Resilience and your Genes!

Growing up in Armenia ( if you know about Armenia, I salute you:)), which was part of the Soviet Union and experiencing its collapse in 1991 as a 9 year old, the only choice I had to survive, along with millions, was resilience!

Although as a strong family unit, having shortage of bare necessities like food, gas, money, experiencing overnight financial default, we had to adjust to economic blockade, no power or natural gas for years, having only one hour of electric power a day, or sometimes no power for days or weeks. We would spend endless cold winter evenings sharing food, playing games, reading with candle or oil light and talking our hearts out to survive.

I remember, never being able to watch any of my favorite movies or cartoons until the end, power would go off almost always right in the middle:( I was at least happy to have watched it half way ( optimist not by choice:)

Did we have a choice not be resilient? No!

Scientifically speaking, I had sufficient set of characteristics that predisposed me to positive outcomes in the face of adversity:

• One was the availability of stable, caring, and supportive relationship between me and my parents.
• A sense of mastery over life circumstances, developed at a very young age.
• Strong executive function and self-regulation skills, I hope I have those:)
• The supportive context of affirming faith or cultural traditions. Much of these as well:)

Now back then, no one knew about genetics, epigenetics, resilience inheritance and no scientific concept and data was available on how we survived in such turmoil.

Scientifically speaking, resilience is the ability to cope with critical situations through the use of personal and socially mediated resources.

Growing body of evidence that has been accumulating the last 20 years, is showing that resilience is undeniably influenced by genetic factors as well, although little is known about the distinct underlying mechanisms.

Genome Wide Association Studies, I will refer them as GWAS further, pertaining to resilience, have identified three new susceptibility loci, DCLK2, KLHL36, and SLC15A5.

Furthermore, interesting results came out in association analyses of gene variants of the stress response system, which is closely related to resilience, and PTSD and MDD. Several promising and widely studied genes, such as the well known COMT (catechol-O-methyltransferase), the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4), and of course the neuropeptide Y (NPY), suggest high correlation between gene and environment, childhood adversity, and the incidence of PTSD and MDD, indicating an impact of these genes on resilience.

?The HPA axis presumably appears to have an influence on resilience, particularly for the?CRHR1?and?FKBP5?genes, with interesting results suggesting a link between genetic variants and maltreatment during childhood and the development of PTSD and depression.

GWAS on PTSD and MDD provide another approach to identifying new disease-associated loci and, although the functional and clinical significance for disease development for most of these risk genes is still unknown, they are potential candidates due to the overlap of stress-related psychiatric disorders and resilience.

Now back to you, the Superstar, being resilient in such unpredictable times like this and trying to succeed in your endeavors.

I consider 2 extremely important factors valued in entrepreneurship or career growth. First one, in research terms, I will list as consciousness, determination, perseverance, or self-value to justify why some entrepreneurs achieve better results than their non-resilient counterparts. Secondly, there are cognitive and behavioral entrepreneurial traits that strengthen entrepreneur's capability to adapt to varying conditions, such as ?Motivation; Creativity; Persuasiveness; Vision; Versatility; Risk Tolerance; Flexibility; Decisiveness; Collaboration.

From a resilience veteran I have some tips for you!

1. Read and educate yourself and learn from other Entrepreneurs' Failures
2. Avoid the Nay-Sayers! Avoid at all cost.
3. Keep building your confidence and expertise, surround yourself with likeminded people
4. Focus on your wins! Always!
5. Accept failure to be your best teacher
6. Have a vision of yourself that's much bigger than you ever dreamt of
7. Most importantly, don't take business NO's personal
8. Stay on track, give ultimate priority to your physical, emotional and mental well-being, this is your guaranteed path to financial success. Yes, every $1 invested in your health & mindset translates to $4 revenue.

Sign up for my 5 Day FREE Masterclass starting 10/24 through 10/28, to learn MUCH more on All of the concepts I shared in this article.

Cheers,

Xx

Dr. Ani