If only I had known why resilience is important I may have taken the time to learn more about it before. It is in fact such an important topic in business leadership and in life that I would recommend everyone study it and try to at least embrace the qualities of resilient people. They will prepare themselves for tough times.
You can listen to the podcast where Nathaniel Schooler and I discuss here, you can also read the full transcript below.
“Psychological resilience is the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly. Resilience exists when the person uses “mental processes and behaviors in promoting personal assets and protecting self from the potential negative effects of stressors” –
Wikipedia
It doesn’t matter if you have a plan in life, it doesn’t matter if you are confident and even have everything! You will need resilience at some point, so why not learn now how to develop it?
Why resilience is important in today’s society?
Were you the one who quickly recovered from September 11, 2001, or when you were diagnosed with cancer or lost your position in a corporation or when you lost your money on the stock market? Resilient individuals are the ones who start to rebuild their lives shortly after a tragedy. When life suddenly forces you to take involuntary gulps of water, will you cough and sink or swim? In this book, Resilience for All, we will give you all the guidance, support and tools you need in order to be a good swimmer.
We are herein concentrating on resilience for all individuals within a corporation. In our next book, we will return to the actual organisation of a corporation and its challenges with operating in an unpredictable world, but for now, we look after the individuals.
Can one prepare for a disaster? Usually not, for it not to happen, but you can train your mind and develop necessary traits. Today, the world is full of catastrophes, many related to the climate such as hurricanes, floods, fires, and they will of course still occur, however, the big difference is how you react to them. New Zealand is prone to earthquakes and has been so for centuries. In 2011, Christchurch had three major earthquakes and another one in 2016. Some people were waiting (and are still waiting) for the government to come and give them new abodes while some collected driftwood and started to build new homes – not only once – but over and over again. What is it that these people have that those who are waiting do not have?
1. They have a good insight into their circumstances and how to change them
2. They do not blame anyone
3. They have the ability to solve problems
4. They are not afraid to ask for help, support and guidance
5. They usually have a huge network of people who can help them in different situations
6. They have strong mental focus, do not create dramas nor drawn into them
7. They have better coping mechanisms for handling stress
8. They set goals that they do achieve
9. They take daily actions, do not let a small problem become a big one
10. They try again and do not give up.
Taking Actions
1. Do you want to stop being unhappy?
Stop thinking of yourself! Be generous
In this interview, we will be preparing you for your study to become more resilient, although you may not know why resilience is important so this conversation will help you understand more. We will be discussing it in more detail over the coming weeks, whether you are looking to build your career or to retire or to improve your life this is a very important topic and you shouldn’t miss it!
You can also check out our last conversation Acquiring Resilience: Build Business Acumen Podcast 64.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:00:00
I will be discussing resilience with Nelly Shein, we just finished authoring a book on this very important topic and this episode is part of our thoughts on the subject. This is part of a 10 part audio series that we decided to do to help you dig deeper into resilience. Thanks for listening. It’s such a huge subject, right? So I’m just going to explain what resilience is a really general overview. And then Nellie, I’m going to ask nearly a load of questions and we’re going to kind of get into the real workings of how you can move beyond it. And this is part of, quite a substantial series for our publisher that we’re, that we’re putting together off the back of the book that we just wrote around this topic. So this is a really serious topic to dig into. And according to Oxford resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties toughness. Why is it important to be resilient? What do you think in today’s society? Nelly?
Nelly Shein
00:01:10
I think that it’s always been important to really be resilient, but people have probably not been aware of the word or what it takes, but even if you’re looking back, there were always people who would make, would make it. For instance, they were immigrating to the United States. They had the power to leave, for instance, Sweden, which was a very poor country once upon a time and then came over there and they made it, they survived. So the interesting thing I think is who is going to make it, who has it within them to have that strength to whatever it is to bounce back from. I mean, something else I’m thinking about that is close to my heart is New Zealand and all the catastrophes they’ve had that with earthquakes and still beat people off for the fourth time, building a house, almost in the old spot where the house was destroyed and they still have the energy to do it.
