Everyday Resilience

What steps can we take to be prepared when we need to be resilient? With me to talk about everyday resilience are three of our coaches, Alex Jack, Kelly Beischel, and Ilene Schaffer.

The full conversation includes more detailed stories as well as the ways that Kelly Beischel applied resilience skills to more serious life challenges, showing us that everyday resilience comes in all forms. To watch the full conversation, click here or play the embedded video below

Senia: Please give an example that shows the need for everyday resilience.

Ilene: Clients that I see really tapping into resilience skills right now are the ones that are living alone. Living alone adds a whole new dimension to quarantining during the pandemic.

Senia: At Silicon Valley Change, we are coaching executives on their next job searches. In a job search, people get a lot of nos, just like actors going to auditions. It takes resilience to avoid feeling rejected.

Kelly: I had to build resilience skills when our son attempted suicide. Then when both of our boys came out as gay, it wasn't a pretty scene around our home for a while. We gained resilience together and bounced back closer and stronger than ever.

Alex: My story is about my dog. We had to amputate his front leg. While I was feeling sorry for his missing leg, my dog jumped up and ran around like nothing happened. Then I realized that the leg I was feeling sorry for was actually a hindrance to him.  We tend to hold on to a lot of stuff that perhaps we should let go. 

Senia: What are some of the first things that you recommend to people in adversity?

Ilene: Resilience requires adaptability and living in the present.

Senia: Like in Alex's dog example, when we are deliberating or worrying about what to do, we often feel sad. We tend to be happier when we can switch to figuring out how to do what we know needs to be done. That means accepting the cards we’ve been dealt and figuring out how to make the most of them.

Kelly: Allow the emotion without pretending the adversity doesn’t exist. Then pivot into questions such as: What could I learn from this? What power can I take away from this? What might I do with this moving forward?”

Ilene: Building resilience is something we can do every single day instead of waiting for something to happen where we need to be resilient. When a client says, "Ilene, I'm not sure if we have anything to discuss. I'm doing really well," I respond, "Excellent. Now we can do the work building a skill that you're going to use.” If we think of it like a gas tank, we want our tanks to be full when we need resilience skills.

Alex: Yes, it’s about being proactive. In a car, we check the gas, the tires, the oil. Then we can drive the car in the rain or snow, on a highway or dirt road. We’ve taken steps to prepare the car. Being resilient is applying habits and skills we already have. The only thing that changes is the circumstances.

Senia: We need a baseline of good sleep, good exercise, and healthy diet, that we work on every day.

Ilene: Rather than saying someone is resilient, talk about the resilience skills the person has built.

Senia: One part of proactive work on resilience might be connections, the people that are important in our lives.

Alex: The Realize Your Resilience organization has a toolkit for resilience with seven building blocks:Authenticity, purpose, perspective, stress management, health, networking, and feedback. If we can manage all seven, it’s like outfitting our cars to be able to drive on any surface or road conditions or weather condition.

Ilene: When we talk about building blocks of resilience, I want to make sure that we're not overlooking the importance of our thoughts. What we tell ourselves is a huge slice of the resilience pie. We can watch what we’re saying to ourselves. What are those words saying? How are we taking those words in, and how are they serving us?

Kelly: Posture is important. People who sit up straight feel stronger and more confident.

Alex: When that moment hits that we need resilience, it is almost always an emotional moment. Be prepared to handle strong emotion. Pause and take a breath. Acknowledge the emotion. Acknowledge that everything is not all right. Sometimes we have to put on a brave front and move on, because this is what resilience looks like. But it's not just about overcoming. It's acknowledging, knowing what to do, and then taking the appropriate steps.

Senia: As part of acknowledging the emotion, notice what’s going on in the body. Am I breathing more shallowly? Is this making my hands move? Feel my feet on the ground. It's grounding, centering, stabilizing.

Kelly: Get in tune with your back so you're in tune with your whole body. Also think about other people who came before and faced this or worse. That means I can do it, too. Then we can ask ourselves, “What can I do to help others facing this kind of challenge?”

Alex: One of my coaches once told me, "Just remember that everything that you have gone through has uniquely qualified and positioned you where you are today, to be able to help someone else."

Senia: What thought would you like to leave with people today?

Ilene: I learned this from my grandmother, and my father says it all the time. "What is, is. What was, was. What will be, will be."

Kelly: Resilience is built on the shoulders of adversity. So adversity is a beautiful thing, because if you get resilience from it, you can't go wrong.

Alex: According to Sharon Salzberg, resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others.

Senia:  Life can be hard. That’s just the way it is. Whether it's everyday hard or it's hugely hard, we can't run from it. I love having these tools to help me face whatever happens, large or small.

Senia: If you could snap your fingers and everyone in the world were to take some action, what would you want that action to be?

Kelly: Take the next scary step in whatever you're doing.

Ilene: Laugh. Laugh at yourself if you can. Laughter is healing. We need more laughter in this world, even in tough times.

Alex:  Stop, look, listen to your heart, and hear what it's saying. Or if that's too much, stop and breathe.

Senia: I would say for people to give themselves slack.

Photo 189817180 ? Gloria Anderson at Dreamstime.com

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WHY IS THIS ARTICLE HERE? In April 2020, a group of us executive coaches asked, "How can we help in this stressful time?"

I started interviewing our coaches and then other people on a daily broadcast. We're exploring the topics that you tell us are on your mind, such as working from home, running your business, and moving forward in your career. The episodes are about 20 minutes long because we know how strapped you are for time. In many episodes, I ask business leaders and executive coaches what they Believe to be true that others do not believe.

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