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adversity quotient
April 2009 
What’s Your AQ®?
Posted on Sep 23rd, 2008
by 
Kozmyq 1
Kozmyq 1
That’s not a typo - for those of you who are not familiar. Your AQ®- or Adversity Quotient® - has to do with how you deal with challenges and overcome obstacles in your life. Study of the Adversity Quotient was originated by Dr. Paul Stoltz, CEO of PEAK Learning®*. According to their website, AQ is defined as “...the most proven method of understanding, assessing, and strengthening the way people perform under demanding circumstances.” Although the website seems to target companies more than individuals, there is a lot of useful information to be found there.
Many people are not aware there is a direct correlation between your AQ and our success. For one, dealing inefficiently with obstacles can take many different forms; details are missed, tasks are not completed, or experiences that are essential to our growth and success are avoided altogether. Much of this is because of fears we create ourselves for situations that don’t even exist!
A lot of times we may even have the tendency to play the ‘blame game’, for which there is never a winner. Or some of us will throw ourselves a ‘pity party’ and invite people to it. There we stay for weeks or months at a time, enjoying each other’s company so much that neither of us thinks to say, “It’s time to go.”
As we are creatures of habit, having a low AQ can be a conscious or subconscious decision, and yes - it is a choice. While it is arguable whether we create the ‘necessary evils’ that show up along the way, we absolutely can choose how we perceive the situations we encounter in our lives.
Let’s look at an example: You get up late; running late for work, and soon as you get in the midst of the morning rush hour traffic, you discover a flat tire...
Note the feeling of dread you feel when reading that sentence. The ‘sour’ feeling in your stomach? Your body responding to the chemical signals coming from the brain that say, “This is not good.” Ever have something make you ‘sick to your stomach’? (And the mind controls the body - Aha!)
Most people would agree that having a flat tire on the way to work is not and ideal situation to be in. But this is where we begin to separate mice from men. Most people are going to fuss and cuss and yell about something they have no control over. While they are doing so, two separate events are occurring: One is that they are sending their bodies a surge of chemicals; a surplus of negative energy; creating the ideal environment for a stress-filled day and a disease-filled life. Two is that they are taking time away from being able to do something about the things they do have control over. The mind may wander, and the imagination may run wild. But it’s not a lost cause; most of us end up alright after a flat tire. The world is not going to end because of it.
So that’s just one situation. It happens every day, but it doesn’t happen to each of us every day - thank goodness! Still - how do you deal with all the other ‘flat tires’ in your day? Broke your cell phone; lost your report; call from your child’s teacher; burn the dinner...
I used to wonder about how multi-millionaire Donald Trump felt when his ex-wife Ivana was awarded $20 Million in a divorce settlement in 1994. I’ve never seen that much money in my life, and he lost it at the bang of a gavel! It was impressive to me how quickly he recovered; how his empire recovered, then continued to grow - as if he didn’t skip a beat.
What would you do right now - today - if you suddenly lost a huge chunk of everything you own? How would you handle it? Or more importantly - how long would you dwell on it? What do we need to learn now that Donald Trump knew then? What went through his mind that allowed him to go on building more buildings instead of jumping off of one?
No ‘pity parties’ here - that’s for sure. So how do the rest of us learn to shake things off and keep pressing on? Perhaps learning how to increase our AQ may give us just the boost we need to move forward. You can find out more by visiting PEAK Learning’s website at www.peaklearning.com.
[Note: AQ®, Adversity Quotient®, and PEAK Learning® are all registered trademarks of PEAK Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. The author is not affiliated with this company in any way.]
Many people are not aware there is a direct correlation between your AQ and our success. For one, dealing inefficiently with obstacles can take many different forms; details are missed, tasks are not completed, or experiences that are essential to our growth and success are avoided altogether. Much of this is because of fears we create ourselves for situations that don’t even exist!
A lot of times we may even have the tendency to play the ‘blame game’, for which there is never a winner. Or some of us will throw ourselves a ‘pity party’ and invite people to it. There we stay for weeks or months at a time, enjoying each other’s company so much that neither of us thinks to say, “It’s time to go.”
As we are creatures of habit, having a low AQ can be a conscious or subconscious decision, and yes - it is a choice. While it is arguable whether we create the ‘necessary evils’ that show up along the way, we absolutely can choose how we perceive the situations we encounter in our lives.
Let’s look at an example: You get up late; running late for work, and soon as you get in the midst of the morning rush hour traffic, you discover a flat tire...
Note the feeling of dread you feel when reading that sentence. The ‘sour’ feeling in your stomach? Your body responding to the chemical signals coming from the brain that say, “This is not good.” Ever have something make you ‘sick to your stomach’? (And the mind controls the body - Aha!)
Most people would agree that having a flat tire on the way to work is not and ideal situation to be in. But this is where we begin to separate mice from men. Most people are going to fuss and cuss and yell about something they have no control over. While they are doing so, two separate events are occurring: One is that they are sending their bodies a surge of chemicals; a surplus of negative energy; creating the ideal environment for a stress-filled day and a disease-filled life. Two is that they are taking time away from being able to do something about the things they do have control over. The mind may wander, and the imagination may run wild. But it’s not a lost cause; most of us end up alright after a flat tire. The world is not going to end because of it.
So that’s just one situation. It happens every day, but it doesn’t happen to each of us every day - thank goodness! Still - how do you deal with all the other ‘flat tires’ in your day? Broke your cell phone; lost your report; call from your child’s teacher; burn the dinner...
I used to wonder about how multi-millionaire Donald Trump felt when his ex-wife Ivana was awarded $20 Million in a divorce settlement in 1994. I’ve never seen that much money in my life, and he lost it at the bang of a gavel! It was impressive to me how quickly he recovered; how his empire recovered, then continued to grow - as if he didn’t skip a beat.
What would you do right now - today - if you suddenly lost a huge chunk of everything you own? How would you handle it? Or more importantly - how long would you dwell on it? What do we need to learn now that Donald Trump knew then? What went through his mind that allowed him to go on building more buildings instead of jumping off of one?
No ‘pity parties’ here - that’s for sure. So how do the rest of us learn to shake things off and keep pressing on? Perhaps learning how to increase our AQ may give us just the boost we need to move forward. You can find out more by visiting PEAK Learning’s website at www.peaklearning.com.
[Note: AQ®, Adversity Quotient®, and PEAK Learning® are all registered trademarks of PEAK Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. The author is not affiliated with this company in any way.]
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