Nelly Shein
00:02:19
And you can see them after just a couple of days after it happened, how they walk around and pick up things and cry a bit. And when you come back half a year later, there is a new house there because they have the strength within them to do that. So I am very fascinated by people because then there are other people who give up very early when they get a challenge of some sort. And I actually heard an interview with a young guy, 22, and he was used to be the top player in soccer and he was winning, winning everything. And he grew up in the best area in the country. And then, it stopped when it was 24 or something because then he wouldn’t make it any further. And then now he was a lot older and he was saying, that was the worst thing that could have happened because I had no practice in failure. I have no practice in tragedy. I had no idea how to handle that because I thought that that was how life was a constant success. As we know it, life is not a constant success. So resilience that is here for everybody of us, if we want to take upon that challenge and to practice and work with ourselves,
Nathaniel Schooler
00:03:53
It’s, it’s like I said, said in the first conversation that we had around this, it’s such a big topic. And I don’t think people really realize. And what I find found fascinating is how each person that we researched actually, and the people that we know, and also our own experiences within resilience down with, you know, we deal with things in different ways, right? Like for me, you know, perhaps I might exercise for an hour longer than I would if I wasn’t stressed. Right. Or I might sleep in late. Right. But you know, and other people may like to drink alcohol. They might go for a run. Or they might like, there are so many different ways to kind of get you out of the problem so that you can look down upon it. Then I think it’s fascinating actually. And you know, it’s changed my life studying, studying this really because it’s given me much more control over my emotions and who I turn to if I need to turn to anyone.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:04:55
And at what point do I want to speak to someone? At what point in my life will, I need to talk to someone who I can lean on, right? Like these things it’s yeah. I think it’s well worth investing, you know, a couple of hours studying it, coming up with your own solution. Because then when, when, you know, when everything goes wrong, because sooner or later it’s going to go wrong, it always goes wrong. This is just life. Right. We, we, we have a vision of where we want to go, hopefully, but along the way, there are lots of roadblocks. And if we can find a way to keep calm and look at that roadblock for what it actually is, it’s a test. Everything is a test. And I’ve been spending a lot of time with Kim, Adele Randall, who I know, you know, as well. And she, she says that you know, in life, everything is a blessing, a lesson or both. And I know that comes from somewhere else. Right. But it means, it means a lot. So what, let me see, I’ve got a question here for you now. So when, when people have good insight into their circumstances and how to change them, how does that work? Like how can you get insight into your circumstances if perhaps they’re so dire that you are like really struggling,
Nelly Shein
00:06:27
Something that I think is underestimated and not talked about at all. That is actually self-taught to talk to yourself when you’re down at your absolutely lowest to actually talk to yourself, okay, why is this happening? What am I doing here? What am I supposed to learn from this? I find that just sitting down with the paper and the pen and just letting your mind take you anywhere and just right. You will be surprised when you finished what you have written because that is almost like a subconscious process. And when you do that, you will get insights into your own behaviour, because there are reasons why you are where you are. It is not that God decided that day. I’m going to mess around with Nathaniel’s life today. No, it’s not like that. It is that you, during your life, have taken these steps and now you are where you are. And there are many different ways you can react to it. But the worst is to blame somebody or feel sorry for yourself because that will make you stay longer in the spot where you are.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:07:55
Yeah, absolutely. But also the worst thing is actually to just kind of ignore it and, and just what happens is generally if you ignore it and you just get beyond it anyway, naturally you move beyond it because that’s just what happens. Like you have a situation you might not do anything, or you might ask someone to help you. But the fact is is that if you don’t learn the lesson, what I found personally, from everything that I’ve ever done wrong, that lesson always comes back. And it doesn’t matter if you’re freshly graduated and you’re in your first job, or you’re a CEO, you know, probably if you a CEO, you understand this more than men, more than most people. Right. And you and I talked about empathy. We talked about, you know, kindness in leadership and, and everything else in the rest of these interviews.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:08:50
Right. And I think it, for me, think it begins with awareness. It begins with, but before you get to that awareness, right? Like you need to remove yourself from the emotion, because the emotion of, of what has knocked you off your, let’s say, let’s say we have a level of calmness. Yeah. And a level of panic. If you say you’re on stage nine out of 10 panic, right. You’re, you’re incapable of rationally thinking because you’re so stressed about your situation that you’re going to take the wrong decisions. Yeah. And that’s why I think resilience is like it, it’s massively important more than anyone really realizes. You know,
Nelly Shein
00:09:36
