How to Build Unshakeable Resilience

Welcome back to Lead On Purpose. And I just want to say that the big thing I know we need to embrace right now at this stage in the year is resilience. Yeah. Usually we talk about this at the end of the year when we're feeling tired, knackered, exhausted, burnt out, overwhelmed. But actually it's about building that muscle. And it is a muscle, but we have to expose ourselves to things that are uncomfortable, that we feel that we're getting outside of that comfort zone to actually build any resilience. Now, I want to let you in on something. So recently I had a former lead psychologist for the New Zealand SAs come and join me and some of my clients for the day. So I run a leadership group, people from different industries, some are general managers, CEOs, founders, and I bring them all together once a month and we bring in incredible guests. And we've had Barack Obama's former senior advisor. We've had Scott o', Neil, who ran Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks with Greg Creed, who was the CEO of Yum Brands and Taco Bell globally. I bring in some amazing people and they share their insights and they open, open up. So this month we had Dr. Aliya Bushelova and I have had her on the show. Please go back and listen to that episode. But she is an expert, absolute expert on resilience. Why did I bring her into the group? Well, just like you and I, we all go through tough challenges. We all have things that are challenging, worrying, stressful in our lives every day. There are challenges getting to and from work, navigating traffic. If you've got kids, it's getting them ready and getting them up and spending enough quality time with them. Maybe it's somebody at work that's challenging you. Maybe it's a project. Maybe it's your health, mental health. Look, we've all got issues and challenges, there's no doubt about that. But the people who navigate it best are those who learn from their adversity and build the resilience muscle. So I'm going to let you in on a few of the secrets that the New Zealand SAS psychologist actually shared with us. She's the most amazing human. She's deeply connected, deeply curious, very open to sharing. Her book is absolutely amazing. The Resilience Toolkit. Please do get it. The Resilience Toolkit. I'll make sure my team actually puts a link to it in the show. Notes. Phenomenal. It really lets you inside her head. And she distilled the book down so that I could understand it. Right. I don't understand all those, some of those big terms. So she's written it so that I. Somebody like me who's not open to our understanding, to what she thinks about at that level and has certainly hasn't studied at that level that she has psychologically, she makes it so tangible. So I'll put that in the show notes, please do get a copy. It's phenomenal. But I'm going to let you into a few things that she shared because I want to serve you today. If you're not going through some adversity right now, I promise you, it's just around the corner. You know me, I'm not here just to fill you full of toxic positivity. I'm here to be honest and real and pragmatic. We've got to be real and we've all got challenges ahead of us. That is life. I was chatting to a beautiful neighbor recently. She's an elderly lady and her husband has recently started suffering with neurological disease. It's very sad to see his deterioration. And she said something, said, james, life can be really horrible. Life can be really challenging. Life's not all rainbows and butterflies. I just wanted to give her a hug and really felt for her. And that statement, that sentiment, it really sat with me. That's true. Like we cannot go through life expecting it to be a free ride. Right? My grandfather, Granda Campbell, he still says this and reminds me, James, life is not a dress rehearsal. Get on with it. I love it. So thanks. Granda Campbell, if you're listening, I highly doubt you are, but I appreciate you. So let me share what I learned and what all of my clients got to learn from Dr. Aliyah ABCD. These are the four components of building resilience in yourself and then of course, building it in your team. So if you're not driving or running right now, please write these down, but I'm sure you'll be able to remember them regardless. The A stands for awareness. To build resilience, we've got to develop our awareness toolkit. What is awareness? Awareness is the ability to actually look at yourself and see yourself in action that might be in the moment. That situational awareness could be the interpersonal awareness, self awareness. There's different types of awareness, but actually being able to see what's going on and how you are showing up in the moment and how others need you to show up. How do we heighten our awareness? We slow down, we pause. We don't try to have all the answers. We self reflect. Guess what? Through journaling. Yes. For those that listen often and frequent. You know, I go on about it a lot. Journaling. It's crucial. So that's the first component, B. What does the B stand for? Abcd. B stands for belonging. To. To build resilience, we have to feel a sense of belonging, belonging to the purpose. So if it's work, it's a belonging to, hey, I want to belong to this mission that we're headed towards, this North Star. At home, it could be belonging to family values and the family's mission or vision. But there has to be a sense of belonging. When belonging is missing, there's a real disconnect for ourselves and for others in our teams. The C stands for. And this was the one that actually Dr. Alia really underlined and talked about and reinforced a lot. This is the most important component. I feel the C stands for curiosity. Now, when I look at my three values and they haven't changed, and they arguably, they probably won't change for 10, 20, 30 years. Mastery, curiosity, and connection. Those are my values. I value mastery because I want to get better and I want to improve. And I'm far from perfect. I want to learn curiosity. Why? Because why is that important to me? Like, I don't have all the answers and people do know a lot more than me. And I want to ask. That's why I run a podcast. That's why I interview presidents, prime ministers, people who are running countries, companies. And that's why. Because I'm curious. I want to learn. Why? Because I want to add value to people. And I firmly believe you cannot give what you do not have. You cannot help others until you've got something to give. And that's why I keep asking and I'm curious and I'm nosy. I like to find out. And last but not least for me was connection. I want to do life with humans. I don't want to sit in a little box by myself. Yeah, I like my own space and I like solitude. And I'm not a big party goer, but I love connecting with people and I connect with people regularly. So when she said curiosity was the abc, was the C of the abcd, I thought that was brilliant. And why is that important? Well, she talked about when she was taken hostage. She was taken hostage by, I think, 15 to 20 armed men in Syria. And these were a combination, I believe, of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, all different fighters. She was taken hostage with a few other of her UN observers. And she talked about how she actually got free of that and it was looking like it was heading towards a video being made of decapitation. But somehow she was able to convince her captors to let her free.

