb but most sat silently trying to muster strength for the last push.  My wind-whipped face, pale blue skin and ten-mile stare revealed that I was in a bad way. “You got caught in that after Gouter and have been in here 13 hours? Merde!” An Australian supplied the predictable, crikey!  No war story was necessary.  They could sense my fleeting strength.  A few who had also been hammered by the storm generously sacrificed some of their last rations to the straggler from Seattle, perhaps endangering their successful return to sea level.  I was the beneficiary of two sips of tang orange drink, a thermos top of tea, three swigs of water and a half-eaten dark chocolate bar.”
 
Dante Alighieri is so readable because he has such a discerning grasp on human nature… the Inferno is obviously a work of fiction, but he captures the dynamic of struggle in that 24th Canto – when he’s totally exhausted after pursuit by various monsters and demons, and can’t climb any more, Virgil says to him – “Come now, it’s not resting in the shade that makes great deeds. People who just rest through life leave nothing of worth behind…  vanish thy weariness by the mind’s effort. ” And immediately after that encouragement, Dante starts climbing again, crying out: “Onwards, for I am stout and fearless!”
 
There’s all sorts of myths about lone geniuses and lonely achievements, but most of them are false. For whatever reason, we can draw immense strength and boosts of morale from encouragement of other tough-minded people.
 
In the worst of times, Emperor Augustus had his close childhood friend General Agrippa; the final Unifier of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had an intimate and close relationship with the Master Ninja, Hattori Hanzo.
 
Mental Toughness can wear down under pressure – having good friends and allies to encourage you is one key to rebuilding and refueling that toughness.
 
***
 
PUTTING TOGETHER MENTAL TOUGHNESS: PRACTICE AND ACHIVEMENT
 
Mental Toughness, again, we define simply – it’s doing what one ought to do, regardless if you feel like doing it or not.
 
To build mental toughness, then, we’ve identified four things to work on –
 
1. Know What To Do: This means study and reduce complexity in advance of emergencies. Learn and habituate a single correct way of doing things, as much as possible.
 
2. Train: Actions that you’ve repeatedly performed and practiced under a variety of circumstances are easier to keep doing in times of extreme stress and pressure.
 
3. Reduce Complex Situations to Simple Actions: When you are in a situation that’s overwhelming, you need to break it down to the next thing to do, and do that. This is both the right thing to do in the moment, and moreover, it’s a general skillset and way of thinking that can be practiced and built throughout life.
 
4. Recruit and Build Relationships and Allies With Good People: We get huge mental toughness boosts from having good friends and allies. Build relationships and earn the respect and trust of other excellent, tough-minded people, who you can lean on and who can lean on you in tough times.
 
The final piece of putting this all together is merely experience  – all of the above can be done repeatedly, habituated, as you become a more mentally tough person.
 
In the movie Fight Club , there’s a scene where Edward Norton is sitting in his office job with his boss coming into his cubicle in a bad mood to berate him. The night prior, he’d been in an underground street-fighting club getting knocked around.

Sitting at his desk, wounded, he reflects: “After fighting… everything else got the volume turned down… you could deal with anything. “
 
Such is true of any struggle – the volume on any regular stresses and pressures are turned down from conquering any marathon, summiting any mountain, taking any complex and intractable problem in business and working through it to success.
 
After reaching the bottom of the mountain intact, Nance would reflect –
 
“Mountaineering’s essence is a simple one—just one boot in front of the other, over and over again.  But something so straightforward has rarely been so trying.  One’s deepest breaths at altitude are frustratingly shallow, slopes discourage, winds disenchant and the cold disheartens. 
 
“But this, perhaps, is the enduring lesson of mountaineering: once we’ve hit our target we are but halfway.  Soldier on. “