The Family Is Mission-Critical: What the U.S. Army Can Teach Entrepreneurial Couples About Resilience

In 2010, I began working for the U.S. Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program. The goal of the program was to prepare soldiers not just physically, but mentally and emotionally for the demands of modern military operations.

We trained leaders using evidence-based tools drawn from cognitive-behavioral psychology, positive psychology, and performance psychology. Soldiers learned practical skills to help them stay steady in the face of uncertainty, regulate their thoughts and emotions, communicate effectively under pressure, and recover more quickly after setbacks.

The Army launched this program because soldiers and leaders are expected to perform at a high level in what the military calls a VUCA environment—one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Missions change quickly. Information is incomplete. The stakes are incredibly high.

Operating in these conditions day after day is a perfect recipe for mental fatigue, chronic stress, and burnout if people are not given the proper tools to cope. The Master Resilience Training program was designed to counter that. Just as soldiers train their bodies to withstand physical stress, they also train their minds to withstand psychological stress.

But something interesting happened as the program evolved.

When I was first hired, the program was simply called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF), but it was later renamed Comprehensive Soldier & Family Fitness (CSF2).

Why?

Because the Army and the researchers behind the program recognized that resilience and performance are not determined solely by the individual, they are deeply influenced by the stability, well-being, and resilience of the family system surrounding that individual.

The Army also recognized something else: soldiers were not the only people living in a VUCA environment.

Military families were experiencing volatility, uncertainty, and stress as well—through deployments, relocations, unpredictable schedules, and the emotional toll of military life. These families were operating in high-stakes conditions too, often without the same psychological tools the soldiers were being trained in.

In 2010, the U.S. Army formally extended the program to spouses and family readiness groups, acknowledging that family members play a significant role in a soldier's life by supporting their resilience and well-being — and that strengthening the family system was essential to total force readiness.

In an official memo, the Army stated that “Family members play a significant role in a Soldier's life by supporting their resilience and well-being… Though not mandatory, family participation in the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program is strongly encouraged to maximize benefits for the entire family.”

Training expanded to include spouses and family readiness groups to strengthen total force readiness.

Some of my favorite courses to teach were the ones for Army spouses. The impact on them was profound — and backed by data. A large-scale evaluation of the Comprehensive Soldier & Family Fitness program published in Military Psychology found meaningful improvements in resilience, well-being, and performance across both soldiers and family members who participated. Many of them finally had the language and tools to manage stress, reframe challenges, communicate more effectively, and support both themselves and their partners through the demands of military life.

The Army had realized something powerful: The family unit is mission-critical.

Entrepreneurship as a VUCA Environment

More recently, the term VUCA has crossed over into business literature and leadership training, particularly in entrepreneurship.

It makes sense.

While building a company is nothing like operating on a battlefield, entrepreneurship is still a demanding environment where volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are daily realities. Entrepreneurs routinely make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information while navigating shifting markets, financial risk, and unpredictable outcomes.

This is why grit, adaptability, and resilience are often described as essential traits for founders. Entrepreneurs must persist when others would quit, find creative solutions in chaos, and continue believing in possibilities that no one else can yet see.

Research supports this reality. A 2024 study published in Corporate & Business Strategy Review found that startups navigating volatile and uncertain environments are significantly more successful when they adopt resilience-based and adaptive strategies — a finding that holds across industries and business models

Because of this, there is increasing emphasis on helping entrepreneurs strengthen their mental fitness. But I believe there is still something missing from the conversation.

The Overlooked Piece of Entrepreneurial Resilience

In the world of entrepreneurship, most of the focus is placed squarely on the founder.

How entrepreneurs manage stress.
How entrepreneurs develop grit.
How entrepreneurs build resilience.

Yet very little attention is given to the person who is often standing closest to them throughout the journey: the partner of the entrepreneur.

Just like in the military, the stress of the role does not stay confined to the individual. It spills into the household. Business pressures influence family life, and family dynamics influence how the entrepreneur shows up in the business.

These systems are interconnected.

The emotional climate at home can either strengthen or drain an entrepreneur’s capacity to lead, make decisions, and tolerate risk. At the same time, the volatility and demands of entrepreneurship place real pressure on the partner of the entrepreneur and the family system.

In other words:

The entrepreneur influences the family, and the family influences the entrepreneur.

Yet unlike the Army, entrepreneurship has not widely recognized the family unit as mission-critical.

A Lesson Worth Borrowing

The Army realized that if they wanted soldiers to perform well under pressure, they couldn’t just train the individual. They needed to strengthen the entire support system surrounding that individual.

Entrepreneurship could learn a great deal from this approach.

When partners of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs themselves develop the skills to navigate stress, communicate through uncertainty, regulate emotions during high-stakes moments, and recover from setbacks together, they become a far stronger team.

The business benefits.

The relationship benefits.

And the family system becomes more resilient as a whole.

Entrepreneurial success is rarely an individual endeavor. Behind nearly every founder is often a partner quietly absorbing risk, uncertainty, emotional highs and lows, and the business's ripple effects.

Just like the Army discovered, resilience is not just an individual capacity. It’s a shared one.

And when couples begin to treat their relationship and family unit as part of the entrepreneurial system, they unlock a powerful source of stability and strength.

Because in entrepreneurship, just like in the military, the family is mission-critical.