Cancer survivor Jake Bailey is the author of 'The Comeback Code'. Photo: Supplied
Cancer survivor Jake Bailey is concerned young people are increasingly being shielded from experiencing the everyday challenges necessary to build resilience.
Bailey, who has shared his knowledge with adversity to over 100,000 people around the world, said young people need to face adversity to better equip them with skills to deal with when life throws them a curve ball.
Bailey first became a household name almost 10 years ago when his head boy speech at Christchurch Boys'] High a week after being diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of cancer went viral.
Told that without treatment, he had maybe two weeks to live, Bailey went through three months of intensive treatment, and five years knowing the cancer could return, before being declared cancer free while still in his early twenties.
Remarkably, Bailey says he came of out of it all a much happier person than before cancer.
He turned his experience into a book, became an inspirational speaker around the globe, and has studied positive psychology.
His second book, The Comeback Code, is out on Tuesday.
In his new book, Bailey discusses the "psychology of resilience" and how we can better equip and prepare people for the inevitable adversity and challenges that come in life.
The book includes a range of interesting young Kiwis and their stories of overcoming the biggest challenges they have faced in life.
"This book is a bit of a testament, or an ode, to getting through tough times in life and how we can best prepare people for those challenges we all enviably face."
For Bailey, his experience with cancer set him on path to become a better person.
"I came out the other side and found I was a happier person then I had been beforehand. My life felt better, I was more grateful, [and] I enjoyed things a lot more," he said. "I think I came to realise with time, at its core, what had enabled that change within me was simply that I was more resilient going through this challenge. Going through this adversity had made me better at getting through tough times in life. I'd taken some of those skills and lessons and learnings and I was applying them to challenges, adversities and setbacks we all have in life and as a result of that found that I was enjoying things a lot more."
He told Nine to Noon he was concerned that increasingly a lot of young people are being shielded from normal everyday challenge and adversity. Bailey said for example he has heard from some schools that camps are becoming non viable because parents are removing them from going.
"We don't come out of the womb inherently resilient. These are things which we have to practise, craft and grow ourselves. If we can educate and prepare our young people around what we know works through research and study at this stage of life, you basically send them out in the world a bit better equipped and prepared for the future," he said.
"The remaining piece of the puzzle is for them to have the opportunity to go out and face challenge and face adversity."
