Real-life resilience - Metallica (Vol 1)

Metallica is one of the most influential heavy metal groups ever. Since forming back in 1981, they’ve sold over 125 million albums worldwide and are proof that grit, reinvention, and a refusal to quit can echo louder than any guitar solo. Theirs is a resilience story through death, betrayal, depression, addiction, and full-blown identity crises, and they still take the stage like titans!

And today, I’m just covering a small part of their story.

The first major test for the band was in 1986. On tour in Sweden, their touring bus hit black ice and flipped, pinning the bassist Cliff Burton underneath. He was killed instantly at just 24 years old, and the band was shattered in multiple ways.

Cliff had been their creative compass and was considered the soul of the group - the guide. Many bands would’ve folded, especially as these were just young men, but they flew back to the US to grieve, attend Burton’s funeral and then, with Burton’s family’s blessing, made the decision to carry on. They reloaded, inviting several bass players to audition and, a mere 42 days later, Jason Newsted stepped into his first concert with the band, thus creating the new version of Metallica.

Incredible to think that a mere 6 weeks after such a tragedy, the band was back out there performing!

But the band was angry, and they took that anger out on Newsted. They hazed him in a variety of ways - smaller stuff like tricking him to eat a ball of wasabi, but also larger gut punches such as all but erasing Jason’s bass lines on their next album, …And Justice for All. They had purposely messed with the sound engineering to reduce his input to a minimum on the album. Likely out of grief, anger, but also the fact that he was not Cliff.

It wasn’t fair and it certainly wasn’t kind. But these guys were young metalheads and pain has a funny way of leaking out sideways.

But Newsted navigated the early disrespect, built his own presence in the band and poured himself into music that took the band to incredible new heights. This included the release of the Metallica album (featuring all time faves Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters).

However, in 2001, after 6 albums with the band, Newsted finally tapped out.

Part of it was physical (his doctor had warned him about the millions of headbangs he had been doing over 15 years with the band!) but it was also about creative differences. Jason felt the band was focusing too much on a lawsuit with Napster and he also wanted creative space to pursue his own side project called Echobrain. Other members of the band wouldn’t allow any side projects and the rift was too wide to mend.

It was another extremely challenging moment for the band, as the remaining members were taken by surprise. The split exposed deep fractures, so much so that the band brought in a performance coach and therapist to help them process the loss and confront years of buried resentment. Once again, losing their bass player forced them to redefine how to work and survive as a band.

But survive they did! And ultimately they evolved into a new force that came with other challenges. But those are a story for another time.

“You rise, you fall. You're down then you rise again. What don't kill ya make ya more strong.” - Metallica (Broken, Beaten & Scarred)

Transferring these ideas into modern work.

In a world where plenty of teams implode over miscommunicated slack messages and bruised egos, Metallica has shown us how to get through the hardest challenges, navigate power struggles and keep the mission alive.

Their story is completely messy (and this is only a small piece of it). But resilience is never perfect. It’s a kind of alchemy - our ability to turn internal chaos into external thunder.

Ideas from the Metallica playbook

1. Momentum is rocket fuel. After Cliff’s death, Metallica could have disappeared into grief. No one would’ve blamed them. Instead, they found a way to keep moving, returning to the stage in just six weeks. For us, momentum is critical after setbacks. Especially when it’s hard, we MUST get back out there ASAP. The best tool I use for this is WIN (What’s Important Now?). Find the next critical thing that can be done. Sometimes it’s sending that follow-up email, sometimes it’s going for a quick walk to think over where we went wrong. It’s just about taking the first step forward before inertia sets in. Action beats paralysis every time.

2. Honour the past. The band carried Cliff’s influence forward. Their decision to continue wasn’t about erasing the past but about honouring it through progress. In professional life, this translates into respecting past efforts (even failed ones) while building the next version. Every setback or failure holds a legacy we can carry forward.

3. Use the difficulty. During the first concerts with Jason, the band turned grief and anger into sound, and in doing so, found their footing again. Modern professionals can do the same: transform frustration, rejection, or loss into fuel for creativity and output. Energy is energy - where we direct it is our choice.

Despite death and disruption, Metallica rocks on. They refused to let tragedy or turmoil be the final chapters. In our careers, resilience is the refusal to let one failure, rejection, or crisis define us. We get to decide where the story ends.

Metallica never asked for these painful lessons to test their resilience. The universe just kept handing them opportunities to build it. It’s the same with us. Whether it’s some form of loss, office friction, or the growing drip of burnout, we can choose to fold, or we can choose to reforge.

Resilience often doesn’t feel easy. We might want it to be a soothing symphony, but it usually sounds like a thrash metal song with distortion, heavy volume, and a whole lot of mess. Fortunately, we have the courage to play through.

Until next time friends, stay resilient and rock on!

Carré @ Resilient Minds

PS - I’ve loved Metallica since I was 13 years old, so this one was fun to write. If you have a great resilience story to share, please send me an email. I’m always interested in discovering and researching more stories of finding a way through the challenges of life.