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By Roger Crawford. This was originally published on Roger's blog.
Strengthening your resilience is like strengthening your muscles. Both can be accomplished with a program of regular stretching and exercises. Attitude stretching requires no special clothing or expensive equipment, just awareness. Here are nine keys to improving your resilience: 1. Believe Success is Possible. Resilient thinking is the foundation of resilience. Even if you weren’t “born resilient,” you can learn to reframe negative events into positive challenges, giving yourself extra energy and endurance. Start by paying attention to how you talk to yourself each day. 2. Flex Your Humor Muscles. Flexibility is essential for controlling stress, increasing business opportunities, improving personal relationships, and dealing with change. How can you limber up? Let go of the immobilizing perfectionism and give yourself permission to notice the genuine humor that is all around you, and you will automatically increase your flexibility and vitality. 3. Bank on Your Past. Draw strength and inspiration from what you’ve done and what has happened to you. We’re often told, “Don’t look back” and “Don’t dwell on the past,” but when you know what to recall and use the information positively, you can tap some of your most valuable assets. 4. Stay Hungry. The most basic human instinct is a powerful tool for maintaining resilience. Learn the difference between money and true wealth, and where and how to direct your hunger for knowledge, adventure, and positive personal relationships. 5. Use All Your Resources. Make a realistic inventory of your assets. As you compile your catalog, you’ll discover some surprising and important skills and resources that you never realized you had. 6. Seize Responsibility. Decide what you can control. Then take responsibility for it. What an important life skill, yet unresilient people fail to grasp it, and feel overwhelmed much of the time. When you learn how to these two decisive steps, you put yourself in control, no matter what life throws at you. 7. Harness the Power of Purpose. Having clear goals and an action plan to reach them is absolutely mandatory for success. “The Five E’s of Goal Setting” in chapter 7 of my book How High Can You Bounce, will show you an efficient new way to plan and achieve. 8. Develop Your Inborn Leadership. Everything you say and do affects the resilience of others. No matter who you are or what position you hold at the moment, you become a powerful leader at work, at home, and in your community when you learn to share your resilience. 9. Embrace Challenges. Learn the difference between planning and preparation, and how the resilient prepare for life’s many challenges. Even when fate delivers an unexpected blow, you’ll be able to draw on your storehouse of resilience to identify the new and exciting opportunities that await you. Each of the nine chapters of my book show strategies for acquiring one of these nine skills. You’ll learn how to stay in optimal mental shape by nourishing and exercising these resilient qualities each day, the same way you nourish and exercise your body. As you strengthen your skills, you are building an invincible core of resilience that will always be there for you to draw on. Too often, when people suffer a major loss, they also lose their sense of identity and purpose in life. But with a resilient core, you keep a clear inner vision of your strength and flexibility in the face of challenges. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success!
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By LeAnn Thieman. This was originally published on LeAnn's blog.
The majority of the time when I ask people, “What is your #1 priority?” they answer, “Family.” Yet most quickly admit that being together and staying connected can be a challenge in our frenetic lives. Throughout history, family mealtime was the predominant occasion to communicate and interact. These days, meals together are often infrequent and brief. One study reported that the average family mealtime lasts 20 minutes, though the benefits for children include better grades, lower body weight, lower cigarette and alcohol use, and better mental health. Kids or no kids, people who dine together have stronger relationships. One study found that adding just 3 minutes to a meal lessened the risk of family members being overweight. I found that hard to believe until I added up 3 minutes a day x 30 days and came up with 1 1/2 hours of connection time! So here are a few fun ways to make meals last longer:
Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By John O'Leary. This was originally posted on JohnOLearyInspires.com. When John O'Leary was 9 years old, he suffered burns over 100% of his body and was expected to die. He is now an inspirational speaker and bestselling author, teaching more than 50,000 people around the world each year how to live inspired. John's first book, ON FIRE: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life was published March 15, 2016. John is a contributing writer for Huff Post and Parade.com. John is a proud husband and father of four and resides in St. Louis, MO. Order John’s book today anywhere books are sold.
