I recently read a powerful life story by the author Mark Manson who wrote a book called “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”. My main take away from this book was captured by this quote by Mark “the key to living a good life is not giving a fuck about more things, but rather, giving a fuck only about the things that align with your personal values”.

As I read Mark’s book, I came to think of one of the topics I often cover with the entrepreneurs I coach, which is ….pain is very much embedded in our lives, and we need to learn to put up with it. In order to put up with it, we need to accept that life is always going to suck a little bit. And we need to stop reacting to suffering, and instead embrace pain, define it and manage it. If we seek to avoid pain, we may end up experiencing higher levels of suffering.

While happiness is part of life, pain also plays an important role in our everyday existence. And I believe that “managed pain” can propel our growth and mastery. There is no such thing as an app or an algorithm for happiness, and we should accept that adversity is part of life. The less reactive we become about adversities, and the more we accept the limits of happiness, the more we can deal with the negative feelings of life. Happiness emerges when we fix what is broken and problem solve. However, we cannot expect permanent happiness.

Stress ahead of us

As we enter the 5th year of the global crisis, another financial meltdown looms at the horizon. This is potentially stressful and tragic unless we choose to prepare and adapt to these global phenomena. To adapt we need to change and be willing to give up part of our core beliefs and give up things that are dear to us. In so doing we can develop higher acceptance of pain to the point that we no longer give a damn about pain. That is how we reach mastery and we become unstoppable.

If you look at successful people across different industries, you will find that they had a higher tolerance of pain. They never let pain drag them down. Instead, they care about pain to accelerate their success and fortunes.