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Resilience Now

So I'm gonna put the option out to the audience in the studio. For those of you watching, you're about to see a real, live coaching in motion, and I'd offer one of two prompts. One prompt is, is there anyone out there that would like to work with, kinda look at and play around with their current situation and view of resilience? Is there anyone out there who'd like to get some ideas, and then we can push on those so that you can bring them back to where you're going. So we'll take one volunteer. Hi. All righty, come and sit with me if that's okay. Can I bring this? I would, yeah. And for those of you who are following along online, grab that piece of paper, grab that pen. For the audience, what I'll ask is as we're coaching and going through this process, be thinking to yourself how might you respond to any prompts that in real life we come up with. Okay, so my name is Jackie and right now I'm working two retail jobs and I have a blog. I'm currently looking for other opportunitie...

s in marketing, maybe fashion marketing, and what came up for me was not letting disappointments or challenges get you down, and willing to just be persistent, not give up on your goals for that. I'm someone that definitely has had a lot of abuse in my past life. I'm still struggling with it every day to kinda get over that, and still try to keep living life and be successful. And this kind of a topic, I mean it's real. This is not oh, let's look at this in a theoretical sense. One of the things I'm working on with, I'm in therapy right now, and one of my therapists is like, "Oh, well you can't be the victim. "You have to be resilient, that should be your motto." It's hard, it's hard. Yeah. Well first off, a lot of acknowledgment, because what you're demonstrating is that stepping into it. For me, I always learned the first step way saying hey, this is what I'm facing, this is what I'm dealing with. The second piece of this was actually giving yourself that gift of writing things down. Yeah. I always leave everyone I get to work with with the suggestion to write things down. Yeah, I think I wanna do more journaling after this. There's a thing you can buy. I saw it at Nordstrom, I'm gonna see if I can get it on Amazon, but it's called The Happy Journal Five Minute Journal, and it gives you prompts and you write journals on 'em. I wanna do that. Good exploration. What I'll come back to, and then where we'll go with this process, and I'll ask you a couple of these questions, but I always look for that triangle, remember, from another course that you took. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We looked at the, there's always three things. I can remember three, that's why I teach a triangle. But I'm always looking at, as I cast out over those next 12 months, the who, the where, and the why do I need to be resilient? So if I look back at this, sure I can ask why is now the time to study this topic? But when will I have to be resilient? During the day, during the week, during the month, during the quarter or the year. The other one that I'll take a look at is where do I need to be resilient? Is that professional? Is that personal? And then for who do I need to more resilient? Always for myself, that's priority number one. What I'm really interested to start off with though is that second one. So you want me to answer where I need to be more resilient? Well, I've had some amazing bosses and I've had some not-so-amazing bosses, so I guess I have to learn professionally if a boss is abusing me, how to stand up and stand my ground and be resilient, not be abused. And then also I guess being resilient profession, in the sense of keep trying, not giving up. I have two degrees, an undergraduate and a graduate degree, so it's gotta be something. I gotta not just settle for internships. I gotta keep trying and trying to get a job. Not give up. Like I said, I have a blog. You said you have a blog, too. Bloggers are successful 'cause they put themselves out there, and now I have enough content so I gotta keep trying, just not give up. And then where else I need to be resilient is probably my personal life, because it's kinda a weird situation, but abuse unfortunately still happens to me a lot, and so it's kinda teaching others not to be abusive. Yeah, I don't really wanna get into the nits and grits, but I just like-- And this is always the point where I'm always gonna, and by the way I'll acknowledge you one more time. That professional work that you're doing, not only is looking for what's the other angle, where else can we come in? And I think you're uncovering it. I'll just say out loud what I'm hearing. There's a part of you that's really stepping in to something that we've codified or given a name to. We call it your known for, and one of the things that you're doing that I would put out there as an option is really standing into, or leaning into, since we're in the Silicon Valley, what is it that you would like to be, this is a rhetorical question that you can journal and play with, happy to email back and forth, but that known for. If you were to raise the flag and get people to look at that waving in the wind, they go, oh, she's the one that I would talk to about. And so if I could leave you with one idea, it would be to filter when you hit publish on a blog post, when you hit publish on even an email. Read that one more time and ask yourself, how is this adding to and strengthening what I wanna be known for, specifically in my professional, personal career, and then more generally as the resilient person you are. