Introduction.

          Tiger Woods was one of the most respected figures in Sports.  He was an African American who had excelled in a field where there were not many African Americans.  He also had a likeable personality and he was the spokesperson for several different products.  Woods was the epitome of success.  Then a car accident brought to light that Tiger may have been having sexual relationships with women other than his wife, an act frowned upon in today’s society.  Tiger had to take a leave of absence from his golf career and had also lost several of his endorsements.  Will Tiger Woods just remain a memory in the world of golf or will he make that comeback and again be seen on the golf courses of the world, winning tournaments and impressing the fans?  The answer is in his resilience.  Resilience is defined as, “the maintenance of healthy functioning following exposure to potential trauma” (Bjorkland and Bee, 2008 p317).  It is recovering from the stress and trauma involved and rising up out of the ashes.  This is also know as, making the comeback.

            Human beings periodically encounter personal and widespread disasters ranging from personal bankruptcy, family deaths, and job losses to massive disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes.  My grandfather, Samson Meyberg, was a survivor of the holocaust.  In the holocaust, he lost his parents, 3 out of 5 of his siblings and a successful business.  He fled to Columbia South America with his pregnant wife and two toddlers and built a business from nothing.  Twelve years later, he had the opportunity to bring his family to the United States so again he left everything behind and moved his family to the United States. During the entire time that the author had known him, Meyberg never once uttered a bad thing about Germany or the Germans.  On the contrary, he would often spend time at the Germania Hall, telling stories and singing German Folk songs.  When he visited his home town in Germany a year before his death by natural causes, he was given the key to the city and a parade.

Acceptance

          Extrapolating Elisabeth Kubler Ross’s 5 stages of death and dying to the area of loss and grief, one would know that first have to go through the five stages to the stage of acceptance in order to make the comeback.  Samson Meyberg had to accept the fact that almost all of his family and everything he had was taken from him by the Nazis before he could move on with his life.  Tiger Woods is going to have to accept the fact that he cheated on his wife and all of the ramifications of that act.  It is essential for one to be able to accept life the way it is before they can move on to the desired state, in much the same way that if a traveler wanted to travel to San Francisco and that traveler thought he or she was in New York but in reality he or she was in San Jose, that traveler would end up driving into the ocean.

Forgiveness

          The next step in bouncing back is to be able to forgive the person or circumstances that caused the situation. Forgiveness is the act of giving up the right to get revenge or retribution and giving up of any anger, rage or resentment (Toussaint, L. 2003).  In a series of three studies done by Williams and Gonzales they found that the experience of forgiveness decreases the amount of Psychological pain felt and increases the amount of empathy felt for the offender (Williamson & Gonzales 2007).  Samson Meyberg had the difficult task of learning to forgive the German People, his friends that he had grown up with who had betrayed him when Hitler came into power, for the deaths of his parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins and the loss of his business and for forcing him to flee thousands of miles to a third world country.  Tiger Woods is going to need to forgive himself, his wife, the other women, the press and anyone else who was involved that committed any real or imagined transgressions. When forgiveness does not occur and one maintains the grudge, that person can become like Captain Ahab from the Novel, Moby Dick.  Before Ahab encountered this Great White Wail, he probably had goals and dreams to become a great whaler.  Instead he spent his entire life working on getting revenge against this creature of the sea (Melville, H, 1851).     

Internal Locus of Control

          Locus of control has to do with psychological ownership.  Those with an Internal Locus of Control have a high sense of ownership; they know that they are the ones totally responsible for the situation.  Those with an External Locus of Control believe that others are responsible for the situation ( McIntyre, N., Srivastava, A., & Fuller, J. 2009).  Being responsible for what happened is different than taking the blame.   When one takes the blame they are not being responsible.  They are merely making themselves wrong which is totally contrary to the intended purpose.  By being responsible, one is giving themselves permission to alter the situation or to leave it the way it is.  Samson Meyberg took responsibility for his situation by fleeing the country.  He didn’t blame anyone nor did he think about how it just shouldn’t be.  Had he done that, he, his wife and children would have been killed in the gas chamber.  Tiger Woods will need to take responsibility for his situation and then chose whether he wants to reboot his career or not.  Whatever he decides to, for his next step in life to be successful, he would need to engage in strategic planning.

Strategic Planning

          Strategic Planning is the process one goes about to get to the desired state from the present state (Anderson, P 1982).    It is figuring out what the goals are and then figuring out how to get from the present state to the desired state.  Lets again look at the paradigm of the traveler wanting to drive from NY to San Francisco.  The present state would be New York, the Desired State would be San Francisco and the road maps the plan on how to go about getting there.  After the failure is put into the past, one must make plans so that the next venture succeeds. Meyberg probably did not engage in strategic planning as he did not know about it.  It was not common knowledge in the 1940’s.  Business-wise, he never did attain the levels of success that he had in Germany before World War II.  The tools of strategic planning are however available to Tiger Woods and he indeed can restore himself to the level of success that he had before his accident.   

How this pertains to me?

          As an engineer during the Dot Com Boom of the 1990’s I had a comfortable 6 figure income with a good savings account and a retirement plan.  Then the bubble burst and in 2001 there was the Dot Bomb; I was laid off of my job and eventually spent all the money in my savings account and retirement plan. I spent over five years suffering before I was able to accept the situation, forgive the people involved, (including myself) and take responsibility. I would blame the “stupid investors” and the moronic managers of the companies I had worked for. I was unable to move on until I could accept the situation, forgive the people involved, psychologically own the situation and strategically plan out the next phase of my life. Today business owners and entrepreneurs are facing similar challenges. With my training and life experiences, I am in the perfect position to coach and consult these people dealing with their lives being turned upside down by disasters of their own or other’s making by coaching and consulting in the fields of strategic, tactical and marketing planning.  To that end, I do maintain a blog, www.super-abundance.com.

Conclusion

          Human Beings are subject to setbacks of all types, from minor setbacks such as a late flight arrival causing one to miss their meeting, to major layoffs such as Hurricanes and Holocausts.  Rarely are we able to control the circumstances but what we can control is how we respond to those incidents.  Resilience gives us the power to bounce back from these incidents.  How high one bounces depends on how well one can accept the situation, forgive everyone involved, be responsible for what happened and strategically plan their lives from that point forward.

References

Anderson, P (1982) Marketing, Strategic Planning and the Theory of the Firm,  Journal of Marketing Vol 46 (spring 82) 15-26 Retrieved from www.jstor.com

Bjorklund, B. & Bee, H. (2008). The journey of adulthood (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River:

             Pearson/Prentice Hall.

McIntyre, N., Srivastava, A., & Fuller, J. (2009). The Relationship of Locus of Control and Motives with Psychological Ownership in Organizations. Journal of Managerial Issues, 21(3), 383-401. Retrieved from Business Source Complete database.

Melville, H (1851) Moby Dick New York, Harper

Toussaint, L. (2003). Levels of Forgiveness Following the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks. 1. Retrieved from PsycEXTRA database.

Williamson, I., & Gonzales, M. (2007). The subjective experience of forgiveness: Positive construals of the forgiveness experience. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 26(4), 407-446. doi:10.1521/jscp.2007.26.4.407.