Today, we are the ones foraging for opportunity in an environment of ceaseless change that we struggle to comprehend, navigate, and manage. It’s true, most of us have the good fortune of knowing where we will find our next meal, and likely have confidence that we will have a safe place to rest our head at the end of the day. However, progressively few have the sense of understanding and ease about the future that will allow them to rest their minds. The fact is, even those that are aggressively working to protect and cultivate the status quo find that their comfort zones are increasingly barren of the familiar and predictable. Few possess the confidence in tomorrow that they once did.

Change and Courage Are Equal Partners

n early May 2023, I was invited to participate in a first-of-its-kind conference in Israel by a civilian grassroots movement named The Fourth Quarter. Unfamiliar with the group, I jumped online seeking information, and the more I discovered the more curious I became: Could this be history in the making? Are we reaching new times in Israel? Times of hope, vision, and responsible deliberation led by citizens from all sides of the spectrum?

ave you ever seen someone who by all measures would be fully within their rights to melt down under the weight of the pressures they were facing, but instead this person thrived in front of your very eyes? What you just saw was surthrival. Surthrival is the ability to thrive in an environment so challenging that most people would say simply surviving would be a major accomplishment.

As a leadership and organizational coach, I have the great honor of walking beside my clients as they navigate their roles, relationships, careers, and lives. I get to be close enough to them to empathize with their successes and failures but retain enough distance to see them in a broader light. During the COVID-19 pandemic and in its aftermath, I’ve noticed that some of my clients seem to have a particular knack for surthriving. Perhaps their ability to surthrive is natural, but I’ve noted a common set of seven skills and behaviors my surthrivalists shared. If common behaviors associated with a given outcome provide an opportunity, then suthrivalism can be learned. Yes, some may be better at it than others, but anyone willing to invest in these seven behaviors should see their potential for surthrival increase. Intrigued? I hope so, because here they are.

hat was the fourth classmate to pass away this year. Two from heart attacks, one from throat cancer, and another from complications of diabetes. There is nothing like the proximity of death to focus the mind. I had my own challenge fighting colon cancer more than 20 years ago, but at the time I was way too young to think it was my time. I just could not see it.

I’ve lost family members during the intervening years and somehow their deaths seemed different than my classmates. It was a different kind of loss. There is something about all of these deaths happening in the same year, about them being peers, that makes it feel different. It has really made me think.

’m sitting upright in my chair, looking through a window at a large ficus tree. I sit for hours with little to no movement. My muscles are always fatigued because my back is broken. I don’t cry, for if I even breathe or exhale with emotion my back will seize. This progression of pain lasted for approximately two months. I pondered: Is this it, is this my new life? What did I do to receive these fractures? Confusion and fear had taken hold of my mind, and my thoughts were cluttered with unanswered questions.

On June 1, 2018, sitting in a wheelchair next to my wife, we looked at the doctor with anticipation for a diagnosis. The doctor was calm and professional when he spoke and said, “You have multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.” I remember looking at my wife’s face filled with concern. We sat in silence for a period of time and then I immediately began asking the doctor, What is the plan? What do I need to do? The doctor explained that the cancer was eating up the bone marrow in my back, which had caused my back to break in many places.

With this explanation, I felt oddly liberated and blessed to finally know why my back was broken. My wife and I continued to listen to the doctor explain what the next steps would be. We did not know what the future would bring, but we had an idea that it would likely be the hardest thing we would ever do as a couple. She and I would ultimately face a new and unknown journey filled with pain, sadness, sickness, suffering, and at times despair. If I could go back in time and give myself words of encouragement, I would say, “Mark, be grateful for what you have, trust in the Creator and his goodness, and have the courage to press forward despite what is placed before you.”