The Fire and The Aftermath
At 17, Dan Ariely, Duke Psychology professor and best-selling author, was badly injured in a magnesium fire at a graduation ceremony in Israel. 70% of his body was covered with burns.

As anyone can imagine, severe burn rehabilitation treatment is intensely painful. The process involves enduring a daily soaking bath, removal of bandages and the excruciating scraping away of the patient’s dead skin.

Was there any way for this young student to achieve some sort of respite and distraction from the agonizing treatments?

The daily bandage removal was torture. Why did the nurses have to so rapidly rip the bandages from his wounded body?

Bored and restless, he started observing and notating all of the human interactions around him–the doctors, the nurses, the caregivers.

According to the caregivers, rapidly removing the bandages was the best way. Better to get it over with quickly, they said.

Recovery and Discovery
Yet, when he was allowed control over his treatment one day, he found that was untrue. The pain was more manageable if the bandages were removed slowly and also in order from the most painful areas to the least.

As he tells it, “If my nurses, despite all their experience with burn victims, had erred in treating the patients they cared about so much, other professionals might also be misunderstanding the consequences of their behaviors and make poor decisions.”

These early discoveries of irrational human behavior stirred the beginnings of Ariely’s highly successful career in publishing and psychology at one of the country’s leading universities.

It goes without saying that, hopefully, no one has to live through something as horrific as Ariely’s experience.

Unfortunately, this is not how life works.

Tragedy and pain may crash land in our lives at any moment. Often, when wrestling through a painful situation, the only thing we feel we can do is simply survive.

At some point, however, we owe it to ourselves to properly reflect on these difficult moments.

•How did we adjust our mindset to navigate the situation?
•In our response, did we catch glimpses of our innate talents we hadn’t previously appreciated, perhaps even prompted by the trial at hand?
•How did our talents help us overcome the circumstance, and how will we use them in the future?

Your Response = Your Choice
I’m reminded of Viktor Frankl’s wisdom: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Ariely’s gifts of keen observation and curiosity are simply the way he naturally thinks, feels and behaves. We all have different gifts. Just as he used his particular genius to overcome his situation, we need to focus our own talents on our challenges.

Consider Frankl’s advice. We get to choose how to respond to life’s uncertainty. So, first, choose how to respond.

Then, focus your natural strengths to achieve your desired outcome. Working from your unique base of genius gives you a huge jump-start in overcoming trials and fulfilling your potential.

What’s one natural talent you’re currently neglecting in your work or life?

Take 10 to 15 minutes to unpack that talent and figure out how to reintroduce it to the world–and, to yourself.

If you enjoyed this post, please follow at StrengthsLauncher.com/blog for weekly updates on discovering, improving and focusing your natural talents.

For more information on Dan Ariely, please visit his site: http://danariely.com

For his WSJ article, click here. (Full article most likely only available to WSJ subscribers).