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Thanks. No problem. (audience claps) And what a demonstration. For those you watching us, those of you joining us in the studio, this is real. When we brought this topic to CreativeLive, I had a feeling that we were gonna go beyond the oh, I need to be resilient because the workplace is hard and there's a lot of traffic every day and I'm dealing with my 401K went down. Yes, all those are true. What we're also finding is that this is the real stuff. I'm reminded of a comment that my taught me when I was very, very young. It sounded something like if you could walk a mile in their shoes, you might understand a little bit more of what they're dealing with. I know one thing will happen after people take this course on building resilience. How does building resilience help us get momentum? I think it helps us get back the momentum that we may have lost. When I bring this chart up, and this is one of the tools that we can use as we were talking, we went for the where do we need to be resilient? I also like this one, who do I need to be resilient for? Who around me is looking to me, whether that's in my professional life as the co-founder of a business, as the co-author of a book, as an executive coach to leaders around the world, or my personal life as a husband, as a son, as a brother, or in my personal, personal life as a friend, as a community volunteer. And so I wanna share with you a tool that will help you create the context around how important this content of resilience can be. And it's another matrix, so I love the matrices because I can draw one fast. And what I like to do is when possible, I like to head off the resilience that I'm going to need 'cause I see it coming. I also want a tool that I can use in the moment. Anybody in the studio, when you look out over the next month or quarter, can anyone anticipate a challenging time, a difficult conversation, a situation that might not be completely comfortable? Does anyone have one of those comin' at you? I hope that most people raise their hands, right? It's like oh man, yeah I've got something comin' at me. This is a tool that in the moment, if I let myself do it will help. And so what I do is I take the three big areas for me. There's work, there's life, there's love, 'cause if we're gonna talk about resilience, we gotta talk about the human being, and then the human doing. And so across the top you'll see there in a matrix, I've got those big three, work and life and love. And then what I'll do is down the left-hand axis, I'll write down the names of people who I know are comin' at me, who I know are counting on me, who I know I wanna serve and support. Now sometimes it's very personal. Sometimes it's very professional. For me, most of the time, it's a little bit of both. I like to remind myself and then the people I work with, I chose to complicate my life by starting a business with my wife. So that was a fun little experiment. Jodi and I got together about 25 years ago. 12 years ago over dinner one night, we said hey, why don't we try this? And we raised the flag and we said we are our consultancy, so now at the end of the day, the middle of the day, the beginning of the day, we have to have big decisions. We have to have big discussions, and are those discussions about work, about life, or are they about love? And so for those of you who have this matrix built into your notebook, for those of you watching online, if you just wanna scratch this out on the whiteboard of the conference you're in while you're watching this, or in your own journal right there. What I invite you to do is down that left-hand column, give yourself the names or initials, code names if you have code names for the people that you work with, and then across the top, if those three work for you, use 'em. If you'd rather keep all of this on the professional level, go that way as well. I'll give you a couple, three, I'll give you a couple of examples here of what my mind does when I look at this spreadsheet, when I look at this matrix. And then what I'll ask you to do is to play around with this yourself. So on that left-hand side, you see I've got Jodi, I've got Nancy, and I've got Craig. These are people that I work with, I live with, and I love with. Across the top there, I can go to the work side all the way down to Craig, and I know for me, one of the reasons that I need to be resilient and strong, one of the reasons that I need to be focused and available, is because I know he's gonna give me a call, and I want, when that phone call comes in, that email comes in, that opportunity to meet for a coffee or a lunch or a dinner, I wanna be available, because I know that what I can provide or what I can share would be helpful. If I go to Nancy in life, I know that one of the reasons that I need to be strong, that I need to be resilient, that I need to take whatever has hit me and then be able to either put off to the side or move through it, get the support I need in accepting or in standing up so that I can help her in that way. And then with Jodi, of course, the love one was the easiest one to fill in, but since we run a company together, that's really easy because we travel around the world together, that life is really easy. But I put over here, not to get too in the weeds or too personal about this, but our parents are gettin' older, and for those of you in the audience who can relate to this, we didn't have children, so I didn't have the experience of caring for a child, but I'm beginning to experiment and experience what they're saying when they're saying now you're parenting your parents. We're checking in in different ways, we're supporting them in different ways. Jodi more than me right now, and so one of the reasons that I need to be resilient and be able to check my stuff at the door and deal with what hit me pretty hard is because there will be days, there have been days, when Jodi needs more of the support. So as you give yourself that gift, and this is another one of those exercises I'm gonna ask you to pour your heart and pen into, for about 45 seconds, I know it's quick. Remember me and my favorite writer's hashtag, rough draft. What I'm asking you to do is to do a rough draft. Who do you need to be resilient for? Don't get tied up in the columns. You can change those to all work if you want. For those of you who are dealing with more and more community stuff, if you want them to be all life. If you don't mind the mix and the match, so in studio, let me ask you to spend about 35 more seconds filling in as many boxes are appropriate. I'm gonna turn for one moment and talk to the world through that video camera. For those of you tuning in live from wherever you are, take this time, kinda think to yourself what's the context to what the content can help me through? Is there something coming at you at work, whether that's career choice, job situation. Maybe it's a volunteer thing that you're on the fence, because so far it has or hasn't been exactly what you wanted. With life, with love, who do you need to resilient for? Oftentimes I'll use that