In a world filled with many individuals concerned primarily with taking care of themselves, the courage of the Ukrainian people to fight for their home, their neighbors and their freedom has been humbling and inspiring to observe. To be reminded of the beauty of showing up for others- even when our commitment to doing so is tested beyond imagination- look no further than Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska. For the first 15 years of marriage, through both good times and the unavoidable struggles all couples endure, she supported her husband Volodymyr. She encouraged him when he chose an unlikely career in comedy after law school. She supported him when he imagined traveling throughout the country providing live performances. She even backed him when he considered producing and acting in a television show portraying an ordinary teacher, sick of the country’s corruption, abruptly thrust into the role of President for an entire country. But when her husband suggested stepping away from entertainment and actually running for political office, Olena was at first adamantly against it. She wanted nothing to do with the attention certain to arise from her husband running for office. Raising two children, she didn’t want the pressure of her husband’s campaigning to negatively affect their childhood. And as unlikely as it might be, if he actually won the election, how might the role of First Family change their lives? After numerous discussions together and soul searching personally, she agreed to support him, yet again. Against overwhelming odds, on April 21, 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky, a charismatic former comedian driven to end corruption, received 73% of the votes and became president of Ukraine. And his wife, who never clamored for the bright lights, found herself thrust directly into them. Originally disliking the prospects of this new role, Olena soon recognized the opportunity to make a difference by fully embracing it. She passionately advocated for women’s rights around her nation. She fervently worked to elevate nutrition programs within all schools to ensure the health and wellness of their young people. And she remained committed to showing up for the boy she first fell in love with in college as he led an entire nation. Less than two weeks ago, that nation of Ukraine was viciously attacked, and the resilience of a relationship was again tested. As Russian tanks positioned themselves on the border to Ukraine, the Zelenskys repeatedly rejected opportunities to leave the country. When those tanks invaded and began shelling the capital city, again they refused to leave. As the veracity of the attack escalated, Olena explained why she wasn’t leaving the country: “I will not have panic. I will be calm and confident. My children are looking at me. I will be next to them. And next to my husband. And with you.” Their devoted love of one another kept them together. Their unwavering love for their nation and for freedom united a world against an unjust attack. By showing up for each other, they’ve shown us all what true bravery and devotion really is. For Olena and Volodymyr, the stakes couldn’t be higher right now. But that’s not the only time being supportive of others’ matters. Showing up for a friend going through something difficult, a child learning a lesson the hard way or a spouse whose decisions may directly impact your own allow not just an opportunity to provide strength and confidence to others, but to also allow us to become better versions of ourselves. Today, be reminded of the strength and resiliency borne from showing up for someone we love. Doing so may not keep injustices from occurring, difficulties from happening or bombs from dropping, but it will remind us in the midst of conflict that we are not alone, there remains reason for hope and the best is yet to come. This is your day. Live Inspired. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Chip Bell
Boating is one of my passions. Few hobbies are more peaceful than a slow boat ride with your favorite beverage around the breathtaking lake on which I live. Or, more exciting than the hard pull of a large big mouth bass on a fishing line off the front of my pontoon boat. One of the features on my boat is the trim button on the throttle. Like the gas pedal on a vehicle, the throttle controls the speed of the boat. The trim button embedded in the throttle controls the outboard engine’s angle in relation to the plane of the boat. As such, it controls the smoothness of the ride. Set wrong, and you are in for a bumpy ride, especially at higher speeds. A few years ago, I was jogging near the grocery store I frequent. I remembered we needed a couple of items, so I jogged into the store and picked them up. But once in the check-out line, I realized I had no cash or credit card (I only jog with a driver’s license and a house key). Without hesitation, the clerk said, “Oh, that’s okay. I see you in here all the time. Just write your name and amount on this piece of paper and pay us the next time you are in the store.” Smooth sailing; no hassle. I once owned a gorgeous antique Mercedes 240S sedan. When it needed a minor repair, I took it to Brothers Auto Service. Turned out the fix was going to take a bit longer than the hour or so thought initially. And, I had a few errands to run in the area. The repair shop owner, Nicky Brothers, was out of loaners—but he had a trim. “Take my car,” he said as he handed me his car keys. You can guess what he drove. A brand-new Mercedes sedan. Smooth sailing; no hassle. Trim is all about eliminating drag on your customer’s path to getting the outcome they desire. It takes knowing the customer well enough to anticipate issues; it requires trusting the customer; and it takes caring enough to have solutions ready to ensure smooth sailing. Make sure you have a trim button on all your customer service processes. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Josh Linkner
