From Stress to Resilience: Raphael Rose at TEDxManhattanBeach (Transcript)

Here is the full text of clinical psychologist Raphael Rose’s talk titled “From Stress to Resilience” at TEDxManhattanBeach conference. In his research for NASA, Raphael finds that accepting and even welcoming stress helps us become more resilient, leading to a more meaningful, joyful, and socially connected life.

TRANSCRIPT:

Stress. Mistakes. Failure.

Clearly I’m here to give the feel-good talk of the day. I’m actually here to talk about resilience.

As a researcher and a clinical psychologist at UCLA, I’ve been working with NASA on stress and resilience research for over 10 years. The very same NASA that has the expression: failure is not an option associated with it.

Well, I’m here to tell you today that not only is failure an option, it is required to promote resilience.

Resilience means you face life stressors and challenges and you bounce back and recover. And in doing so, you can enrich your life. So whether you work at NASA or your job as a high school student, being resilient means you face stressors, not eliminate them.

To be resilient means you learn from your mistakes, not avoid making them. And to be resilient means your rebound from failure. So any mistakes made during today’s presentation is all done in the name of resilience.

Do you know what astronauts report is among the most stressful things they deal with when they’re up in space? A power failure? A meteor strike? An explosion? An alien attack? No. And that’s how their kids and family are doing back on earth without them.