The answer to that was curiosity. Being curious, finding connection, looking for common ground. She's an absolute genius. Like curiosity, be curious. And I think about this when I'm working with one to one clients is you can be furious or curious, but you can't be both at the same time. So when somebody annoys you, it might be a colleague, it might be someone cutting you off in traffic, it might be someone pushing in front of you in the line at the airport, it might be your child, it might be your partner. Rather than getting furious.

Pause, breathe, give it some space and get curious. Hmm, I wonder why they're cutting me off in traffic. I wonder where they're trying to get to, where they're lit for. Or maybe what substance they have taken before they've been driving. Maybe I'm best not to beep the horn and give them a one fingered salute. Right? You just don't know. Get curious. Why is my partner a bit short and snappy and maybe others cold shoulder? Well maybe ask yourself, hey, what's going on for them right now? What are they going through? It's not easy. I'll put my hand up and say, I don't get this right all the time, I certainly don't. But I'm starting to get it right more often than not. And that's about a muscle building, Right. It's not perfect. Every muscle is not perfectly built. We have to continue developing and building muscle. Right, so that's the C and then the D. The last but not least is drive. To have resilience you've got to have drive, that passion to move forward and grow and develop. If you lack drive, you're not going to build resilience. There's going to be way more chance that you will be a victim rather than a victor. So drive is super, super crucial. So I'll just re highlight those for you. The ABCD of Resilience according to Dr. Aliya Bushilova. Awareness, belonging, curiosity and drive. You see it in the greatest teams, you know, working with. I've been fortunate enough to work with the men's team at Canterbury Rugby, running their mental Skills Mind gym program and looking at the, you know, Awareness. Yep. They're constantly looking around themselves, reflecting, taking notes, belonging. Yeah. There's a lot done around. How do we make each individual feel like they belong to something bigger? Curiosity, yes. They're constantly asking questions. They get in great speakers and drive well. It's unquestionable that they're driven. No matter who I'm working with, when they're at the top of their game, ABCD is always present. I hope that this has helped you and served you today and the year is underway. I'll tell you what I'm so excited. I've done now several keynotes for the year. I've got some really exciting ones coming up in the next few months. And you know, if I get to see you at one of the keynotes, please come and say hello. Let me know that you listen to this show. Always love meeting people that are following along. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose.

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Have the most amazing day.