A New Definition of Resilience

SUMMARY

Do you feel tired all the time? Are you a leader who has people constantly wanting a piece of you, and you are not feeling that well at the end of the day?

Well, stick with me because this week I want to give you the benefit of my experience and what I've learned to help you have all the energy you need to be who you need to be in every area of your life.

When you have low Emotional Intelligence, you will find it difficult to navigate your emotions in a healthy way all the time. You might have a fear of change, and these things might leave you feeling vulnerable. Well, I want to help you get to a place of self-approval, shift your perspective on some of these things, and be more agile so that you can bounce forward when things happen.

The first area I want to do is help you to REDEFINE RESILIENCE.

There are 4 types of resilience that you need to consider:

1. Physical Resilience

2. Emotional Resilience

3. Mental Resilience

4.Social Resilience

The second area we need to talk about is STRESS.

Resilience is important, and we first need to redefine how we look at it.

If you're in an environment where people look down on people because they're talking about how they're feeling and asking for help, then that's a culture that needs to change.

Asking for help as a leader is a strength.

Being vulnerable is a strength.

And leading others to do the same means that you'll have that element of psychological and physical safety that you need within your organisation to be on the top of the market to get the results that you want.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we look at the second area in this people leadership: RELATIONSHIPS.

I'll see you then.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you feel tired all the time? Are you a leader who has people constantly wanting a piece of you, and you are not feeling that well at the end of the day?

Well, stick with me because this week I want to give you the benefit of my experience and what I've learned to help you have all the energy you need to be who you need to be in every area of your life.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation in the area of people leadership by helping you understand a new definition of resilience.

Last week, we started looking at People Leadership. We've already been through the Personal and Professional Leadership skills, and we looked at how we, as leaders, need to change in the age of AI.

I talked about 3 particular areas that I focus on in People Leadership and they are Resilience, Relationships, and Results.

This week, we’re going to talk about resilience and go deeper to get an understanding of what resilience is - and what it isn’t. We are also going to look at your stress.

This transformation that we're going on in our resilience is to go from being STRESSED to being STRONG.

However, as we do this, we will look at it differently because I know that you can navigate change and bounce back from adversity just by learning some skills and strategies of resilience. Unfortunately, you and I have toxic conditioning that we're still working through in our identity.

When you have low Emotional Intelligence, you will find it difficult to navigate your emotions in a healthy way all the time. You might have a fear of change, and these things might leave you feeling vulnerable. Well, I want to help you get to a place of self-approval, shift your perspective on some of these things, and be more agile so that you can bounce forward when things happen.

It's not about grinding; that hustle and grind mentality of just working longer hours and getting more done, and “don't worry about sleep” and all those sorts of things, which is really damaging to your health. It's about shifting to growing and incrementally looking at things that you can do differently to keep the energy you need. And, when things happen (because they will), you're able to continue in a healthy way.

So the first thing I want to do is help you to REDEFINE RESILIENCE.

Resilience is not all about toughening or hardening up, eating a cup of concrete, being stoic, being superhuman, and never showing any fear.

It's not that at all.

In fact, some of the teaching and mentoring you are getting harms your health. It's also counterintuitive because when you are not in a state of resilience, and you’re not feeling healthy and have the brain-body balance that you need, you don't have the ability to bring out your best. But what resilience is all about is embracing uncertainty, adapting through change, and asking for help.

Resilience is perseverance in the face of setbacks.

Now, there are 4 types of resilience that you need to consider, and I just want to introduce you to them so that you can think about where you might be able to adjust your habits and how you're doing things now.

The 4 areas are as follows:

Physical resilience. This obviously is about your physical body and how you look after it.

Then you’ve got emotional resilience, which is navigating your emotions in a certain way so that they don't sap energy. I know that emotional drain can really make you feel overwhelmed and unable to continue to do what you need to do as a leader.

The third area is also really important, and that’s Mental Resilience. It's the ability to have a strong mind, to see things clearly even when you're in adversity, to have a really good self-talk, to have a perspective on things that's healthy, and to have a growth mindset.

Then the fourth area of resilience is Social Resilience. This is the resilience you and I need to work with others. It's also the ability to work through situations that are going on in the world without them depleting you and holding you back.

So, resilience is not about hardening up; it’s about asking for help. It's about setting yourself up in a way that means that you are sustainable. We talked about that in our professional leadership and our performance; we talked about going from that high-performance mentality to a mentality of sustainable performance, which is about doing things differently.

As a leader, you are able to develop this resilience for yourself. You are also able to control the environment within your organisation and your team and bring others along on that same journey. So, please talk to your team about these things. Be vulnerable, be open, and tell them what it is that you are doing. And together, you’ll have a collective resilience where asking for help is okay and everyone feels empowered to do so.

Then, you'll be able to persevere as changes come and difficulties continue to arise, and you'll be ready to lead yourself and your team through them.

The second area we need to talk about is STRESS.

There are a couple of types of stress that we need to understand, and the first one is eustress. That's the type of stress that you need to be able to get anything done. This is good stress. This is stress that feels exciting and it helps elevate and motivate you. It focuses your energy and improves your performance. It only has short-term effects, and it feels manageable and in your control.

It's not about getting rid of stress altogether; it's about making sure that there's healthy stress because on the other end of the equation is distress, and it doesn't feel good or manageable, and it overwhelms you. It has short-term and long-term effects, and you feel like it's beyond your control.

What you want to do here then is have a healthy balance between good stress and distress.

This is why developing your resilience and stress management together can help you. This is because one of the big things that you need to do is ask for help. Get others involved in what needs to be changed or what the things that are creating that stress in your environment are.

What are the things that stress you out?

Identify them, look at them and see how you could do things differently.

The stress response that you have, where you have chemicals and hormones within your body that are released to help you in that fight or flight situation. Unfortunately, in today's VUCA world, they're pumping through the bloodstream all the time, and that has effects on your health.

I had a major issue with cortisol before, where it was totally depleted. I was in stage three of adrenal fatigue, and I had a complete breakdown. So these things are really important.

Resilience and managing your stress are important to your People Leadership so that you have the energy and sustainability you need to take other people on the journey with you. It's also so that you can teach, encourage, and foster an environment of these things within your team.

There are seven critical ingredients that I like to make sure that every individual has for themselves and their team.

1. Clarity. Clearly understand what's going on and have that certainty of where you're going.

2. Confidence not only in yourself but also in the others that you're working with.

3. Control your emotional responses and your behaviour.

4. Calm. Make sure there is some time in your day when you are calm.

5. Creativity. Allows you to see things beyond where they are now.

6. Connection with others. And I don't just mean at work; I mean outside of work, just being able to have other human beings you can talk to and interact with.

7. Care. And this is a big one. When I talk about care, I'm talking about self-care. I'm talking about fitting your mask before assisting other people.

So, these are the things that you need to look at and make sure that you are doing differently to feel empowered, resilient, and less stressed.

Resilience is important, and we first need to redefine how we look at it.

If you're in an environment where people look down on people because they're talking about how they're feeling and asking for help, then that's a culture that needs to change.

Asking for help as a leader is a strength.

Being vulnerable is a strength.

And leading others to do the same means that you'll have that element of psychological and physical safety that you need within your organisation to be on the top of the market to get the results that you want.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we look at the second area in this people leadership: RELATIONSHIPS.

I'll see you then.