Photo by Veit Hammer

After dealing with progressive hair loss for a few years, a close friend of mine finally took my advice and shaved his head. Since his “big-chop” he has now fully embraced the new look and has come to love it. He’s gone from being self-conscious to being confident and this has been an absolute pleasure for me to watch. His transition made me reflect on my own experience with balding and how it has shaped my outlook on life and dealing with tough situations.

Resilience has been one of the biggest drivers of the success I have experienced in both my personal and professional life. In positive psychology, resilience is defined by the ability to cope with whatever life throws at you. Our society admires people who have gone through proverbial hell and made it to the other side. We admire them because we’re not sure if we faced the same challenges we will survive. The good news is that resilience is not a personality trait that only a select few have. Resilience is a psychological muscle and it can be built, one challenge at a time.

In one of Frank Underwood’s monologue in the Netflix series house of cards, he said:

“There are two kinds of pain. The sort of pain that makes you strong. Or useless pain. The sort of pain that’s only suffering. I have no patience for useless things”.

Depending on who you ask their experience with male pattern baldness could be either type of those pains. For me, hair loss is the kind of pain that made me strong, below are 3 major lessons I have learnt