I actually totally agree with you. And I was thinking of something when you were talking that, you know, what you resist will persist. So the more you’re trying to shy away from it, it will stand up and it will be very visible in your life and you can’t run away from it.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:10:02
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think, I think also, you know, resilient people, right? They’re not afraid to ask for help support and guidance. Right. And they’ve usually got a huge network of people who can help them in different situations. Yeah. And you made me realize this in writing the book with you that it’s like, don’t feel scared to ask for help, but I’ve been talking to Kim about this recently. We talk a lot about self-development and leadership as you and I do. And because both of you are coaches, right. Amazing coaches with lots of experience, you know, in CEO roles, et cetera. Yeah. And, and yeah, I’m, I’m kind of, I’m kind of blown away by the whole, by the whole thing, actually, to be honest,
Nelly Shein
01:10:56
I think that the more you look into this and the more you read, the more you study and look at people around you, who you admire, the more you will realize that it is something that you would like to add to your own life, to your own personality. And I have a bit of an exercise that I’m doing that, okay, you are here now. What, who do you want to be? Okay. You want to be, I don’t know if you want to be Justin Bieber. Okay. That is over here. Okay. And you were here, so you want to go over there. Okay. How many steps do you have in there? And number one, can you sing? Okay. Conscious saying, well, maybe you should look at something else, but to really look at where you are and who you are and what of person you want to be. I mean, do you want to be mother Teresa? That is fantastic because the world needs a lot of mother Teresa’s so slowly but surely add those qualities into your life and people who are not seeing you for a while, when they see you, they will immediately feel that something has changed, but they don’t know what it is. And they will look at you or do you have new glasses or something feels different here. And it’s you that have lifted yourself up.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:12:35
Yeah, absolutely. But you know, you also, you also listed a lot of really good traits that people need to develop. Right? Like, you know, building a great network of people definitely helps. And we talk a lot more about that in the book. And also in, in the audios that in the rest of the audio is, but they have a strong mental focus, right? These people, the resilient people, the people that, you know, you look at them, anything could have happened in their lives, but you don’t notice it because they don’t create drama and they’re not drawn into the drama. They’ve got better coping mechanisms for handling stress and they set goals that they achieve. Right. And every day they’re moving towards these goals. Right. It’s you know, and you said, let me see you, you said here they take daily actions. So they don’t let a small problem become a big one. Right. So what sort of daily actions are you kind of referring to? I mean, I know there are many, but you know, w how do you, how do you, where do you begin with daily actions to become more resilient and manage your emotions?
Nelly Shein
01:13:54
I think if this is a field that you are approaching now, do not take on board too much, start with one or two things because you will be overwhelmed otherwise. So it doesn’t really matter where you start off with because you will still be here to go and fix this, but take one or two things that you start to read, you start to look into and also think, okay, how does this apply to me? If you look at that, you don’t take anything that is happening to you, that you take that into drama, or you’re not drawn into the drama. That means that when you are, for instance, at your workplace, and you hear people talking bad about somebody do not go into that, you’re not going into that. Stay away. When your sister calls you and say that your common brother is an EGF, can you help her by coming over and doing this and that, stay out of it.
Nelly Shein
01:15:04
Do not go into any conflict. Don’t take sides because you are going to spend your life being a servant to somebody else who wants you to do their dirty job. So stay away because you will have peace and calmness. How do you feel after a day, if you had gone into all of these bad things, you know, that you are uptight, your blood pressure is no good. So that is if only people only doing that one thing, they will notice a huge difference in themselves. That is the first one I would recommend to start off with
Nathaniel Schooler
01:15:49
Very good advice. So, and also, you know, don’t give up, right? Like some, it takes, sometimes it can take years to build resilience, but in the beginning, it’s firstly like being aware of your emotions and being aware of the triggers that trigger your emotions. So someone could say something specific to you. It may not mean anything to them, but to you, it means something different. So just be prepared that what someone may be saying to you may not mean what you think it means. So persistence, and just understanding that this is a journey. It’s not like a firmware update that is immediate, but once you start absorbing this information and you get stuck into the rest of this series and read the book, you, you will really absorb some amazing, amazing content, and it’ll, it’ll help you to become more resilient. So thank you, Nelly. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed speaking with you again. And thanks to everyone for listening. We will let you know, as soon as our book is available, we are going to be putting two books together. One of them will be business resilience, and the other one will be personal resilience. And both of those two topics we think will work really, really well together. So watch this space and lookout for those. But in the meantime, we’re going to be doing another handful of episodes like this one.