distinction between context and content. Let me add an element just for this course, and for those of you watching online today. Here's what I know. What you wrote down was in context to where you're sitting, who's sitting next to you, and how you're feeling right now. I can all but promise, if you were filling this out on BART, commuting across the bay, if you were sitting down on the couch with your favorite beverage in the morning or the afternoon, you would write something different down. What I love about the process of writing things down is it gives me a snapshot, it gives me a Polaroid picture if you will. That's what I was thinking in that moment at that time. In one of the other courses I've taught here at CreativeLive, we had someone ask about this idea of how much is too much to write down? And I'll always answer it the same, I don't know how much too much was until I got too much. So I would say keep on pouring into that piece of paper. If there are two, three, four more people that add to the left-hand side, keep on going. If there are more columns to add in, more deeper columns. The real risk here is to email or text, phone call, knock on a door, and invite one of those people that you wrote their name down and why you need to be resilient and share with them what you're workin' on. It's amazing what happens when we sit down and we share with someone hey, I'm thinkin' about you, and I'm gonna get stronger and I'm gonna get better and I'm gonna handle my stuff so I'm more available for the stuff that you're goin' through. I don't need to remind everyone, but everyone in this room and many of you watching right now, we all have our version of who has or when we had something tough happen. And so this idea of resilience I think is pretty powerful. The sharing that I'm gonna ask from the group right now, I'm just gonna ask for a couple of you. What I'd like to know, if this is true, did any names surprise you? Did anyone write something down in that left-hand column and as they cruised across a row, was there a surprise or an a-ha, or anything that you'd be willing to share as you went through that process of who do you need to be resilient for? And this is a real opportunity for anyone who would like, not a requirement. Lookin' around for eye contact. So I got one over here. Is there anybody else who wouldn't mind sharing? Two. So we'll get mics to you both, and why don't we start? Yes. Okay, my name is Daisy and I know this sounds sort of sappy, but when I was putting down names I was trying to figure out, okay my husband, okay my boss, my students, and then I thought of my daughter and I'm like oh, she's two. What am I gonna say about her? I'm her provider, I'm her mom, but then it surprised me how much I did sort of go into I need to be resilient because she relies on my attention, love and my health, my mental and physical health, and I want to be a strong role model for her. And I was like oh, it took me by surprise 'cause I wasn't even sure I wanted to include her at first, but she is sort of a whole reason for why I need to be resilient in my life, so that took me by surprise, pleasantly. I so acknowledge you for that effort, and again, I'm a fan of writing slows me down, and giving myself the permission. And I don't know maybe if the comment rough draft help a little bit. I know it does for me, is I'm gonna write this down, and maybe no one's ever gonna see it. I can write stuff down, I can drop it in the shredder, and it's gone, but I let myself write it down. Every now and then there's a little gem, a little diamond in there. The last thing, Daisy, that showed up for me as you were reading that was now it gives you a reason, or it gives you a reason to go find a mentor. I know for me, I've written some things down, I go wow. In your case, role model of a two year old, and then there's this whole awareness, right? I mean, has anyone ever had that realization where they suddenly thought about something and then they noticed it all over the place? Like hm, other people are interested in being a role model for a two year old, in that case. But a reason to sit down with someone and ask them how they do it, who does it well, there is gold to mine in there. Thank you for sharing. Hi, my name's Deanne, and I actually picked non-humans. My dogs came up because we can't communicate the same. I always get so excited, 'cause when I'm sad I realize that my dogs know that I'm sad, but I don't always know that my dogs are sad, or if they miss me, or if they had a bad day. And so it's not fair all the time, I think, if I'm having a bad day six days out of the week, that they have to have that too. So I think that it's important that you be strong for them, 'cause we have to communicate a little bit differently as I said. And I know the live audience is seeing this great big smile on my face, not only because thank you for that, because I love the idea that you're caring for it. As a prior dog owner, I know that that was just a mirror. It was just a mirror, that when I had a bad day and I suddenly realized that I was not available for Zuma. Hold on a second, where have I not been available for me? Am I not feeding myself? Am I not moving my body by taking a walk around the block? Am I not resting my mind? Huh, what can I do with that mirror, that projection? Reminds me of the studies around the shadow side of things, and there's always what's in the sun, and then there's always what the sun can't get to that's on the other side of that thing, and so if I could leave you with an idea, it would be always look at the shadow. You can see the shadow. What's there? Thank you. Resilience. Part of being resilient is knowing that tough times are coming. Part of being resilient it actually moving through them, looking back and saying to myself, wow, I made it through that thing. It's kinda like motivation, right? The last time I wanted to be motivated, it was when I'm not motivated. What I wanna do is look back and go wow, I've kept the motivation going. I'm not gonna get hit. I'm not gonna have something come at me hard, and go okay Jason, be resilient. Make your matrix, draw your triangle, and go rest, walk around the block, but if I set myself up head of time so that these kinds of things that support me become what I practice, then the necessity to drop back before I come forward go down just a little bit.