We know that embracing innovation is the only way to grow and win over the long term, but it sure can feel risky and overwhelming. This is often because we overemphasize idea generation while skipping the most important step in the process: experimentation. Most of us think: Step 1: Generate an idea Step 2: Widespread implementation Step 3: Grit our teeth and hope it works, or horrible stuff will happen No wonder we’re scared of trying new things when the stakes are that high. If an untested idea doesn’t manifest perfectly, we could sink our company, lose our job, or tank our career. That level of risk is just bonkers! Luckily, there’s an easy fix: crude experimentation. After initial ideas are conceived, we can drastically reduce risk by building a test plan. Instead of wild, swing-for-the-fences moonshots, start by exploring how cheap and fast you could test your idea. Could you build a prototype out of Play-Doh? Could you test with a single customer for 15 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon? These early, crude, low-fidelity experiments can quickly tell you if your idea has merit or if it should be tossed. If an experiment shows promise, just expand the size and scope of the experiment and try again. At each pass, you’ll likely tweak and refine your idea so by the time you get to a more lifelike (high-fidelity) experiment, the odds are already in your favor. And when it’s time to launch, your probability of success is 1000 times higher. Here’s a far better process: Step 1: Generate a bunch of ideas Step 2: Select a few ideas to test Step 3: Crude experiments (cheap and fast). Quickly discard ideas that flop Step 4: Refine ideas that show promise, test again. With each test, increase the scope, scale, and fidelity of the experiment Step 5: Widespread implementation, only after your experiment results are stable and predictable Step 6: Sit back with confidence and enjoy the fruits of your creativity With this new model, you only go big once the evidence supports it. In other words, you’ve now radically reduced the risk factor. This approach works for products, marketing, processes, sales strategies, safety measures, recruiting techniques, and just about everything else we care about (including getting your five-year-old twins to finish their vegetables, which I know firsthand). The experimentation mindset will help you get it right and get there faster. Realizing that every single new idea won’t work out, we might as well have the misfires occur during a small test rather than with your most important customer. Test constantly… cheap and fast. Crude prototypes and experiments are the most pragmatic way to drive widespread innovation with a high success rate. Experiment Constantly. Fail Small. Win Big. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Kristin Baird
Nobody likes a micromanager, someone who hovers wanting to know every detail of what you do. But don’t confuse micromanaging with holding people accountable. The two are miles apart in how they affect the employees and culture. HOLDING PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE IS ESSENTIAL TO ACHIEVING GOALS AND GETTING THE DESIRED RESULTS. A leader holds the team and individuals accountable by setting clear expectations and goals and offering regular feedback without hovering. I feel compelled to distinction explain micromanaging and accountability after a recent conversation I had while coaching. The manager I spoke to was experiencing several behavior issues among his team members. When I asked him how held them accountable, he said, “I don’t want to be a micro-manager.”[i] As we spoke, he realized he had been ignoring issues that needed to be dealt with. He was confusing accountability with micro-management. Once he recognized the difference, he was able to make huge strides with his team. We use the word accountability frequently in healthcare and understandably so. Without accountability, patients die, infections spread like wildfire, and safety issues explode. No one argues with the need for accountability in clinical practices. But it gets fuzzy for some leaders when it comes to holding others accountable for service behavior. They shy away from confronting staff on things like tone of voice or attitude. “It’s just too subjective,” one manager told me. And there it is. The word subjective. THE CULPRIT THAT MAKES US SHRINK AWAY FROM A CRUCIAL CONVERSATION. It’s important for every leader to know the difference between accountability and micro-management. Not sure if you are a micro-manger? This article from Forbes[ii] gives great insight into the signs of micromanaging. It also spotlights the impact micromanaging has on business. “Micromanagers are detrimental to the success of a business and the mental health of everyone involved.” You don’t have to micromanage to hold others accountable, but you do need to be clear about expectations, goals, and responsibilities. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Kenneth Kaufman
