"Getting back up" after life knocks you down is a huge factor in their success. There are very few successful adults protected from life's blows given the competitive, cut throat world we live in. They all know something about getting thrown into deep holes and climbing back out.
However, I will say that a majority of successful adults, learn how to be resilient at the expense of the people around them.
Not because they are evil, but because no one has shown them better ways of how to handle situations they haven't faced before.
People don't realize how bad this used to be in the past. Nowadays we have much more access to info, better understanding of the right ways to "cope", better understanding of what to avoid, and the right people/environments that will pull one out of life's deep holes. It's nowhere near perfect but it's much better (if you have the resources as you pointed out).
In the past people were mostly just winging it. It's why you see a whole lot successful people who are also ruthless. And regret it towards the end of their lives as they tally the costs and see examples of better routes they could have traveled.
On the one hand, I have more information at my fingertips than someone with access to the entire NYC library system would have had in the 1970s.
On the other hand, the outlier-emphasis of social and news media makes me aware of and able to worry about things someone in the 1970s wouldn't have thought to.
I feel like there was probably an optimal internet (for utility and overall positive impact) from ~1970-1998.
In hindsight, we should have more strongly segregated the information internet from the commercial internet, then let each evolve in isolation.
Childhood trauma and PTSD are little better than a death sentence. Of course, not every child who gets knocked down has trauma. But there's a lot of evidence that people with "rough childhoods" just grow up to have "rough adulthoods".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_Childhood_Experiences_...
The counter-counterpoint is that this is very much a goldilocks things. Too little stress and you don't build resilience, too much stress is just plain abuse.
I recently had a revelation that neither of my parents were "good" parents. But also realized who my first two "good" parents were. My dad's mental illness turned into psychological abuse and he eventually committed suicide. Luckily, my mom married one of my "good" parents and we currently have a great relationship.
I have two older sisters, one turned out fine. She was born resilient, and didn't really seek a foster. The other sister is a different story, and I had wondered if she had found a "good" parent as a child.
This is a point that certainly needs to be raised more often. Thanks for making me aware of it.
Exercising the situations that we think might be a threat to us in a controlled way might be the best solution.
I think this is pretty key and doesn't get enough attention.
In child psych they talk about "resilience", the ability to get back on your feet when something knocks you down. It's hugely helpful for kids.
But it's also critical for adults, and especially successful adults who frankly don't have a lot of experience being knocked down and getting back up again. I suspect that most anxious successful adults underestimate their own ability to bounce back from failure -- many of us think that we got super lucky and at any time something could destroy it all, not thinking about how would take advantage of other opportunities already available in the face of failure in one domain.
I suspect another piece of this is the lack of spare resources (money, time) to handle external shocks. We're so busy that when one thing goes wrong and needs extra attention/money/time, we know it comes at the expense of something else -- and we feel that expense strongly.
Curious for others' thoughts on these.