Resilience Unravelled

The sense of the collective and feelings of emptiness when the focus is solely on the self comes from recognising that we are part of the greater fabric of humanity. We are the behaviours we engage in; in how we think and in the actions we take. When somebody engages in their own leadership journey and comes to this awareness, there is more conversation as people move up the hierarchy of basic needs.

In this podcast:

How leadership is a personal journey

The 7 Pillars of leadership

How to be a courageous leader

Nick wanted to know if he was the only one suffering from the feelings of isolation so he sent out a survey to other senior executives to find out how lonely they were in their roles. His first finding in 2019 was before the pandemic and showed that 30% of the senior executives he surveyed actually admitted they were suffering from loneliness in the workplace. He went back to the same group in 2020 during the pandemic and the figure had gone up to 59%. The next question he asked then was whether this was something they would talk to HR or their boss to. The answer was that 84% wouldn't. The type of role they were in meant they were the people who needed to be seen as being the strongest and stereotypically not able to ask for help.

Some people have external executive coaches but many people find it hard to trust internal bosses or HR so who did they turn to? When asked do you seek professional help 75% said no they were coping by themselves. Nick feels that one of the few good things that came out of the pandemic was that psychologists and therapists could be seen online so people could start to reach out without being seen in a waiting room somewhere. Anonymity is there now so there has been some progress but people are still reluctant to talk about it and seem to deny it because the stigma is still there.

In this podcast:

How leaders can find themselves in the isolation trap

Why leaders find it difficult to ask for help

How negative feelings can build up and take a mental and physical toll

Grief is a big emotion. It’s challenging and there's no right or wrong way to grieve. There is also no right or wrong way to deal with different types of grief. There can be a sudden loss or longer-term illness, the death of a child or a suicide. No matter how prepared you are for someone to die there is always an element of shock even if you've been grieving for a while. When it comes specifically to suicide, there are so often things that we want to say to people and don't. With any type of loss part of the shock is that you don't get to say what you wanted to say or you don't get to hear what you wanted to hear.

In this podcast:

• The individuality of grief
• The importance of setting boundaries
• Working through emotions

Any time we define anything in our external world we use ourselves as the foundational context. Who you are affects how you define something. We start with the mind and a simple question is who am I or what have I become. Everything starts with how we think. Narrative is the foundational understanding of who I am. The more we learn about our own narrative the more we can recognise the narrative of others.

In this podcast:

• Moving from problem orientated thinking to solution orientated thinking
• Approaching change by defining problems
• The importance of narrative.

Under the surface of our awareness, our body, mind and spirit are constantly communicating using energy. This communication is a language that we can learn to participate in and speak. It influences our health and wellbeing and, to a certain extent, what happens around us. Energy medicine helps to shift the dynamic of energy. Our culture helps us believe that if we have a headache we can get rid of it with a pill but we have trouble in believing that doing a yoga pose will do the same thing. It has to do with our culture and how we are raised but we can learn what’s needed, by letting our body show us what’s needed.

In this podcast:

• How energy medicine activates healing
• Why we need to listen to our inner wisdom
• Learning to recognise what your body needs.

Cindy Benezra is an author, inspirational speaker, entrepreneur, sexual abuse advocate and founder of CindyTalksTM, a platform where she discusses healing tools and stories of hope for other trauma survivors.  Cindy grew up in a family in middle America but her Father was a pedophile and she has gone through a long process of healing to help her deal with the sexual, physical and mental abuse she suffered.

Cindy thinks pedophilia is still a taboo subject and that people are still very resistant to talking about it but she wants to have a platform for discussions about sexual abuse predators. She feels comfortable talking about what happened to her now because she doesn't define herself by the abuse or want to be seen as a victim. There is nothing holding her in that place anymore because she has no grief or shame about it and feels free of any words, feeling or emotions around it.

In this podcast:

• Why a willingness to heal is essential to the acceptance process
• The importance of not defining yourself by abuse
• Why we need to share hope.

Nowadays the way you promote yourself, the way you get your message out and market your business is through online means. You need to figure out how to communicate what you do to the right audience, to message it properly, to engage people and show a different side of your personality. We are all living in a social age where having a public persona is no longer a choice and the question is how do we maximise ourselves and put that best version of ourselves out there.

In this podcast:

• How to stand out in a crowded market
• Making structural shifts to get unstuck
• Emotionally tapping in to your sense of purpose.

For many people their resilience comes from their ability to believe and having a path laid out for them. Lorna feels her angels have given her the courage and resilience she needed to overcome the obstacles and ridicule she has faced. If you are secure in yourself it doesn't matter what other people think about you. It doesn't matter what the source of your security is, whether it's a rational, cognitive thing or a faith, belief or spiritual, the idea of being a strong version of yourself is whats important.

In this podcast:

• How Lorna sees her angels
• Connecting with the soul
• How her angels have helped Lorna overcome problems and obstacles.

There is so much resilience required in writing a book because you are being judged and critiqued about what you've written very personally. Even if it's a non-fiction book that critique is about something you generated yourself. It’s very hard to separate ourselves from the words we’ve written and the content we’ve delivered. If you remember a time in your life where your examination was being graded, there were times when you felt as though the evaluation that appeared on your report card exhilarated and empowered you to do even better next time but there were other times when you felt diminished, disheartened and that quitting would have been the best choice.

In this podcast:

• Why you need resilience to write a book
• The importance of starting with the ‘why’
• Why multitasking accomplishes nothing.

Brian started asking why did he experience post-traumatic growth rather than post-traumatic stress? He looked at his peers and although they had had the same stimulus, they had different results. Brian felt he had grown from his experiences and that they had increased his resilience and ability to see things as opportunities rather than obstacles or things that would drag him down. Other guys on the alternative end of the spectrum were thinking about taking their own lives - that's a very big spectrum for the same stimulus.

In this podcast:

• How to prepare the mind to survive difficult decisions
• Define your honourable mission
• How to practice chair flying.