Rethinking Resilience

Change and resilience go hand-in-hand and I will have much more to say on this in coming days.  But I want to start by challenging you to evolve the way you think about resilience.  

Too often -- especially here in Silicon Valley -- resilience is thought of simply as enduring as much pain as possible.  This is misleading and potentially dangerous to our minds and bodies. Instead, I define resilience as “staying strong for the long haul.”  An intentional practice which includes endurance, yes, but which also elevates learning, self-care, and leading with purpose.  

It’s not just semantics.  This reframing rewards reflection and recovery as much as grit and tenacity.  Leading -- and even responding to -- change will inevitably bring upon countless setbacks and failures.  I’m less interested in whether you can bulldoze your way through them and much more interested in how well you are able to reframe these experiences as part of a journey towards a greater destination.  It’s not just failing and getting back up again; it’s failing forward.  

The Coronavirus will challenge us as individuals and as a society in ways we can’t yet even imagine.  While we could consider each individual challenge as a single hurdle to leap over, this would be short-sighted and exhausting.  Instead, I challenge you to zoom out and think about what actions you can take mentally, spiritually, physically and socially (Steven Covey’s areas of renewal) for yourself and for others to come out stronger on the other side.  To be sure, there will be some moments where you have no choice but to endure and overcome pain. But if you can ensure that today’s lessons make you stronger for tomorrow’s, and that this week’s lessons make you better able to take on next month’s, you will be setting yourself up to stay strong for years and years to come.  

Don’t merely endure.  Commit to staying strong for the long haul.