Cossie's Food for Thought

Choosing to be resilient

Resilience is considered by many to be a critical characteristic of effective leadership - but what exactly are we referring to when we use that word?  Psychological resilience is seen as the positive capacity of an individual to cope with stress and adversity - but that doesn't do it for me.  I immediately think of the Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail - mindlessly pushing forward in the face of adversity - resisting all around him ... (Caution - this clip will be a bit gruesome for some)

 

The idea that resilience is just about coping seems to sell it a bit short.  In physics - resilience is defined as the property of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically and then, upon uploading to have this energy recovered.  To bounce back - not in spite of the energy received but because of it.

This definition suggests an ability to be energised by the challenges we face. 

This week it snowed where I live for the first time in 35 years.  I was down in Wellington for some meetings and I coped with the inconvenience of it all.  I turned up my collar, I bowed my head and I pushed my way through the storm.  It didn't energise me at all.  How could it?  And yet - others experienced it differently...

 

I guess there is more than one way to be resilient.  I can simply suck it up - take the knocks and keep stepping in - seeing resistance as something to be resisted - or I can find better frames or explanations for what is before me and turn the experience into something more useful.

I was in the same snow as the people in the clip - but my mind was on where I wanted to be and not where I was.  Maybe that's where the difference lies?  To be able to make full use of the energy on offer to me I need to be more present - in the moment?

Another word that could be used to describe this kind of resilience is responsive.  I wonder how much energy I would have - how much more I could do - if I was more responsive to what was being offered?

Food for thought ....

Owning my own stuff

Have you ever had anyone do something so bad that you instantly went to war?  Did you rush in - guns blazing (if you will) to sort out the villain?  How did that work for you?

My business partner (and wife) did something so bad this week that shook me to the core.  She gave away part of my movie collection - some 200 videos.  (You may laugh or shake your head - but I collect movies and value them highly - even when they are sitting in a box in the shed).  When she told me what she had done - I couldn't believe it.  We had talked about this scenario before and she knew where I stood on giving away collections.

I found myself getting angrier and angrier.  When she suggested I go and ask for them back I almost exploded.  She gives them away and now she wants me, the victim, to go and beg for them back?  This was intolerable.  I started to question the very foundation of our relationship.  I became both sullen and volcanic.  I wanted justice.  To make matters worse - when she finally went to get them back herself - half of them were missing - the good half of course.  

It was time for a showdown - but I had a meeting scheduled in town so I decided to do that first and then come home and sort her out.

I was driving home after a meeting when I started to think about this week's blog.  My intention was to write about the value of 'out-of-the-box' spaces - people, places, activities, memories etc in which i am generally uplifted and in the responsive way of being.  We continually undervalue them - and don't spend enough time with them - to the point that they often become hazy memories in stead of a vibrant core.

I started to list them - Golf, good food, Arbinger workshops, Kapiti Island, Tamryn....  With each one I started to consider what I really valued about each.  I soon realised that I couldn't think of any of these without thinking of Trish.  She was a common denominator.  Trish was at the top of the list.  Wow.  I began to remember the amazing contribution she has made to my life over the years - and suddenly - I found myself convicted.  I had been judging her actions from the box - my own petty palace of insecurities and self-interested distortions.

It made me think of this video (thanks Colin):

 

A few years ago - the Washington Post ran an experiment.  They placed concert virtuoso violinist, Joshua Bell, in a busy D.C. Metro station and had him play - as a busker.  Almost everybody missed it.

We get so busy in our lives - so focussed on the future and the past - that we miss the full story of what is going on around us.  We miss the music.

I was so busy fussing about being wronged and about things going wrong that I had lost sight completely of who I was dealing with - and who they had to deal with.  

I went home and apologised.  Giving away my collection wasn't right - but blaming and horribilising her for doing it was worse.  It was my stuff that was the problem here - not hers.  

I just got re-taught a critical lesson.  In the face of provocation I need to identify and own my own stuff before reacting to another.  If I judge someone from the self-serving distortions of my 'box' I am simply being a hypocrite - and the bigger part of the problem.  I wonder how many times I have missed the music?

Food for thought...