One of the COVID pandemic’s most bitter lessons has been the complete inadequacy and dysfunction of the U.S. public health system, if the word “system” can even be applied. Prior to COVID, these shortcomings were hiding in plain sight. Now, they are evident to all and exacerbated as the nation struggles to protect the health of its citizens in the face of a pandemic entering its third year. At the outset of the pandemic, research showed a $4.5 billion funding shortfall to provide what authors of a study in The Milbank Quarterly called “a minimum standard of foundational public health capabilities.” Further, more than 85% of public health funding comes from state and local sources, leading to significant variation by geography. For example, states including New York, New Hampshire, and Montana spend more than $129 per person to public health, while states including Nevada, Missouri, and Indiana spend less than $59. This geographic variation in funding indicates a significant inequity in the types and levels of public health services. Certainly, the existing public health infrastructure did not protect historically vulnerable populations from the effects of COVID, with Hispanic and Black individuals at least twice as likely to die from COVID as whites and almost three times as likely to be hospitalized, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of CDC data. Public health agencies also suffer from chronic understaffing. In the decade prior to COVID, state public health agencies lost 16% of their full-time positions, and county and city public health agencies lost 20% of their positions in the past 15 years. The result has been an inadequate, unequitable, and fragmented collection of services that, when COVID hit, was unable to deliver what the country desperately needed: prompt, consistent, and widespread testing and vaccination; effective contact tracing; and clear communication with the public about healthy practices. The politicization of health has made a bad situation worse. As of September 2021, 26 states passed laws that limited public health powers, and 303 state and local public health department leaders resigned, retired, or had been fired. Hospitals have always been the organizations that truly matter when it comes to healthcare delivery. And now, highlighted by COVID, hospitals have become the organizations that truly matter when it comes to public health. Consider some of the core services of public health, as defined by the CDC:
Perhaps more important than economic incentive has been the mission incentive of not-for-profit providers. Almost universally, not-for-profit hospitals and health systems articulate a mission to improve the health and wellbeing of communities. Increasingly, this mission has led hospitals into the challenging public health arena. The COVID crisis has taken these new health system responsibilities to a different level. Health systems were instrumental in developing and administering COVID tests, tracing COVID’s path, educating communities about the virus and how to avoid it, and providing front-line care for the huge swath of Americans affected by the virus. Moving forward, hospitals will be asked by communities all over the country to be the organizations that deal with a broader set of national problems related to the wellbeing of patients and communities—problems that COVID has made much worse, problems that the public sector has never been able to solve. With this new set of responsibilities comes an entirely new set of strategic, operational, and financial implications for hospitals and health systems. Meeting these challenges will require a new level of health system ideas, a new level of health system aggressiveness, and a new level of health system ambition. More than ever, health systems will need to have to address social determinants of health; access and analyze data about health conditions, reimagine access to preventive care, develop care models tailored to specific populations. The costs will be enormous, and the need for intellectual capital considerable. America is looking to someone or something to take on what is now a paramount set of national healthcare problems. It is up to the hospital sector to bring its charitable mission, its resources, and its passion to bear on this awesome responsibility. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Ron Culberson. With a master’s degree in social work, Ron Culberson spent the first part of his career working in a large hospice organization as a clinical social worker, middle manager, and senior leader. As a speaker, humorist, and author of "Do it Well. Make it Fun.The Key to Success in Life, Death, and Almost Everything in Between", he has delivered more than 1,000 presentations to associations, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporations. His mission is to change the workplace culture so that organizations are more productive and staff are more content. He was also the 2012-2013 president of the National Speakers Association and is a recognized expert on the benefits of humor and laughter.
