What Actually Makes You Stronger

Everybody’s heard the saying “That which does not kill you makes you stronger,” Nietzsche I believe said it, or something very similar.

It’s wrong though, or at least woefully incomplete. (Or, it’s incomplete in the way we use the words these days.)

Nowadays people think that if bad stuff happens to you, you get stronger.

Wrong.

You get stronger because you work to get stronger.

The people who actually grow from tragedy or adversity are those work at using the event as fuel – they decide to get stronger.

I suggest we update the quote to be more useful, and accurate, for modern days:

That which doesn’t kill you merely isn’t fatal. Those who get stronger from adversity or tragedy decide to do whatever it takes to get stronger.

Similar Posts

  • The Three Stages of Success

    I was recently thinking about the nature of “success.” Of course, it’s a process and a journey and not a “completion” or a destination, but how can we better understand the process, the journey of “success?” Well, I came up with three phases, each marked by three key ideas: Responsibility, Maturity and Wisdom. *  *…

  • Choose Strength Over Weakness

    “Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.” – William James Pessimism is like asking yourself “How can I fail? How can I connect with, and strengthen, my not-being-able-to-do-it thoughts?” Optimism is asking yourself, “How can I succeed? How can I call the best of me, of others and what’s around to create the best result…

  • How Feelings Work

    I was reading a blog post from Seth Godin and about 2/3rds of the way through, he said the following: Stop engaging with the false theory that the best way to stop feeling like a failure is to succeed. – Seth Godin It hit me like a ton of bricks. Sometimes you have to identify…

  • Don’t Change*

    Stop trying to change. You are perfect** the way you are. Your business is perfect** the way it is. Your team is perfect** the way it is. All you need to is EXPERIMENT. Experiments never fail. Change efforts do. Experiments are always successful. Just get clear on what you want and experiment with methods. Notice…

  • Be True to the Truth

    “We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them.” – Seneca I know that the title of this post is, at best, tortured language. I wanted to get your attention and draw your attention to the Truth that we all will die. Let me…