"Silicon Valley celebrates those who "fail fast." Pivot quickly. Move on. But what if constant motion prevents the deeper learning needed for sustained adaptation? What looks like weakness-allowing yourself to fail painfully and sitting with that failure-could turn out to be the path to regenerative capacity. When Competence Isn't Enough My father died in 1997 after one month of illness: melanoma metastasis, before tumor sequencing became clinically routine."
"That decision taught me something I've since observed across workforce research: Regenerative capacity isn't built by pushing through. Since separating from my wife in mid-2023, I've learned what psychologists describe as metacognitive control under stress -the ability to notice when your mind spirals and step back, dipping in and out of difficult topics without being consumed by them. This distinguishes coping (surviving moment to moment) from regeneration (sustaining function over time)."
"Coping capacity is surviving moment to moment-being present for essential decisions, then stepping back before being consumed. It's functional, but depleting. Regenerative capacity helps sustain function over time. It's what I built during those months in South America, and what I rebuild through deliberate practice: work hard, rest hard. When I faced job losses, I treated them as forced sabbaticals-structured recovery-and used the time writing books and peer-reviewed work."
Fail-fast culture prizes quick pivots and moving on, but constant motion can block deeper learning required for sustained adaptation. Experiencing and sitting with painful failure can enable rebuilding strength rather than merely surviving. Regenerative capacity is a repeatable way of functioning under pressure that sustains performance over time, unlike coping capacity which preserves moment-to-moment functioning but depletes resources. Metacognitive control under stress allows noticing mental spirals and stepping back, dipping into difficult topics without being consumed. Structured recovery practices, including deliberate rest and recovery periods, reduce allostatic load and support long-term resilience and sustained function.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]