When I mow the yard, I think. And I think. And I think. Between the repetitive movement across the grass and the loud noise from the mower, there is not much else to do. It’s not like I can call up a neighbor and engage in a pleasant conversation about how his grass is growing. So, I think. The problem is, I can think myself into a stressful state of mind if I’m not careful. And this is the problem with overthinking. It can take us to a place where we might not need to go. Now don’t get me wrong. I suspect most of us are proud of our place at the top of the animal hierarchy and attribute most of our success to the ability to think. I’m sure the lowly beetle who mechanically goes about his daily tasks would love to have our gray matter and might just take issue with the fact that we’re not better at managing the thinking process. It’s like the line in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” But let’s get back to my yard. The last time I mowed, I kept replaying in my head a conversation I recently had with a friend. Now, before I tell you what I said, let me give you some context about my particular style of communicating with others. I’m a big believer in asking questions to expand my understanding of people, situations, and the world in general. I learned this technique during my social work training when our professors repeatedly encouraged it. They taught us to explore another person’s experience rather than assuming that we know where the individual is coming from. So, whenever someone has a different life experience than me (which is, by the way, always), I tend to ask questions about their experience. Over the years, I’ve had candid conversations about sexual orientation, race, religion, politics, and even the highly controversial debate on whether to mow one’s yard horizontally or diagonally—all because I was willing to ask. And surprisingly, no one has ever hit me! Instead, I think it helped me build better relationships and a greater understanding of others. Now, back to conversation I was replaying in my head as I mowed. My friend is Korean and I was curious about something I had read about status and hierarchy in Asian cultures. Specifically, I wanted to know if it was taboo to challenge authority. I had recently been involved in a situation where I suspected this might have happened and wanted my friend’s perspective. For what it’s worth, I did mention that I realized this was a generalization but was curious what he thought. He gave me several different insights that all made good sense. So, I thanked him for his input and then asked him whether he mowed his yard horizontally or diagonally. He seemed perplexed by the new line of questioning. As I headed home that day, I began to wonder if I had inadvertently offended him by asking a potentially stereotypical question. I had explained to him questions like this are my way of gaining a better understanding of others as well as to explore my own biases. He seemed to appreciate my explanation but later, I worried that he was just being nice. So, as I criss-crossed my yard a few days later, I kept thinking about the conversation and ultimately convinced myself that he thought I was a rude. Then, a couple of days after that, the news media reported several incidences of violence against Asian American people and I was sure my questions now had the potential of being both terribly untimely and outright offensive. After not being able to get this off my mind, I finally followed up with my friend to see if he thought my questions were insensitive. He said he was surprised that I would even think that. He said that he appreciated the questions and further, that he had enjoyed our conversation. Go figure. So, the worry bouncing around in my head was way off base. I had created a problem that did not exist. And the culprit was the the solitary act of mowing. OK, the real problem was my thinking. By creating an issue that wasn’t an issue, I worked myself into a frenzy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Luckily, we can rein in the thinking process the same way we use a bag to catch the grass when we mow. However, before we can address the problem we must first notice that it’s happening. You see, our reality at any given moment may not resemble the thinking that’s going on in our head. For example, if someone waves at you in a crowded mall and you have no idea who they are, you can easily spend the next hour searching Facebook or scrolling through your address book trying to figure out who the heck it was. But what if they were waving to someone behind you? Your mind created a problem that did not really exist and you lost an hour of your life dealing with it. I think the most reasonable way to handle our mind’s overactive imagination is to do one of two things. First, we can confirm our suspicions by asking, exploring, and seeking validation of the thinking. This will either confirm or deny our worries. The second way to handle it is to acknowledge that it’s happening but not allow ourselves to be drawn down the rabbit hole of worry. So, if I was worried that I had offended my friend, I could have asked him in the moment. Or, I could recognize my mind’s tendency to create stress while simultaneously recognizing that I had approached him in a sincere and respectful way, and therefore, he was not likely bothered by it. Either of these techniques would have made my mowing experience so much more relaxing. So, is this mind taming thing simple to do? Not really. In fact, as you can see, I’ve struggled with it as recently as my last yard mowing experience. Achieving an awareness of how our mind works and mastering the process to manage it can take years of practice. But just like life, and mowing our yards for that matter, it’s an ongoing work in progress. And just in case you’re wondering, I alternate the direction of my mower each week making sure to cover diagonal, vertical, and horizontal directions. I know, it’s brilliant! Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Steve Gilliland
