How Do You Nurture, Strengthen and Expand your Resilience Muscle?
From age 14 until age 50, I was either self-employed or an employee. Around 2003, when ConAgra Foods, the company I worked for, closed its office in Raleigh, I had two choices. Either move to Minneapolis or take a “package.” I had no idea what a package meant – but I quickly learned that it meant bye-bye.
So, with two kids in private school, a mortgage, and many expenses, I was unemployed for the first time in my career.
After a period of feeling sorry for myself, I knew I had to figure out how to be resilient. I was lost for a while, unsure how to get through this odd feeling of losing my identity with my job.
I was a VP of Marketing without a marketing department. A lot of my identity was tied up in work. This period was an opportunity to figure out the next chapter.
Fortunately, I met Bob Stapleton at Lee Hecht Harrison, an outplacement service. Bob taught me a lot about my job search, but he taught me a much more important lesson about resilience. I’m so fortunate that he was sitting on the other side of the desk, wanting to talk about Philadelphia Cheese Steaks, his work in the grocery business as an HR professional, and life in general.
Bob helped me do an inventory of my skills and helped me to start focusing on networking because he reminded me how important community and connection could be during a job search. Most of all, he believed in me and helped me regain my confidence.
I turned the page and reimagined the future – and all I found were options.
The Resilience Muscle – A Vital Skill to Hone
With Bob’s guidance, he guided me, like a personal trainer, to build up my resilience muscle. He kept asking me what it might look like to bounce back and move on with my life and career. How can you learn to be more resilient, self-starting, and, as my wife Ra El taught me, to be open to the universe?
Here are some of the exercises I used to strengthen my resilience muscle through career therapy.
- Optimism. Fortunately, the glass has always been half-full for me. I see what I have, not what’s missing. Counting my blessings became how I started my day. Each morning I focused on one thing or person that helped me keep my perspective. Optimism is a cornerstone for a resident mindset.
- Sleep. I recognized that regular sleep was as important as eating healthy and exercising. If I could rest and get deep sleep, I could handle what came at me. And sleep was like filling that glass half full of potent liquid opportunities that built confidence.
- Connections. It was around this time that I actively began my networking practice. Every day, I would call or meet with someone I knew and ask for advice, perspective, and ideas. I got so much from these conversations that I saw how it was a building block to resilience. Each day, as I grew my network, I felt emboldened – more decisive, more confident. When I joined LinkedIn, I invested time in using it as a powerful tool for developing relationships. I employed the vitamin approach to networking by adding one new connection a day.
- Helping. I found out that when I gave to others, it made me stronger. I joined several non-profits, found ways to be helpful to my network, and quickly adopted a mindset where I would ask connections, how can I help you? Through helping, I developed hope. From hope came confidence and appreciation.
- Curiosity. The most resilient folks I know are infinitely curious souls. They wonder about things all the time. They want to ask questions and find out about alternatives, options, and possibilities. Through reading, classes, listening to podcasts, and attending events and other activities, I found that my curiosity muscle is directly connected to my heart, health, and happiness.
- Perspective. When I’m worried about something – the quicker I can gain perspective, the better. Like a wide-angle lens on a camera, I realized my blessings when I stepped back and saw more of the picture. I like to ask the question, 99% of the 8 million humans alive now would love my problems or challenges. You are the lucky one with first-world worries and truly minor difficulties.
Resilience in Marketing
You can’t be a resilient marketer without being a resilient human. Marketing requires all these same skills mentioned above in this post. Curious optimists ask many questions and are never satisfied with one approach, answer, or solution. The best marketers I know have strengths based on lessons from failure or a lack of success.
It is OK to make mistakes and to experience setbacks. The critical skill of learning to be OK with failure means you are smarter than you were before.
I read a study that found that younger scientists who had meaningful failures or setbacks early in their careers went on to tremendous success later in their jobs compared to those who had big wins when they were young.
How are you investing in building resilience in your marketing practice and life? I’d love to hear how you flex your resilience muscle.
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.
Photo by Victor Rodriguez on Unsplash
