This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

Some years ago, I got a talking with an investor.

By his own account, he was a 1%er.

Like many other successful Americans before him, he had overcome many challenges growing up.

And then he told me about the one thing in his life that made him sad.

His kids. They were sweet and smart, but they lacked drive. They had led easy lives,

he told me. They didn't have the same hunger that had made him successful.

I've heard variations of the same story over the years.

People who have come through adversity will invariably tell you that their adversity played a central role in their success.

This idea that hard times make us stronger has been touted so often and by so many people that we rarely stop to ask ourselves. Is there any truth to the story?

This week on Hidden Brain we explore whether adversity is the secret sauce of success. The Iran that

I would have been in Sri Lanka while a civil war raged in that country.

When he was 21, he moved to the United States to study.

Soon after his arrival, Miranda began to notice that Americans had a way of thinking about adversity

and suffering that was new to him.

It became the start of a lifelong exploration. Today as a psychologist

at Wake Forest University, Eranda is asking a question that is increasingly relevant in many

parts of the world. What happens to people as they go through terrible

times and what advice can science give them about the best path forward?

Iraundra Jairne Jai Vikrama, welcome to Hidden Brain. Thank you so much for having me.

Ira, you arrived in the United States shortly before the 9-11 attacks, and a few weeks after

the attacks, New York's mayor Rudy Giuliani gave a speech at the United Nations.

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