by Marilize Jacobs
Resilience is an intelligence that can help founders overcome hardship.
Exhaustion has overtaken me, and I’ve grown weary of the incessant buzz surrounding artificial intelligence, or AI, and the health risks of air fryers. Don’t get me wrong, AI is remarkable. But I long for conversation that delves into the less chartered human territory: How people think and behave.
According to psychologists, there are four types of intelligence. This is what they are and why I believe each one of them is needed in your entrepreneurial journey:
Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
Emotional Quotient (EQ)
Social Quotient (SQ)
Adversity Quotient (AQ)
Intelligence Quotient
The area most people are familiar with is IQ, which measures human comprehension. You need IQ to solve mathematical equations, and to memorise and recall what you learn.
There is a lot that one can do to increase IQ:
Studying a new language: Since learning a new language causes the language centres in your brain to expand, it can also make you a more effective negotiator, reader and problem-solver.
Getting enough shut-eye: Disturbances to healthy sleep patterns can cause your IQ to drop by a significant five to eight points. Even more surprisingly, missing out on a single night of sleep can reduce your IQ by one standard deviation, leaving you operating with one less light on the next day.
Starting to sprint: A Swedish study proved that cardiovascular fitness can actually raise your verbal intelligence by 50%, so lace up those running shoes.
What is your Adversity Quotient?
In short, EQ represents your emotional character, an attribute that distinguishes you as an individual and may be born from life events you went through. In contrast, your SQ represents your social charisma, a particular way we have learned to communicate and interact with others that can inspire devotion in others – the best way to understand the difference between the two.
Recently, the world of work has put EQ and SQ in the spotlight because as human reliance on technology increases, so too does the need to better connect, integrate and communicate. But what interests me more than IQ, EQ and SQ is a human’s Adversity Quotient. Your AQ measures your ability to go through a rough patch in life and come out thriving. When faced with troubles, AQ determines who will give up and even who will abandon their family, and at times who will consider suicide.
During the Covid pandemic, humans collectively faced one of life’s most difficult adversities. As a momtrepreneur, I witnessed my friends losing their jobs and my businesses going through a lull. I can honestly say I struggled to homeschool my twins during the lockdown. Now that the crisis has passed, I’ve been thinking about better preparing my kids to handle adversities in a context that is becoming increasingly uncertain, unpredictable and volatile.
It is imperative to put in place tools to enable our youngsters to deal with hardships better. As humans, we invest a lot of effort into building IQ, EQ and even SQ. Now is the time to AQ – that measure of resilience that determines how we handle adversity.
After a period that’s tested resilience, it is essential to use what we’ve learned to better gear ourselves for the future.
Savour the sweet times
A 2015 study by Kurtz showed that taking photos is a proven technique to remind you about ‘savouring’ special times during adversity. As a mother and entrepreneur, I often find myself reminiscing while looking over photos. The research reveals that intention is everything. The study’s results showed that those taking photographs while looking for meaning and beauty experienced the activity more absorbing, reported significantly better moods and had higher levels of appreciation and motivation.
Wake up and smell the roses
Another interesting activity to take us back to times when things were ‘better’ and can again get better through resilience – ‘train the brain’ – is to use your sense of smell. It’s the sense most closely connected to the hippocampus, one of the brain structures responsible for our memory. The sense of smell is also connected to the limbic system, the brain’s emotional centre. But the rest of our senses – sight, hearing, taste or touch – have to travel down a long path to reach the parts of the brain responsible for our memory and emotions.
A study performed by psychologist Silvia Álava – “Smells and Emotions” – showed that 83% of the participants confirmed that they recalled happy moments associated with certain smells, and 46.3% recognised that enjoying a familiar scent again influences them more than seeing an object that brought them memories. When going through a time of change and uncertainty, as an interior decorator, I mix a few drops of my favourite essential oils in a diffuser, taking me into the space of mindfulness.
The relationship between AQ and change can be seen as a chicken-and-egg scenario: Both factors can influence and reinforce each other, and change can be either positive or negative. Change encompasses a broader range of possibilities than growth, generally perceived as a more positive and desirable outcome. And there you have it. What I had to do was convert my fear of change – a fixed mindset – to a ‘growth mindset’ to improve my AQ. A growth mindset provides the foundation for developing a high AQ. You must see it, and you must own it; you must solve it and do it!
Our grey matter … matters
According to the Harvard Business Review, a growth mindset means that you believe your intelligence and talents can be developed over time. A fixed mindset means that you believe intelligence is fixed. So just as someone can grow and develop their intellect, a person is also capable of changing brain functions and thinking patterns. Research published by The Brain Podcast shows us that the brain continues to develop and change through neuroscience, even as adults. The brain is similar to plastic in that it can be remoulded over time as new neural pathways form. This has led scientists to identify the tendency of the brain to change through growth and reorganisation. This is called neuroplasticity. Studies by Robert S. Duman at Yale University have shown the brain can grow new connections, strengthen existing ones and improve the speed of pulse transmission. These suggest that a person with a fixed mindset can slowly develop a growth mindset.
Advice for entrepreneurs
For entrepreneurs, adversity will always come in some form or shape. Many start-ups fail, but through a growth mindset, I have learnt there can be potential in this:
Be a mentor: Document your journey and publish it as a blog. Some so many other entrepreneurs would love to read your experience to make sure they avoid similar mistakes.
You may be a valuable resource: Your candidature may be very lucrative to companies. They might consider employing an entrepreneur who tried and failed at entrepreneurship. Your resilience might be a skill that could be vital for a company.
You may again realise the benefits of being an entrepreneur: As opposed to being an employee, which contributes to a growth mindset. Companies that play the talent game make it harder for people to practice a growth mindset in thinking and behaviour, such as sharing information, collaborating, innovating, seeking feedback or admitting errors with less flexibility.
It could strengthen relationships: I realised the importance of leaning on and building my support system: friends, family or a community.
Conclusion
When considering Adversity Quotient, genetic predispositions provide a foundation, while environmental factors and experiences shape and refine these innate qualities. That said, individuals can actively work on developing and improving their AQ through intentional efforts and interventions like changing from having a fixed mindset to having a growth mindset. Remember the invaluable qualities that make us who we are against the AI machine: our ability to adapt, empathise and innovate.
Marilize Jacobs is the founder of two businesses, Pigs Can Fly Interiors & VocalCord Reputation Management in South Africa. She is a reputation strategist with a BCom Marketing Management (UP) and a career spanning interior design, marketing, and PR. Clients, especially in the Financial Services, Legal, Pharmaceutical, Hospitality and Retail industries which revere her strategic skills, thoroughness and tenacity when it comes to building and maintaining reputations. On the personal front, she is a boat skipper and avid cyclist, and also has a pro bono involvement with The Star Academy, an international institution for children with Autism.
Reach her at: marilizeb@mweb.co.za / 082 418 6767
Facebook: facebook.com/pigscanflyinteriors
Instagram: @yespigscanfly
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You are not scatter-brained. You are not burnt out. You are multi-dimensional!
I have been told to pick one thing approximately 4,000 times. By teachers. By "Claude" and “ChatGPT”. By that confident person at dinner who definitely peaked somewhere between 2002 and 2008 and now dispenses career advice as if focus is a personality. Even by mentors.