How Positive Leadership can build resilience

Welcome to my first Positive Leadership & You newsletter of 2023.?

For this edition, we will be focusing on resilience as a springboard to future success. We will consider how to build resilience for personal well-being, and how we can use it to make a positive impact on the world.?

I will share lessons from my incredible podcast guests, some who have faced difficult journeys in life. I hope these thought-starters will help you on your Positive Leadership journey this year. Please keep me posted on your own experiences; I love to hear from our community!?

Me: Focusing on our personal growth, wellbeing and being positive?

Failure doesn't have to break us. If we have invested in our self-care, learning how to use positive emotions as a tool to navigate tough moments, we can bounce back stronger. And when we’re coming from this place of strength, we can make an incredible impact on the world around us.?

Resilience takes practice to build. This is what author and renowned psychology professor Dr Barbara L. Fredrickson explores in her fascinating positive psychology studies.?

Barbara has a wonderful theory called “broaden-and-build” that explains how constructing our own bank of positive emotions can help us cope with negative feelings. This “positivity reservoir” is a resource that gives us a broader context, an ability to see the bigger picture and not just a difficult moment in front of us. Because when we are afraid, or stressed, our focus literally narrows right down to the threat in front of us. This broader reframing builds up over time, creating resilience as a springboard for positive action.??

I was fortunate to talk with Barbara for the Positive Leadership Podcast, where she shared tips for filling our positivity reservoir to fuel resilience. Here are just two you can start to practice, today:?

1. Make a ‘sweat equity’ in organizing your positive emotions. Positive thinking takes work because we are so used to defining success by what we’ve achieved on our to-do list, ignoring our ‘to-feel’ list. Put in the work to prioritize positive emotions.?
2. Approach positivity with an open mind, as this allows us to let go of our expectations. This is so crucial because, when reality does not line up with the picture we had in our mind, that can leave us feeling defeated.???

Barbara provided so many great insights and you can listen to them here.

Another of my podcast guests, entrepreneur and best-selling author Mo Gawdat , also gave practical guidance about expectations. He explained that the common thread connecting life’s moments of happiness – the very moments we need to bank in our positivity reservoir – is that they are not about the events themselves but rather about our expectations around them.?

He suggests reframing what expectations and ambitions mean to us, so we can feel happier and more positive in an experience. Expectations must be “realistic”, while ambitions are “aspirational” – more like a guiding north star: “Shoot for the stars,” he says, but remember that simply “reaching the stratosphere is actually a major achievement.”?

If you haven’t already, I recommend reading Mo’s book, Solve for Happy, and don’t forget to listen to my podcast with him where he shares advice about engineering happiness for yourself.?

Me & Others: Connecting with and empowering others to achieve more

Resilience is necessary because when we go after the worthy goals, the ones that bring the most change, we must be willing to stand on a mountain of nos before we reach that yes. The phenomenal social entrepreneur and gender

equality activist Reshma Saujani embodies this resilient perseverance.?

In my latest podcast episode, she talks about the first time she did something truly brave: she left her job as an attorney to run for U.S. Congress. What makes it more courageous is that Reshma was doing something totally new, and not just in her own life – at the time, no South Asian woman had run for office, and she was only 33, when the average age in Congress then was 69.??

Although she didn’t get elected, the experience taught her resiliency. She knew what she was fighting for in the long run and was able to see the bigger picture, to broaden her thinking. She let the experience shape a powerful mantra that would drive her movement to empower others: Be Brave, Not Perfect.??

She believes she can make a difference and that catalyzes others into action. Today, her mantra is passed on to young women in the Girls Who Code program, set up to help close the tech sector’s gender gap, and to mothers in the U.S. with her movement, Moms First .?

Another thing that makes Reshma stand out as a Positive Leader, to me, is her ability to build, not just an organization, but a movement. I really like her tips on how to synchronize people’s desires and purpose to build a movement:?

1. Storytelling is a great way to build a movement. By telling other people’s stories, they feel seen and not alone, making them want to be part of the purpose you’re driving.?
2. Give people big goals to dream about and move towards. Make people feel like they can be part of something that’s bringing about a really big change.??

Be inspired by more of Reshma’s learnings, which you can listen to here.

?Me & the World: Having a positive impact on the world

With resilient change-makers like Reshma, driven by a clear purpose to shape a better world, I know the future is in good hands. To scale their impact, we should do everything we can to support them and inspire the next generation to follow in their footsteps.??

This is where others can engage, investing in startup ideas that deliver tangible change. When I spoke with Cheryl Dorsey , president of Echoing Green , that works at the intersection of social justice and social innovation, she said the mark of a successful entrepreneur is someone who embodies a “path of resiliency and endurance and perseverance”. I completely agree. These are determined people who let positive thinking propel them to action and impact. They are not easily swayed from their impact path.??

For more of Cheryl’s insights, listen now to my podcast conversation with her.

I am constantly humbled and inspired by the creativity, vision, and determination of such entrepreneurs, and get to meet many of them through work and my foundation. It’s a source of energy for me; speaking with them, I feel revitalized and hopeful about the future.?

At the recent World Economic Forum , I spent time connecting with changemakers in both the social impact and corporate worlds. One of these positive impact entrepreneurs, Christoph Gebald , really captures the power of resilience in pursuit of a worthy goal. He is CEO of Climeworks , a company with an innovative solution to decarbonize air using carbon capture technology.?

Christoph co-founded Climeworks in 2009, a firm believer in the relevance and importance of the work – many years before the IPCC highlighted the urgency of climate-action targets in 2018. He had setbacks with early-stage funding, but never let obstacles deter him. Christoph’s resilience and patience in the years-long startup phase are enabling him to make a big impact on the environment today.?

Last July, Microsoft signed a 10-year agreement, where Climeworks will permanently remove 10,000 tons of carbon emissions from the atmosphere on Microsoft’s behalf and in line with Microsoft’s goal to become carbon negative by 2030.??

Our world today faces many challenges, but the power to shape an inclusive, sustainable future is ours. Developing a positive mindset, one that recognizes that we can make a difference, enables us to be resilient. Which means we can keep driving real change tomorrow, with a goal of bettering the world.???

I’ll sign off here for this month’s edition. I hope reading it has helped you and moves you forward to make a positive impact this year. Please keep sharing more about what you are doing and your tips for staying resilient.??

All the best,?

jp?