Employees are one of the most important assets of an organization. You depend on them to accomplish complex tasks and put in their time and effort to help your business grow. Employee motivation is a crucial part of a successful business. A motivated and content employee can help improve an organization’s performance and efficiency. Good and qualified employees are hard to find these days, and, as an employer, it’s your job to increase employee retention and keep the attrition rate to a minimum. How do you achieve this? Keep reading this blog to learn about some tried and tested ways to keep your employees motivated... Work on the Ambiance Would you want to spend time in a boring, dingy and dull office for hours? It’s not just you; no one wants to spend hours sitting in a cubicle or office that’s basic and dreary. Such spaces dampen the mood and aren’t conducive to creative thinking. Make your workspaces more pleasant, aesthetically pleasing and functional to get employees excited to work there. You don’t need to spend tons of money to spruce up the place. Find some practical, quality furniture at flea markets and other low-cost, unconventional sources. Add some paintings and decorative items by local artists. Keep your office neat. All of this can do wonders to motivate your employees. Be Supportive Encouragement and support from managers can go a long way toward improving employee performance and efficiency. Respect, clear communication, support and honesty will instill a sense of loyalty in your employees, and they’ll be more motivated to stay with your organization for a long time. Acknowledge Achievements It’s common to think that monetary benefits are the most important to keep employees motivated. However, that’s not the case. According to a study about motivational elements, money and benefits constitute only 4 percent. Acknowledging and appreciating employee achievements can compel them to work harder and enjoy the work they do. However, if they feel their hard work isn’t recognized, it’ll put a damper on their work spirit. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Amy Dee
Find Your Purpose Pain gives us a choice. The first choice is to give up. The second and better alternative is to take up a positive, proactive mission that converts aches into action. Deliberately locking into a cause that energizes and pushes you forward can transform agony into achievement and injury into innovation. Your mission becomes the fuel that empowers your resilience. It can be either personal or public. Personally, you may want to get into shape, create more harmony in your family, or quit drinking. Publicly, you may want to mentor high school students, register people to vote, or start a soup kitchen in your community. Having a purpose will increase your energy and passion. You will become more focused and determined! Finding your calling boosts your self-love, which encourages more self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others. Choosing a meaningful goal fires up your energy! Your heart floods with passion! Not only that, connecting to a mission will enrich your life and fire you up! The Science Behind Finding Meaning Psychological studies reveal that having a crystal clear focus and fully committing to the purpose of strengthens resilience. In fact, finding meaning is a basic human need. Because without purpose, we can become despairing and alienated. Studies also show a difference between seeing your work as a job, career, or a calling.
Find meaning in Trauma Trauma causes people to respond differently. Some eventually find value in Trauma. They become strengthened by it. As a result, they use it as motivation for growth. Others seek out the meaning in the Trauma they’ve experienced. They use their tragedy as a catalyst to help others. They deliberately turn their atrocity into positive actions. Faith in A Higher Power Connect to a higher power. It doesn’t matter what it is. Your higher power should be something that inspires, motivates, and shelters you during hard times. Anything meaningful and powerful to you will work. Your higher power may be God, nature, or the concept of love. On the other hand, you may connect to moral principles, internal drive, or your Pledge to serve others. Whatever you believe in, this should be one of your most important relationships. If you’ve not identified something bigger than yourself, consider taking the time to do so. Life is a short but magnificent journey. Perhaps even more important than offering support during tough times, connection to something bigger enriches our short adventure on earth. Resilience Requires ConnectionMost of us believe there is something bigger than ourselves. But if you just can’t get there, consider believing in the concept of connection. The recognition that we are all connected can give you strength during difficult times. That idea of connection can lead you to better opportunities and choices you’ve not considered. Seeing more positive opportunities or even relief from pain increases hope, and hope strengthens resilience. Believing in something bigger than yourself allows you to rise above our everyday self. Fear, anger, and anxiety become weaker when we remember that connection. This connection changes our perspective. Our perspective shifts so that mistakes, disappointments, and failures don’t have the power they once did. This higher power helps us realize our lives have greater meaning that our current pain. We understand that there is a greater purpose for who we want to become. Funny Motivational Speaker Amy Dee calls you to “Take Action” Every day there is a situation where taking action is an option. Choosing to act increases resilience. There are great reasons to pick a goal and plan out the steps to reach it. But too often, we get so caught up in the planning and forget about the action. The truth is, planning to achieve some mental satisfaction. For years I would plan to start a diet every Monday. During the weekend, I’d research diets, shop for healthy food, and make a meal plan. While planning satisfying, it wasn’t enough. One Monday rolled into the next Monday because planning isn’t an action. Instead of sitting around gabbing about your next step, take the next step. Instead of planning for later, focus on the next minute. What can you do right now, in the next moment? Action in the Next Moment It’s challenging to keep your cool in the middle of an argument. Instead, decide to keep your cool for the next moment, then the moment after that. Like it or not, fears, worries, and anxiety is part of being human. Instead of thinking about how to fix this in the long run, take action in the short run. Here’s a metaphor that may help. Let’s say you’re a bus driver who has to complete a route. You make a stop, open the bus door, and anxiety steps into your bus as a jerky passenger. It’s not possible to kick anxiety off the bus, so you don’t waste your time. But you do have a choice. You can allow this nasty passenger to sit directly behind you, whispering horrors into your ear. Or, you can escort anxiety to the back of the bus and keep on rolling. Resilient people recognize that anxieties, worry, and fear are unwanted passengers on everyone’s bus. Instead of wrestling with them, they accept them and continue to produce. When I am fearful, an action makes me feel in control. Movement can be anything positive, do something. Forgiveness Forgiveness is voluntary. Sometimes we choose to forgive when we become ready to move forward. Then again, forgiveness may occur when our heart embraces more love than hate. Let’s face it; revenge often feels satisfying and justified. It is commonly our immediate reaction to being hurt. While stories of forgiveness warm our hearts, these stories make the news because we consider them unique. In our world, the need for revenge feels pretty “normal” to us. It takes strength and courage to forgive. That said, it is important to realize that we pay the price for our desire to retaliate. Namely, revenge poisons our minds. Carrying a grudge is a heaviness that weighs you down. When you hold onto anger and resentment, it gnaws away your ability to progress. Instead of concentrating on the next thing, you become stuck in the past thing. Bitterness blocks your power. For all these reasons, forgiveness is crucial to resilience. Throughout our lifetime, we will all have lots of opportunities to practice forgiving each other. Like it or not, hurting each other is part of the human condition. For this reason, it is helpful to approach day to day forgiveness as an outlook. If ahead of time, you commit to forgiving someone who hurts you, whether it is your co-worker, family member, friend, or stranger, you’ll be ahead of the game. Instead of clinging to anger, embracing an attitude of forgiveness, and you’ll become more resilient. Science and Forgiveness Fred Luskin’s forgiveness studies are pretty amazing. These studies show that the participants who learned forgiveness strategies had reductions in:
Perception Matters in Forgiveness As an aside, it appears that our perception matters when it comes to forgiveness. According to the Baumeister study, there is something called the magnitude gap. To summarize, when we are the victim, we tend to remember the hurt easily and in detail. When someone hurts us, we tend to feel it is intentional and even malicious. On the other hand, if we are the victimizer, the details are fuzzy. Even if we do remember it when we know our hurtful actions were not intentional. Because of this, we may believe our victims are overreacting. The truth is, most of us don’t walk around trying to hurt people. Nonetheless, sometimes our actions are hurtful. We all know there are some jerks in the world. That said, most people don’t walk about intentionally trying to cause us pain. Even so, though, their behavior is sometimes hurtful. In fact, sometimes they aren’t even aware that they hurt us. Once we let go of anger, we can move forward and become more productive. Instead of pouring our energy into the past, we can’t change; we can use it to empower a future we can change. Also, when you forgive others, you can better forgive yourself. For this reason, next time someone hurts you, consider their intent. Note: Forgiveness is not you are approving the wrong you’ve experienced. I was a psychiatric RN who worked in an acute care psychiatric hospital. Every day, I listened to stories from victims who’d experienced unbelievable horrors at others’ hands. Disgusting, irredeemable behavior is never okay. That said, forgiveness is not a gift to the perpetrator. Forgiveness is a gift to yourself. Because, once again, holding a grudge weighs YOU down, not the offender. Four Tips to dig into your resources 1. What is your mission or purpose?Where are you feeling pain? How can you channel the problem into something that benefits you or your community? It can be an inner mission, i.e., to take better care of your health. Or, it can be an external cause, where you convert your pain into helping your community. Or, take advice from Viktor Frankl. Instead, searching for meaning by asking, “What is the meaning of my life?” Ask, “What does life expect from me?” You enter this world called with gifts that this world needs. Abilities that only you alone can give. 2. Higher PowerWho or what is your “higher power”? How can you strengthen this connection in your life? Can your higher power help you confront the weakness you are facing? Consider beginning each day with positive readings. Perhaps end your day by writing down moments that made you smile. Small experiences often hold great magic. 3. ActionWhat’s a task you’ve been avoiding due to a lack of experience, motivation, or resources? Do you tend to procrastinate tackling the task, waiting for the ideal moment that never seems to come? 4. ForgiveIs there someone you need to forgive? Do you need to forgive yourself? Resilience Becomes You You appeared on this earth, at this time and place, and with a unique set of skills and talents. You’ve had a particular set of experiences that you’ve interpreted from your unique perspective. Your job throughout your life is to learn the reason you are here. In this world, you represent you. It doesn’t matter what you have. It matters what you do with what you have. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! |
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